Lawrence O'Donnell: Penn Gillette Takes Pew Religion Survey

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 02:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTIBKZH3kzg   Posted on YouTube: September 29, 2010 By YouTube Member: JesusSavesAtCitibank Views on YouTube: 301   Posted on DU: September 29, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 2292

 
JesusSavesAtCitibank | September 28, 2010

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC

Penn Jillette passes the religion test.

[tclambert]

1. No fair! He's a magician! He knows how to read minds!

Or at least cheat cleverly and make it look like he can read minds. A lot of the time he knows what card you're gonna pick before you pick it. (Hint: Anytime a magician hands you a card, he already knows which card it is.)

[exboyfil]

2. I got 100% on the Pew site 15 questions

Since many of the questions move outside the core beliefs of someone's faith, I am not sure what the survey really shows other than professed atheists, like Penn pointed out, are better educated than the general population. Only 11% got the correct answer on who Jonathan Edwards is. I like Penn, and I am happy with how he handles his atheism. While I respect Dawkins as a scientist, I feel that his writings on God are needlessly hurtful. If someone's belief system is life affirming (like the major religions), then I have a great deal of respect for it. I love the fact that we are getting a new Islamic Center in our community, and I know some of the individuals who worship there. They are an asset to our community, and we are blessed to have them.

They cherry picked the easiest questions to ask Penn. A couple of them are really hard and require an understanding of religion especially Nirvana and the Great Awakening.

I looked at the actual test questions, and one that really bothers me is as follows:

Which traditionally teaches that salvation comes through faith alone? The choices are Protestant, Catholic, both, or neither. The Lutheran Church teaches "salvation by grace through faith" so I would have to answer no for Protestant. What I know about the Catholic church would lead me to say no for them as well. This is a very poor question for this reason. How would others answer the question? I bet they are thinking Protestants yes and Catholics no.

I knew who Maimonides was, and you could probably figure it out from the question (the name sounds Jewish). Remember there was only a 12% spread from Atheists and White Evangelical Protestant, and one of the questions was bad and could potentially trip up a Protestant.

Also they ask about particular religions like Mormon and Catholic. I suspect if they asked them, they might say they were Christians first. I am a Christian first as a Lutheran.

Other than the question about faith, I think I got all the questions right on the actual survey. They also asked several control questions like what are lasers and about the theory of evolution. I wonder how those answers compared to religious knowledge.

The fact that most missed the question about the Bible as literature in public schools (23%) says more about our public school system and society than it does about individual believers. It may be that they think this way because their public school or their children's public school never has studied the Bible as literature because they are afraid to. Even the educated reporter did not know the answer to that question.

I like Penn, and I am happy with how he handles his atheism. While I respect Dawkins as a scientist, I feel that his writings on God are needlessly hurtful. If someone's belief system is life affirming (like the major religions), then I have a great deal of respect for it. I love the fact that we are getting a new Islamic Center in our community, and I know some of the individuals who worship there. They are an asset to our community, and we are blessed to have them. The same can be said for the Catholics, Jews, Hindus, and Mormons in our community. I do not believe as they do, but we are working together to make a better community.

[Kablooie]

5. I'm afraid this atheist got 4 wrong out of 32. Still much better than the Christian average.

[AlbertCat]

10. While I respect Dawkins as a scientist, I feel that his writings on God are needlessly hurtful.

Oh please! ANY criticism of religion is traditionally deemed "needlessly hurtful". In fact, to merely doubt is an affront that will get you time in hell.... or something. Closer to home, it gets you ostracized. And all of it pales with the "hurtful" things said and done (like execution) to atheists over the centuries.... not to mention what religions do to each other. Religion whines like a 2 year old whenever it is questioned or debunked.... and then it seeks revenge for being called out.... which brings us to:

"If someone's belief system is life affirming (like the major religions)"

Who the hell even lives a NON "life affirming" belief? This is just more nonsense religious talking points, like religion is where morals come from.

[exboyfil]

13. Some religions are not life affirming

and some clerics at high levels in these religious bodies are not life affirming. Some examples:
Human sacrifice - You can't get away with it now, but it did occur in organized religious bodies into the 20th century.

A variant of human sacrifice - Sati (self-immolation of wife on death of husband) has still occurred.

Using religion as justification for war and military acts against civilians - Need look no further than NYC.

Using religion to justify murder - The shooting of abortion doctors etc.

Dawkins' co-religionists (co-atheists?) hands are not clean. A central tenant of communism in Soviet Union and China was/is atheism. Now Dawkins would run away from them, but doesn't that allow Christians etc to run away from their crazy co-religionists.

From Wikipedia "The God Delusion is not just a defence of atheism, but also goes on the offensive against religion. Dawkins sees religion as subverting science, fostering fanaticism, encouraging bigotry against homosexuals, and influencing society in other negative ways."

Check on all of these for Soviet Union and China communism. It does not take religion to be crazy.

I consider it offensive that he views my religious instruction of my children as mental child abuse.

I agree with him when he takes on pushing religion into Science, but he has hurt our case when I talk to committed Christians because of "The God Delusion". He can philosophize all he wants about the existence of God, but to say that I abuse my children?

[AlbertCat]

16. but to say that I abuse my children?

You ARE if you are forcing them to be religious and terrorizing them with fear and punishment for not conforming. That's what RELIGIONS do.... and some individuals. But if you are not doing these things, then he's not referring to you.

You took it personally, which is the ploy all religionists always take while they ignore the divisiveness and abuses of their faiths. Just the same ol' "You should respect what I've personally decided to believe" while having zero respect for what atheists believe. Same ol' ploy just to stop the pointing out of all the nonsense and harm.





"Dawkins sees religion as subverting science, fostering fanaticism, encouraging bigotry against homosexuals, and influencing society in other negative ways."

He's absolutely right!

[MisterGamut]

3. Now that I know it was multiple choice

it's even more embarrassing for the Christians that they didn't know the answers.

[CTD]

4. Here's the full quiz, all 32 questions

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0928/Are-you-smarter-than-an-atheist-A-religious-quiz/Will-you-tell-me-the-names-of-the-first-four-books-of-the-New-Testament-of-the-Bible-that-is-the-Four-Gospels

This atheist (me) missed one, question #4.

[exboyfil]

6. This Christian

got them all right, but it was not from what I was taught in church. My church really does not focus on other religions besides our own. We also do not spend much time with church history (other than the Reformation being Lutherans). The majority of our time is spent actually studying the Bible.

It is the job of the public school to teach the answers to the majority of this quiz. In general most of what I learned, I picked up on my own. Also I think they had one really bad question regarding salvation (see my other post). The article also pointed out another issue with the questions regarding atheism and agnosticism.

Most individuals are going to self identify as Christian in the U.S. if they have not given much thought to religion (they are what their parents were). By definition an atheist and agnostic will have given more thought to the question.

I would like to see them extract the Bible based questions and compare them to those Christians who regularly worship

[aka-chmeee]

7. Same one I missed..

I think those who got it correct just did a better job of guessing.

[exboyfil]

8. Actually I did know the answer to that

question (Jonathan Edwards). I got the info probably from a biography of Aaron Burr, but I honestly can't say how I knew otherwise. He is not a pivotal figure in American history. I guess it was 50/50 Edwards or Finney (obviously Graham was not in the mix). Did not know who Finney was though.

[aka-chmeee]

17. I just kept thinking about the spirit showman John Edward /nt

[vaberella]

9. A Catholic here...I noted Catholics got lower. I got 1 wrong.

It was the fourth question. Just was not on top of that one. I wanted to argue the question that said what does the bread and wine represent---technically it's a symbol---it does not become teh body and blood of Christ. However the test has you thinking otherwise. And there really is only one way to gain salvation in the church---although the Catholic church still stands by purgatory and all the other nonsense. My school taught it was through faith alone.

[AlbertCat]

11. technically it's a symbol-

Nope...not in official doctrine. So TECHNICALLY, it is NOT a symbol and it magically turns into Jesus' hemoglobin and "body" (liver? skin?bowels?)

[vaberella]

14. My school taught it as symbolic and I was in Catholic School.

Edited to add: What official doctrine? Our only real doctrine is Cathechism.

[exboyfil]

12. I disagree with that question

I think it is grace through faith. It is a really bad question because when you strip away the words, a Lutheran and a Catholic believe about the same thing for salvation (good works does not enter into the equation, but good works are a manisfestation of your relationship with Jesus). The Catholics just spend more time studying James.

On Communion I was taught in the Lutheran church that the Catholics believe a literal changing, the Protestants (except Lutherans) believe in a symbol, and Lutherans - well we believe both??? Never understood it and still don't understand it. It is like trying to use symbolism to explain the Trinity. You can't do it without expressing a heresy. I used to get bent out of shape on these points, but now I look towards the beauty of the Bible and how important that I am and every other human being is to God. The theology will work itself out.

[vaberella]

15. I agree with you on the first part.

That's interesting. In my Catholic school...it was not a literal changing. It was always seen as symbolic changing and you taking in his "spirit" into your body. So you can have that strength of faith he had.

Yeah...although I'm a Catholic, or raised as such. I mentally see myself as a Pantheist. So I'm a bit beyond the Bible---I see it more as a great guide book and fundamentally important in giving an understanding and importance of faith over uncertainty and fear.

[elana i am]

18. that was interesting. i missed 1

and i'm an atheist. i got #4 wrong too, as i see others in this thread did. i also would have missed the question about the bread and wine "literally" becoming the body and blood of christ, if i hadn't read something elsewhere on this board the past couple of days about that very thing.

it'd be interesting to see how many actual religious people get the first book of the bible wrong. heh! (eta: just read 63% of americans got this one correct, but no breakdown of the percentage of those people who were and were not religious.)

eta: i guess if you think about it, if you're religious you might not want to or be allowed to study other religions. i know when i was growing up if my mom had caught me with a book on catholicism or judaism she would have hit the ceiling. i come from a strictly protestant family.

i went to the original pew poll page and read about the survey in greater detail. geesh! i wouldn't say religious americans are all stupid, but they can be pretty stoopid.