Pop Quiz, hotshot: Who is Job?
For a country that is seemingly wild about religion, we may not be a Godless Nation, but we sure are a Clueless Nation.
The latest survey of American knowledge (or ignorance!), conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, tested Americans on the basics of religion -- Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths. According to the Pew Forum survey as reported by the New York Times, most people scored around 50 percent -- which is a failing grade. The most knowledgeable were atheists and agnostics.
The results of this survey do not surprise me at all. For all of the talk of America being a "Christian Nation" and being founded on "religious principles," many Americans are as misinformed about religion as they are about history, basic science and geography. Many people tend to believe what they were told when they were children. That is, sadly, a very incomplete eduction. Few of us seem able to to move past "thinking like a child" and do as Saint Paul said: "When I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13: 11).
When I wrote Don't Know Much About the Bible, I said that the "Good Book" fits Mark Twain's definition of a classic: "A book which people praise but never read."
Most people continue to rely upon what they hear from preachers and politicians. Often it is misquoted or taken out of context. Or they remember what they distilled from the Hollywood version of the Bible. The internet has, in many ways, just made matters worse.
The very serious problem that the Pew Forum survey underscores is that there are a lot of people out there making stark judgments about matters like religion about which they are clueless. And when it comes to Americans doing very bad things based on their beliefs, the results can be deadly. I traced the murderous intersection of religion and history, and America's so-called tradition of tolerance, in a recent Smithsonian article titled "America's True History of Religious Tolerance."
By the way, Job is the biblical character for whom a very challenging chapter of the Bible is named. God took away everything he had -- over a bet with Satan.
Click here to read the New York Times story about the survey, which includes a link to a sample of the quiz. (Full disclosure: I scored 6 out of 6 on the sample.) And click here for a link to the Pew Forum report on the survey.
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And then I read your last sentence. Excuse me, but I have yet to find the word bet in my Bible's book of Job, nor have I ever seen a payoff being made to the winner of the supposed bet. Nor have I ever seen a place where it says God did anything horrible to Job. It does say Satan "smote Job with sore boils.." (Job 2:7); however, this happened because God let him do it, so I'll give you that..
Job is about whether or not God has the right to consider his creation righteous or not. Job believed in God's grace and his friends did not. If anybody made a bet it was Job...turned out he was right and his friends were wrong (Job 42:7)!
Election is GODs design. Argue, deny, get angry, matters not. Doesn't change the reality of the doctrine of election.
What else could answer why I know GOD is, and you, or someone else, believes that GOD doesn't exist?
http://wsimpson.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/hey-read-the-directions/
And no amount of debate or discussion is gonna change what you think is right?
"Why else?" besides, the probable god's gift that you just mentioned, I think there are many possible reasons. Set of personal experience is one, method of research is another, socio-political background etc.
From the article quoted
"On questions about Christianity, Mormons scored the highest, with an average of about eight correct answers out of 12, followed by white evangelicals, with an average of just over seven correct answers."
So Atheists and agnostics aren't more knowledgeable about the bible, just religion as a whole. Or am I missing something that creates a clash of the premises that support your conclusion here?
For all we know, 4-5 of those questions were difficult or overly specific, meant to be answerable by scholars. This would mean that a straight percentage is not a good way to evaluate the performance.
The place where atheists and agnostics shine is not in knowing more about the Christian religions, but having a broader knowledge of world religions.
Maybe, maybe not. When considering that a lot of people, if not the majority, are not going to
mass on a Sunday, instead rest at home peacefully, they are doing so fully in accordance with
what Jesus said, recommended:
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door and pray to your Father, ..." (Matth. 6:5)
All those staying away from organized religion may, for instance, have figured out that is
better staying away from the hypocrites, that doing so is very simple and convenient, saves a whole lot of problems, particularly self- betrayal, and more. And that simply staying at home is totally okay with the Lord. It is a subject that can viewed with a sense of humor and at the expense
of organized religion (crime).
There are too many generalizations made, too many general prejudices about people made,
and so on.
I agree entirely. Too bad few will realize it or alter their position enough to accept a real discussion about religion. Religious beliefs are too coddled by taboos which frown on outside criticism.
9 "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. 10 "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
12 The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger."
Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
the lord did not strike job he removed the hedge built of obedience from around him, to allow satan to strike him. looks like you might know what it says but you obviously fail to reap the meaning of the text.
you should also take notice that god restored to job all he had twice over for his faithfulness.
on a side note job is the book that shows the earth as a sphere not flat. the only ancient text to do so.
The matter is summed up for every person alive: either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die.
under christendom you either live for christ or you dont.
very big difference.
At least your "claim" about Islam kinda gives you a choice to live...Christians historically were extremely violent and hostile...it was either you were a slave or get killed...
SO, I will say this time again...the founding fathers of America and the ppl are pretty much the ones who fled Christian rule...so its a good thing def. they abandoned Christianity...
Muslims, Jews, Hindus all learn the language of their religion and they are all taught the tenets of their religion.
Christians go to church and really don't do anything but listen to a preacher and sing a few songs and then they go home.
Most other Religions require you to do more than just sit there and listen.
as for your description of the sacrifice made by christians,
Romans 6
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[b] Christ Jesus our Lord.
Did you read it?
"The latest survey of American knowledge (or ignorance!), conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, tested Americans on the basics of religion -- Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths. According to the Pew Forum survey as reported by the New York Times, most people scored around 50 percent -- which is a failing grade."
Personally, think that Christians have it wrong; JC didn't suffer & die for the sins of mankind, but, rather in repentance the sins of God, particularly for his behavior with respect to Job; and even more particularly with respect to Job's wives and children, who were all killed in order to test Job's faith. Those poor souls had nothing returned to them...
As with all human history, haven't Americans mostly used the bible and christianity as means to self righteousnessly condemn and inflict violence upon "others" (native americans, immigrants) and each other?
Perhaps it almost doesn't matter what's written in the "good books." People will always find a way to wring hate out of the words.
how and I doing?