It’s clear from media reports that religion is in the spotlight more today than in previous decades, but it seems that a majority of Americans are unprepared to discuss the topic with adequate knowledge.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
– It’s clear from media reports that religion is in the spotlight more today
than in previous decades, but it seems that a majority of Americans are
unprepared to discuss the topic with adequate knowledge.
According to a
report in USA Today March 7, Americans would receive an “F” in religion if they
were graded on their ability to answer questions correctly. In fact, the
newspaper said 60 percent of Americans can’t name five of the Ten Commandments
and half of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.
“More and more of
our national and international questions are religiously inflected,” Stephen
Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University and author
of the book “Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and
Doesn’t,” told USA Today. “If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because
they’re both Muslim, and you’ve been told Islam is about peace, you won’t
understand what’s happening in Iraq.
“If you get into
an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote
the Bible or the Quran, do you know it’s so?” he added. “If you want to be
involved, you need to know what they’re saying. We’re doomed if we don’t
understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world.”
Prothero believes
all Americans should strive to grasp Bible basics as well as the core beliefs,
stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths. To facilitate that goal, he
advocates requiring middle-school students to take a course in world religions
and high school students to take a class on the Bible, USA Today reported.
All college
undergraduates should take at least one course in religious studies, Prothero
said, and biblical knowledge should be added to lessons on history and
literature where it’s relevant.
These days, only
8 percent of public high schools offer an elective Bible course, and some say
it’s because schools are afraid to touch the Bible for fear of backlash, even
though it is legal to educate students about the Bible in literature and
history classes.
Congressman
proclaims atheism
FIRST CONGRESSMAN
PROCLAIMS ATHEISM – U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, a Democrat from the San Francisco Bay
area, has become the highest elected official and the first congressman to
declare himself an atheist, according to a statement he provided to the AP
March 12.
“I look forward
to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious
beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of
social services,” Stark wrote, adding that he is “a Unitarian who does not
believe in a supreme being.”
The Secular
Coalition for America had
offered a $1,000 prize to the person who could identify the “highest level
atheist, agnostic, humanist or any other kind of nontheist currently holding
elected public office in the United
States,” Associated Press reported. Stark,
who began serving in Congress in 1973, was nominated as the highest level
atheist by a member of American Atheists California.