“Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.” Pew Survey
When one is in the minority (2% of Americans are atheists or agnostic) it is difficult not to question one’s belief and questioning should include trying to understand the beliefs of others. It is unfortunate more people don’t question their belief perhaps then there would be better understanding of others and thus more tolerance. Many of the conflicts in the world would go away if people simply understood that belief is not knowledge. It is fine to believe in one God or many or none as long as one understands that they don’t KNOW; that another’s belief is no more or less valid.
Test your knowledge of religion:
http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/
and check out the Pew report:
http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx
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Many Gods
Ancient Rome abounded in gods and goddesses. The fire on the hearth was the sign and substance of the goddess Vesta, each person had a guardian angel which was also his soul that lived on after death. “On the farm there was a helping god for every task or spot: Pomona for orchards, Faunus for cattle, Pales for pasturage, Sterculus for manure heaps, Saturn for sowing, Ceres for crops, Fornax for baking corn in the oven, Vulcan for making the fire. Over the boundaries presided the great god Terminus, imaged and worshiped in the stones or trees that marked the limits of the farm….
“The Roman did not, like the Greek, think of his gods as having human form; he called them simply numina, or spirits; sometimes they were abstractions like Health, Youth, Memory, Fortune, Honor, Hope, Fear, Virtue, Chastity, Concord, Victory, or Rome. Some of them, like the Lemures or Ghosts, were spirits of disease, hard to propitiate….Never had a religion so many divinities. Varro reckoned them at 30,000, and Petronius complained that in some towns of Italy there were more gods than men.”
Having gods in everything is not all that different from monotheistic belief that God, their single god, is in everything which is certainly a lot easier than having to remember the names of all the different gods. However, I rather like the notion of many gods. I thank the cedar shingle god who has placed the right size and number of shingles in my hand before climbing the ladder; I thank the stone god for missing my bare foot when I drop a stone unwisely; I thank the rain god for holding the rain back until I am through picking the beans and if I give thanks prematurely, I laugh at the joke being played on me.
I suppose those who believe that a loving god could be so self-centered as to make the first three of His Ten Commandments be all about himself will be sure that I am on a course for hell. It is my hope that their beliefs make them as happy as the playful relationship I have with my gods makes me.
The quote above is from The Story of Civilization: Part III Caesar and Christ by Will Durant
which I am currently enjoying. I have read four of the eleven volumes and highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys reading history