A comment made at the LDS conference today

[Nickman]

One of the leaders of the LDS church made a comment without any supporting evidence today at theSemiannual Conference.

An Apostle of the church said that the LDS members, and mainly the missionaries, are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the bible. This made me ask the question,are they? When is was member I found the knowledge of the bible lacking considerably amongst the members and the missionaries. Here were talking about 19-21 year old males and 21-23 year old females.

I think that atheists that used to be christian know the bible better than most christians. On this debate site I have found atheists to usually be more knowledgable. Christians on here are highly knowledgeable as well, and the LDS I have debated are lacking that knowledge.

What do you say? Are the LDS more knowledgeable?

Who seems to have the most bible knowledge?

Do atheists have a leg in this argument?

[Danmark]

[quote="McCulloch"]
Firstly, the quiz was a cakewalk. Anyone who did not get 14 or better cannot be described as being knowledgeable about religion in America.

Yes. Most on this site would score 15 of 15. But the test they took had to be a different one. BTW, Atheists/Agnostics scored the highest, whereas the on the 15 question easy test Jews scored 1 pt higher than atheists.

http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-re ... edge/?q=16

[Danmark]

This one is more difficult:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/relquiz.htm

[Waiting4evidence]

just did the test, got 15/15.

My two cents is that the group who is most knowledgeable of the Bible are atheists who used to be evangelicals.

Kinda like Matt Dillahunty.

Atheists who were never exposed to religion don't know much about it, for the same reason most guys don't know much about the TV show Sex & the City. We just don't care.

But people who believe the Bible is the word of God but don't have it memorized in their native language and in the original languages are inexcusable hypocrites.

[Nickman]

just did the test, got 15/15.

My two cents is that the group who is most knowledgeable of the Bible are atheists who used to be evangelicals.

Kinda like Matt Dillahunty.

Atheists who were never exposed to religion don't know much about it, for the same reason most guys don't know much about the TV show Sex & the City. We just don't care.

But people who believe the Bible is the word of God but don't have it memorized in their native language and in the original languages are inexcusable hypocrites.

I agree with you. Atheists who were a part of christianity at one time tend to be more knowledgeable when it comes to the bible and religion. People who were never exposed to it, not so much. I find it awesome that atheists did, overall, the best on the survey.

We also did the best on politics and world religions. In every category regardless of what it was, we were always either #1, 2 or 3. Sometimes we did better than members of a specific group on topics they should know.

I found it very odd that Catholics didn't get a 100% on which religion Mother Teresa was affiliated with. That blew me away.

[help3434]

Which conference talk are you referring to? I suspect that the speaker meant that LDS members know the Bible the best because their interpretation of the Bible comes from the "true church" rather than because they know the contents better than anyone else.

[TheTruth101]

I found this survey online that has atheists performed the best. Mormons and Jews are coming in second place and pretty much tied. The atheist answered 82% of questions correctly with and average 20.9 questions out of 32.

Scroll down the website and you will see several stats. Read the text for a good read. Mormons seem to have the most bible knowledge overall.

This doesn't seem to be the case though in my experience. Most that I have debated seem to lack that knowledge as shown by the stats.

Actually, mormons scored pretty much number 1 overall.

[help3434]

http://www.pewforum.org/U-S-Religious-K ... igion.aspx

Sorry, I thought I already did. Must have slipped my mind.

Just from looking that the poll results it seems obvious that the groups that have more wealthy and educated members have higher scores, while those with less wealthy and and less educated members have lower scores. Thus the low scores from black Protestant and Hispanic Catholics.

[Peter]

Only 14 of 15 on the easy test.

[TheJoshAbideth]

One of the leaders of the LDS church made a comment without any supporting evidence today at theSemiannual Conference.

An Apostle of the church said that the LDS members, and mainly the missionaries, are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the bible. This made me ask the question,are they? When is was member I found the knowledge of the bible lacking considerably amongst the members and the missionaries. Here were talking about 19-21 year old males and 21-23 year old females.

I think that atheists that used to be christian know the bible better than most christians. On this debate site I have found atheists to usually be more knowledgable. Christians on here are highly knowledgeable as well, and the LDS I have debated are lacking that knowledge.

What do you say? Are the LDS more knowledgeable?

Who seems to have the most bible knowledge?

Do atheists have a leg in this argument?

Being a Christian in this country places you at the top of the food chain - when it comes to having to defend yourself for your positions and beliefs. The impetus isn't nearly as strong to have a solid foundation for one' knowledge as it is when you are further down the "list".

I think the test discussed elsewhere in this thread illustrates that point.

[Ooberman]

One of the leaders of the LDS church made a comment without any supporting evidence today at theSemiannual Conference.

An Apostle of the church said that the LDS members, and mainly the missionaries, are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the bible. This made me ask the question,are they? When is was member I found the knowledge of the bible lacking considerably amongst the members and the missionaries. Here were talking about 19-21 year old males and 21-23 year old females.

I think that atheists that used to be christian know the bible better than most christians. On this debate site I have found atheists to usually be more knowledgable. Christians on here are highly knowledgeable as well, and the LDS I have debated are lacking that knowledge.

What do you say? Are the LDS more knowledgeable?

Who seems to have the most bible knowledge?

Do atheists have a leg in this argument?

Intuitively, I think former Christians are probably most knowledgeable about the Bible. They are probably the ones who after a long, painful struggle of losing their faith, tried to look for any glimmer that the Bible might be true, but in the end couldn't.

I certainly know the vast majority of Christians know the Bible very little.