Quetzalcoatl

One-third could not put the following in order: Abraham, the Old Testament prophets, the death of Christ, and Pentecost.

Half could not sequence the following: Moses in Egypt, Isaac’s birth, Saul’s death, and Judah’s exile.

One-third could not identify Matthew as an apostle from a list of New Testament names.

When asked to locate the biblical book supplying a given story, one-third could not find Paul’s travels in Acts, half did not know that the Christmas story was in Matthew, half did not know that the Passover story was in Exodus.

from here

Draw your own conclusions.

MarkB4

Okay - I checked out the link which is a poll of teenagers. What is your point? What does that have to do with awareness of the Crusades or the Inquisition other than a general indictment of what passes for education in America? If you were to conduct that survey in my faith community, the results would be different. This did not make a disctinction of evangelical kids. I don't even know what conclusions to draw.

By the way, that was from a Mormon source promoting how much Mormon kids know - not that that precludes anything, but do you think there might be a bit of bias? I'll reserve some scepticism.

Quetzalcoatl

“The four-year effort was conducted by 133 researchers and consultants led by sociologist Christian Smith of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.�?

“The project involved a telephone survey of 3,370 randomly selected English- and Spanish-speaking Americans, ages 13-17, followed by face-to-face interviews with 267 of the respondents in 45 states.�?

Why are you so quick to dismiss data that do does not agree with your personal opinions?

If the majority of American teenagers do not know such basic biblical information then I find it hard to believe that they have any deep knowledge about the churches history.

Thanks for the advice but I have learned a long time ago that Christians will lie and deceive to perpetuate their religion.

MarkB4

I must have missed the original point. Was this about teenagers? I am not even getting on about the poll itself - I simply said I reserve scepticism. I did see that it was conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - and that would give the original study some credibility - but not nearly so a selective summary from Deseret News. What part of "not that that precludes anything" didn't you get? You are aware, aren't you, that Mormons are not Christians - by their own prophet, Joseph Smith, who rejected and mocked Christianity? I still don't know what this has to do with the price of eggs in China.

Quetzalcoatl

Why the animosity mark?
I am trying to answer the OP. “So much does the average Christian actually know about the history of Christianity?�? In order to answer such questions one should look for data.

The data has nothing to do with Mormons. It was conducted by interviewing random teenagers. It showed that the majority do not have a basic knowledge of biblical information. It seems clear to me that this implies that they do not have any deep understanding of the churches history either. If teenagers who are currently in school doing history do not know this stuff why should I assume that adults do?

Which of the 33 000 sects of Christianity is the true one is for Christians to decide but do try and keep it less bloody than the reformation.

MarkB4

Quetzalcoatl - no animosity intended - I just didn't get the point. Now I understand what you were doing - your point was that the poll answered the question. It is just that I don't think that the collective Bible knowledge of 13-18 yr-olds is representative. Furthermore, there is going to be a wide variation in answers to questions from the Bible when Catholics (who do not embrace sola scriptura and who have never been big on bible reading), mainline denominations (which typically do not see the bible as authoritative and inerrant) and evangelicals (who do and make a point of teaching such things to their kids). Even so - the Crusades and the Inquisition are historical matters that most Christians would understand to be the result of power politics - not the directive of Jesus Christ. I don't think the church, regardless of sect (and there may be 33,000, but the broad scope of what would be called Christians are within the three camps mentioned plus the Eastern Orthodox churches - and by their own definition - it would not include Mormons since they reject the Nicene Creed) is ignorant of the Crusades and Inquisition (which was the OP). Your point is now understood regarding Bible knowledge with the young adults in the broader scope of Christianity.

Classical

Mark - not trying to be arrogant. You obviously don't know my story.

In a nutshell, I deconverted from christianity at about age 27 after I began to explore the beliefs which I always found questionable. Once I started to explore, my faith collapsed and nothing I could ever find, read, or think could bring my faith back to me. I wasn't happy about that for years.

Upon studying history, it becomes PAINFULLY obvious to me that all religions, yes, ALL, including christianity, are manmade inventions. There is NO AUTHORITY to any of the religions. None. Zero.

There is no proof any type of divine revelation anywhere and all faiths have this one thing in common: they are built upon fear of the unknown and passed down in many embellished forms throughout the centuries. Thousands of religions have come and gone.

If we are brave enough to face what seems to be the truth, it is that we evolved on this little miniscule planet for no apparent reason in a gigantic and purposeless universe. I could sit next to you and say, yeah, it sounds kind of bleak, but it looks like this is the way it is.

I had no intention of insulting your intelligence, but I am convinced your faith is nothing but wishful thinking. If there was a shred of evidence for me to feel otherwise, you could count me among the faithful once again.

Classical

PS: I miss the thought of "pie in the sky." Give me something to go on and I'll reconvert. Are you up to such a challenge?

cydonia

This is interesting, further evidence that we non-believers have no basis of morality, since morality comes from God.

For myslef, I just "feel wrong" when I do something to harm another, (usually unintentionally). Jesus has nothing to do with it. I'm no more likely to commit a crime than a fanatic believer.

ligesh

NObody even reads the bible. I am sure all they hear is what their priest blathers on his sermons, and the priests are pretty much selective in their choice of the subjects. So mostly what they have God is love, Jesus died for our sins.(So romantic).

First of all, I have explained that the a believer's aim is not to explore his religion, but simply use it as a means to underpin his own belief in the Vulgar-god. So a believer has no intention nor any desire to do detailed analysis; This only happens when you have reasons to doubt, and people who do are the one's who end up as atheists.

I am approaching religion from a purely evolutionary/psychological perspective, and it becomes clear why it exists, and why people obsessively defend it, no matter how horrible the tenets. That is because they NEED IT. Desperately.

--
:: Ligesh :: http://ligesh.com

cydonia

Besides, I was brought up to believe it was all "in the Bible", meaning everything you need to know about anything is all there. What use is the history of things that didn't take place in the Bible? All an evil knowledge of history could do is possibly weaken your faith (since it provides alternatives), and since faith must be strong, best not deal with the history stuff. It's the safe route. Then that thing they desperately need can't be challenged. No positive advantage can come from that knowledge, God told Adam & Eve to avoid wisdom.