Article 1 of 2
Let’s test your knowledge of the Bible.
Quiz - How many wrong statements can you find in this quiz text at the beginning (in italics) ?
Noah of Arc and his wife, Joan, build a boat to survive a great flood. Moses climbs Mount Cyanide and receives 10 enumerated commandments; for all the differences among religious denominations, the Ten Commandments are a common bedrock that Jews, Catholics and Protestants agree on.
Sodom and his wild girlfriend, Gomorrah, soon set the standard for what not to do. They are turned to pillars of salt.
The Virgin Mary, a young Christian woman, conceives Jesus immaculately and gives birth to him in a Jerusalem manger. Jesus, backed by the Twelve Apostles and their wives, the Epistles, proclaims what we call the Golden Rule: “Do one to others before they do one to you.” The Romans repeatedly crucify Jesus — at Cavalry, Golgotha and other sites - but resurrects himself each time.
Christianity spreads through the gospels, which differ on details but all provide eyewitness accounts of Jesus’s life from birth to death. Finally, Rome tires of throwing Christians to lions and becomes the first country to adopt Christianity as its religion. The Bible is translated from the original English into countless languages.
(End of quiz)
_______________________________
So how many errors did you spot?
There are about 20 mistakes, which are listed at the end of this article 1 of 2, and they reflect the general muddling & confusion in our society about religious knowledge.
_______________________________
Updated 5/18/2014
Click colored web links for further info
Secular Americans are largely ignorant about religion, but, in surveys, religious Americans turn out to be scarcely (= only a little bit) more knowledgeable.
“Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion,” Stephen Prothero, professor in the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of numerous books on religion in America noted in his book, “Religious Literacy.” “Atheists may be as rare in America as Jesus-loving politicians are in Europe, but here faith is almost entirely devoid of content. One of the most religious countries on earth is also a nation of religious illiterates.” click: Stephen Prothero
click: Religious Literacy, the book.
Professor Prothero points out that The United States is one of the most religious places on earth, but it is also a nation of shocking religious illiteracy.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible holds the answers to all or most of life's basic questions, yet only half of American adults can name even one of the four gospels and most Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible.
The CIA's World Factbook gives the population as 7,021,836,029 (July 2012 est.) and the distribution of religions as:
(1) Christianity 33.39% (of which Roman Catholic 16.85%, Protestant 6.15%, Orthodox 3.96%, Anglican 1.26%), (2) Muslim 22.74%, (3) Hinduism 13.8%, (4) Buddhism 6.77%, (5) Sikhism 0.35%, (6) Jewish 0.22%, (7) Baha'i Faith 0.11%, (8) other religions 10.95%, (9) non-religious 9.66%, (10) atheism 2.01% (2010 est.).
Source: click: The World Factbook - CIA
Despite this lack of basic knowledge, politicians and pundits & experts continue to root public policy arguments in religious rhetoric whose meanings are missed or misinterpreted by the vast majority of Americans.
"We have a major civic problem on our hands," says religion scholar Stephen Prothero. He makes the provocative case that to remedy this problem, we should return to teaching religion in the public schools. Alongside "reading, writing, and arithmetic," religion ought to become the "Fourth R" of American education.
Many believe that America's descent into religious illiteracy was the doing of activist judges and secularists hell-bent on banishing religion from the public square. Prothero reveals that this is a profound misunderstanding. "In one of the great ironies of American religious history," Prothero writes, "it was the nation's most fervent, impassioned people of faith who steered us down the road to religious illiteracy. Just how that happened is one of the stories this book has to tell."
Prothero avoids the trap of religious relativism by addressing both the core tenets of the world's major religions and the real differences among them. Complete with a dictionary of the key beliefs, characters, and stories of Christianity, Islam, and other religions, The book Religious Literacy reveals what every American needs to know in order to confront the domestic and foreign challenges facing this country today.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they believe that the Bible holds the answer to all or most of life’s basic questions. Yet, only one-third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and 10 percent think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.
Click: Joan of Arc
Many Americans know even less about other faiths, from Islam to Hinduism. Several days after 9/11, a vigilante shot and killed an Indian-American Sikh because of the assumption that a turban must mean a Muslim: Ignorance and murderous bigotry joined in one.
As an example (not as a promotion of sikhism) and to give knowledge the following text is quoted from web link (that is placed after the next small-text paragraph)
Q: Are all turban wearing people Muslim?
A: Many people mistake Sikhs and look at them as Muslims due to their turban. If you see a man walking down on American, British, Canadian, and Australian streets wearing a turban, there is 99.9% chance that he is a Sikh, a follower of a monotheistic religion that started in the 15th century in India. Sikhs proudly wear the turban as part of their religious and cultural heritage. Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims or Arabs. They are neither -- not that being Arab or Muslim is a justification for making people targets of hatred. However, Sikhism is an independent religion and does not follow Islamic law.Turban is used as a head covering by many cultures. Many cultures in Africa wear turban as well. Only the high officials in Islam wear turban. Many Hindu priests wear turban as well. Identifying people wearing turban and looking at them as terrorist and making them a target of hatred is completely wrong. Just like every person wearing a baseball hat is not a bank robber; every person wearing a turban is not a terrorist. Sikhs do not cut their hair and live the way God made us. The way God made us is the most beautiful of all. Sikh hair and turban are the symbol of our love towards God and the respect for everything He gave us.
Click: Sikhism: Are all turban wearing people Muslim?
________________
All this goes to the larger question of the relevance of the humanities. Literature, philosophy and the arts have come to be seen as effete and irrelevant, but if we want to understand the world around us and think deeply about it, it helps to have exposure to Shakespeare and Kant, Mozart and Confucius — and, yes, Jesus, Moses and the Prophet Muhammad.
Secularists sometimes believe religious knowledge does not matter because the world is leaving faith behind. Really? Faith is elemental in much of the world, including large swaths of America.
How can one understand Afghanistan without some knowledge of Islam? For that matter, how can one understand America without any intellectual curiosity about Evangelicals? click: Evangelicalism
Can one understand the world if one is oblivious to the stunning rise of Pentecostals at home and abroad?
click: Pentecostalism
Every high school and college graduate in America should have some familiarity with statistics, economics and a "foreign" language such as Spanish. Religion may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context.
And we don’t want to emulate the long-ago Texas governor who, in one of those stories that may be too good to be true, opposed Spanish instruction because: “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for us.”
Quiz - Errors in the Bible statements at the beginning:
Joan wasn’t Noah’s wife (and Arc wasn’t his name); Moses climbed Mount Sinai, not Cyanide; there were 12 (unnumbered) commandments, and Jews, Protestants and Catholics have different versions depending in part on how they compress them into 10; Sodom wasn’t a person; same for Gomorrah; they weren’t the ones turned into salt; Lot's flight from the destruction of click: Sodom and Gomorrah, during which click: Lot's wife became a pillar of salt because she looked back even though it was not allowed by God; the Virgin Mary was Jewish; the immaculate conception is a Catholic doctrine referring to the conception of Mary; Jesus was said to be born in Bethlehem; epistles are letters; the Golden Rule governs what you do “unto others”; Jesus was crucified once; it’s Calvary, not Cavalry, and it’s the same place as Golgotha; Jesus is said to have been resurrected once; although we don’t know much about the gospel writers, they presumably weren’t eyewitnesses but incorporated eyewitness sources; the Gospels of Mark and John do not refer to the birth of Jesus; click: Armenia was first to adopt Christianity as state religion; the Bible is translated from Hebrew and Greek, not English.
____________________________
Article 2 of 2
Comment by Global Church of God - GCG
- church for the modern world -
The First Online Worldwide Community Church with Biblical principles for all people
by Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D., Founding Pastor
Our country is based on the Christian, Biblical Principles - that's the statement by the historians.
The Bible was in the hands of our founding fathers.
The Bible, (two of them: (1) MLK's & (2) Pres. Lincoln's), was used in President Obama's inauguration ceremony.
Mr.Obama states his religion is the Biblical Christian.
A huge question for all of us humans: How to have a mentally, physically, financially happy & successful life?
As the founder of Successology ® (Reg.US.Pat.Off.1991) - the new science for life success - I am honored, no matter what your background, homeless, a President or a King or anything between, to show light for finding a road to your worthy goals and getting them fulfilled for your success in life.
Quotation "Anything your mind can conceive and believe you can achieve" Napoleon Hill
Click: Napoleon Hill - Wikipedia Click: Napoleon Hill Foundation
Visit for further information GCG's website (web link below) & another affiliated, leading science & success website introduced there.
GCG is a for the modern world - our teaching for life success is always based on two elements:
(1) The Biblical Text and (2) the most updated modern human science. Based on the latest science facts GCG proves every statement we make in our teaching.
GCG's and its founder's presence is needed in D.C. in W.H., in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate) to remind of our founding fathers' idea for our country. GCG is needed in D.C. to give reminders of ethics & reasonability in our choices as the nation's lawmakers.
GCG needs donations to widen its important work for your family's safer life and richer, healthier future.
GCG works nationwide in the U.S. and worldwide in any country.
Mail any size of donation in any currency as paper money to: P.O. Box 1555, New York, NY 10163-1555, USA.
Inside the envelope enclose your name & email address - GCG will email you a tax deductible confirmation receipt. 100 % of the donations will be used for GCG's help operations to ease human suffering & to save human lives.
Listen to GCG's, Inc.'s popular Radio Show - you'll get free CEU & College-University credits valid worldwide.
Visit GCG website click: www.gcg1org.weebly.com
Visit another affiliated, leading science & success website introduced there
click: www.staf1org.weebly.com
Respectfully,
Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D.
GCG - headquartered in New York City
with nationwide/worldwide Christian success ministry
__________________________________________________________
Additional information below
____________________________
Quotation
"Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can choose to change the world"
Nelson Mandela Click
_____________________________
Global Church of God - GCG needs your donation
* to ease human suffering & turn lives to victory nationwide & worldwide *
Mail any size of donation in any currency as paper money to:
P.O. Box 1555, New York, NY 10163-1555, USA
Relating to donations,
here interesting information not so well publicly known:
Giving donations will affect the giver, you, in a beneficial manner
The 3 statements next below are based on science studies (links given below)
(1) When you donate, YOUR self-efficacy will improve click: Self-efficacy
(2) When you donate, YOU get financially richer
(3) When you donate, YOUR physical & mental health gets better
The proof to these statements in these 3 links:
click: www.sciencemag.org (there click (left side): Abstract or Full text)
Click: Journal of Economics and Finance
Click: Fund-Raising Is Fun and beneficial for the giver __________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Let’s test your knowledge of the Bible.
Quiz - How many wrong statements can you find in this quiz text at the beginning (in italics) ?
Noah of Arc and his wife, Joan, build a boat to survive a great flood. Moses climbs Mount Cyanide and receives 10 enumerated commandments; for all the differences among religious denominations, the Ten Commandments are a common bedrock that Jews, Catholics and Protestants agree on.
Sodom and his wild girlfriend, Gomorrah, soon set the standard for what not to do. They are turned to pillars of salt.
The Virgin Mary, a young Christian woman, conceives Jesus immaculately and gives birth to him in a Jerusalem manger. Jesus, backed by the Twelve Apostles and their wives, the Epistles, proclaims what we call the Golden Rule: “Do one to others before they do one to you.” The Romans repeatedly crucify Jesus — at Cavalry, Golgotha and other sites - but resurrects himself each time.
Christianity spreads through the gospels, which differ on details but all provide eyewitness accounts of Jesus’s life from birth to death. Finally, Rome tires of throwing Christians to lions and becomes the first country to adopt Christianity as its religion. The Bible is translated from the original English into countless languages.
(End of quiz)
_______________________________
So how many errors did you spot?
There are about 20 mistakes, which are listed at the end of this article 1 of 2, and they reflect the general muddling & confusion in our society about religious knowledge.
_______________________________
Updated 5/18/2014
Click colored web links for further info
Secular Americans are largely ignorant about religion, but, in surveys, religious Americans turn out to be scarcely (= only a little bit) more knowledgeable.
“Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion,” Stephen Prothero, professor in the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of numerous books on religion in America noted in his book, “Religious Literacy.” “Atheists may be as rare in America as Jesus-loving politicians are in Europe, but here faith is almost entirely devoid of content. One of the most religious countries on earth is also a nation of religious illiterates.” click: Stephen Prothero
click: Religious Literacy, the book.
Professor Prothero points out that The United States is one of the most religious places on earth, but it is also a nation of shocking religious illiteracy.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible holds the answers to all or most of life's basic questions, yet only half of American adults can name even one of the four gospels and most Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible.
- Only 10 percent of American teenagers can name five major world religions and 15 percent cannot name any.
The CIA's World Factbook gives the population as 7,021,836,029 (July 2012 est.) and the distribution of religions as:
(1) Christianity 33.39% (of which Roman Catholic 16.85%, Protestant 6.15%, Orthodox 3.96%, Anglican 1.26%), (2) Muslim 22.74%, (3) Hinduism 13.8%, (4) Buddhism 6.77%, (5) Sikhism 0.35%, (6) Jewish 0.22%, (7) Baha'i Faith 0.11%, (8) other religions 10.95%, (9) non-religious 9.66%, (10) atheism 2.01% (2010 est.).
Source: click: The World Factbook - CIA
Despite this lack of basic knowledge, politicians and pundits & experts continue to root public policy arguments in religious rhetoric whose meanings are missed or misinterpreted by the vast majority of Americans.
"We have a major civic problem on our hands," says religion scholar Stephen Prothero. He makes the provocative case that to remedy this problem, we should return to teaching religion in the public schools. Alongside "reading, writing, and arithmetic," religion ought to become the "Fourth R" of American education.
Many believe that America's descent into religious illiteracy was the doing of activist judges and secularists hell-bent on banishing religion from the public square. Prothero reveals that this is a profound misunderstanding. "In one of the great ironies of American religious history," Prothero writes, "it was the nation's most fervent, impassioned people of faith who steered us down the road to religious illiteracy. Just how that happened is one of the stories this book has to tell."
Prothero avoids the trap of religious relativism by addressing both the core tenets of the world's major religions and the real differences among them. Complete with a dictionary of the key beliefs, characters, and stories of Christianity, Islam, and other religions, The book Religious Literacy reveals what every American needs to know in order to confront the domestic and foreign challenges facing this country today.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they believe that the Bible holds the answer to all or most of life’s basic questions. Yet, only one-third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and 10 percent think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.
Click: Joan of Arc
Many Americans know even less about other faiths, from Islam to Hinduism. Several days after 9/11, a vigilante shot and killed an Indian-American Sikh because of the assumption that a turban must mean a Muslim: Ignorance and murderous bigotry joined in one.
As an example (not as a promotion of sikhism) and to give knowledge the following text is quoted from web link (that is placed after the next small-text paragraph)
Q: Are all turban wearing people Muslim?
A: Many people mistake Sikhs and look at them as Muslims due to their turban. If you see a man walking down on American, British, Canadian, and Australian streets wearing a turban, there is 99.9% chance that he is a Sikh, a follower of a monotheistic religion that started in the 15th century in India. Sikhs proudly wear the turban as part of their religious and cultural heritage. Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims or Arabs. They are neither -- not that being Arab or Muslim is a justification for making people targets of hatred. However, Sikhism is an independent religion and does not follow Islamic law.Turban is used as a head covering by many cultures. Many cultures in Africa wear turban as well. Only the high officials in Islam wear turban. Many Hindu priests wear turban as well. Identifying people wearing turban and looking at them as terrorist and making them a target of hatred is completely wrong. Just like every person wearing a baseball hat is not a bank robber; every person wearing a turban is not a terrorist. Sikhs do not cut their hair and live the way God made us. The way God made us is the most beautiful of all. Sikh hair and turban are the symbol of our love towards God and the respect for everything He gave us.
Click: Sikhism: Are all turban wearing people Muslim?
________________
All this goes to the larger question of the relevance of the humanities. Literature, philosophy and the arts have come to be seen as effete and irrelevant, but if we want to understand the world around us and think deeply about it, it helps to have exposure to Shakespeare and Kant, Mozart and Confucius — and, yes, Jesus, Moses and the Prophet Muhammad.
Secularists sometimes believe religious knowledge does not matter because the world is leaving faith behind. Really? Faith is elemental in much of the world, including large swaths of America.
How can one understand Afghanistan without some knowledge of Islam? For that matter, how can one understand America without any intellectual curiosity about Evangelicals? click: Evangelicalism
Can one understand the world if one is oblivious to the stunning rise of Pentecostals at home and abroad?
click: Pentecostalism
Every high school and college graduate in America should have some familiarity with statistics, economics and a "foreign" language such as Spanish. Religion may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context.
And we don’t want to emulate the long-ago Texas governor who, in one of those stories that may be too good to be true, opposed Spanish instruction because: “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for us.”
Quiz - Errors in the Bible statements at the beginning:
Joan wasn’t Noah’s wife (and Arc wasn’t his name); Moses climbed Mount Sinai, not Cyanide; there were 12 (unnumbered) commandments, and Jews, Protestants and Catholics have different versions depending in part on how they compress them into 10; Sodom wasn’t a person; same for Gomorrah; they weren’t the ones turned into salt; Lot's flight from the destruction of click: Sodom and Gomorrah, during which click: Lot's wife became a pillar of salt because she looked back even though it was not allowed by God; the Virgin Mary was Jewish; the immaculate conception is a Catholic doctrine referring to the conception of Mary; Jesus was said to be born in Bethlehem; epistles are letters; the Golden Rule governs what you do “unto others”; Jesus was crucified once; it’s Calvary, not Cavalry, and it’s the same place as Golgotha; Jesus is said to have been resurrected once; although we don’t know much about the gospel writers, they presumably weren’t eyewitnesses but incorporated eyewitness sources; the Gospels of Mark and John do not refer to the birth of Jesus; click: Armenia was first to adopt Christianity as state religion; the Bible is translated from Hebrew and Greek, not English.
____________________________
Article 2 of 2
Comment by Global Church of God - GCG
- church for the modern world -
The First Online Worldwide Community Church with Biblical principles for all people
by Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D., Founding Pastor
Our country is based on the Christian, Biblical Principles - that's the statement by the historians.
The Bible was in the hands of our founding fathers.
The Bible, (two of them: (1) MLK's & (2) Pres. Lincoln's), was used in President Obama's inauguration ceremony.
Mr.Obama states his religion is the Biblical Christian.
A huge question for all of us humans: How to have a mentally, physically, financially happy & successful life?
As the founder of Successology ® (Reg.US.Pat.Off.1991) - the new science for life success - I am honored, no matter what your background, homeless, a President or a King or anything between, to show light for finding a road to your worthy goals and getting them fulfilled for your success in life.
Quotation "Anything your mind can conceive and believe you can achieve" Napoleon Hill
Click: Napoleon Hill - Wikipedia Click: Napoleon Hill Foundation
Visit for further information GCG's website (web link below) & another affiliated, leading science & success website introduced there.
GCG is a for the modern world - our teaching for life success is always based on two elements:
(1) The Biblical Text and (2) the most updated modern human science. Based on the latest science facts GCG proves every statement we make in our teaching.
GCG's and its founder's presence is needed in D.C. in W.H., in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate) to remind of our founding fathers' idea for our country. GCG is needed in D.C. to give reminders of ethics & reasonability in our choices as the nation's lawmakers.
GCG needs donations to widen its important work for your family's safer life and richer, healthier future.
GCG works nationwide in the U.S. and worldwide in any country.
Mail any size of donation in any currency as paper money to: P.O. Box 1555, New York, NY 10163-1555, USA.
Inside the envelope enclose your name & email address - GCG will email you a tax deductible confirmation receipt. 100 % of the donations will be used for GCG's help operations to ease human suffering & to save human lives.
Listen to GCG's, Inc.'s popular Radio Show - you'll get free CEU & College-University credits valid worldwide.
Visit GCG website click: www.gcg1org.weebly.com
Visit another affiliated, leading science & success website introduced there
click: www.staf1org.weebly.com
Respectfully,
Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D.
GCG - headquartered in New York City
with nationwide/worldwide Christian success ministry
__________________________________________________________
Additional information below
____________________________
Quotation
"Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can choose to change the world"
Nelson Mandela Click
_____________________________
Global Church of God - GCG needs your donation
* to ease human suffering & turn lives to victory nationwide & worldwide *
Mail any size of donation in any currency as paper money to:
P.O. Box 1555, New York, NY 10163-1555, USA
Relating to donations,
here interesting information not so well publicly known:
Giving donations will affect the giver, you, in a beneficial manner
The 3 statements next below are based on science studies (links given below)
(1) When you donate, YOUR self-efficacy will improve click: Self-efficacy
(2) When you donate, YOU get financially richer
(3) When you donate, YOUR physical & mental health gets better
The proof to these statements in these 3 links:
click: www.sciencemag.org (there click (left side): Abstract or Full text)
Click: Journal of Economics and Finance
Click: Fund-Raising Is Fun and beneficial for the giver __________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________