According to Stephen Prothero, "Americans are both deeply religious and deeply ignorant about religion."
In his book, Religious Literacy, Prothero traces the decline of religious knowledge, proposes a remedy and compiles a dictionary of religious literacy. He includes a quiz for readers to test their knowledge.
Here are a few of those questions along with some of my own:
- Name a sacred text of Hinduism.
- What are the five books of the Torah?
- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Where is this found in the Bible?
- What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism?
- What is Ramadan?
- What is the difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites?
- Ellen White founded what religious faith?
- What religion celebrates Kwanzaa?
- What are the teachings of Gnosticism?
- What are the five pillars of Islam?
- What is the Decalogue?
- Vishnu is a deity of what religion?
If you don't know one of these, do a Google search and explain the answer in the comments.
Pastor Rod
"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"
2 comments:
Whoof!
The only ones I actually know are the Biblical questions (I did look up the other answers though). I have never been drawn much to seek out information about other religions, though many years ago I did meet some Zen Buddhists, Hari Krishna's and some people from the Process Church (considered by some to be Satan worshippers).
The truth is that I would rather, on the occasion of conversing with someone of another faith, hear their understanding of their own religion and then respond to that rather than having a base of "ready" answers which might miss the point.
Scripture tells us to be prepared to - respectfully - give a reason for the hope that is in us; not to be ready to tell people what is wrong with their belief system.
In looking up the Four Noble Truths, I was struck by how similar the description of Buddhism-in-practice sounded like Christianity-in-practice. There are some key differences, of course. The similarities surprised me though.
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