Extra Credit If You Know Who The Patron Saint Of Ugly People Is*

We're coming to you today from the Department of Religious Instruction here in the marbled halls of IM Central. The DoRI is just across the Quad from the Pope Bene Nazi Youth Memorabilia Museum and south of the Bishop Eddie Long Camp for Boys. Many is the time we've regaled reader(s) of this blog with tales of our upbringing under the watchful, if somewhat  bloodshot eyes of the Brothers Christian and the hair trigger ruler arm of their faithful penguin minions, the Sisters of the Holy Order of Dashboard Jesus ($12.95 includes shipping).

As a result you all think we're atheists, but that is at least thirty cubits from the truth because, as we've also written previously, once you get the holy cold shower--yer in and ain't nothing  nobody can do about it, which is why we like to refer to ourselves as recovering catholics. Well, we tell you all this by way of establishing our credentials to comment on a recent story in the New York Times, the headline of which is Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans. Now, when you first read that you might think the article is about republicans, who want to cut social security, Medicare, food stamps and taxes for the rich, blow up brown people countries and just generally wall off anyone who isn't wealthy and white because said republicans have obviously failed a pope's hat full of religious tests. True as that position is though, in this instance you'd be wrong because what the article is really about is how atheists know more about religion than believers.

On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith. Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics...“Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics...still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.

Hmm, thinks us. This is a bit of a conundrum because religious folks are always telling us we don't know nothing about nothing and if we did we'd see how complex the universe is so it had to be created by god who is the only being complex enough to do something like that. Except when he's simple.

Well, OK, fair enough. All those scientific explanations tend to upset people still running around looking for apes evolving into humans anyway,  so we're thinking what the article may be saying is that atheists have a better grasp of the big picture, but when it comes to how faith works in between the regular collection and the special collections on Sunday, the believers have the upper hand--especially catholics who had company policy surgically attached to them in second grade.

Forty-five percent of Catholics did not know that their church teaches that the consecrated bread and wine in holy communion are not merely symbols, but actually become the body and blood of Christ.

Oh. Come. On. We know that and we spent most of catechism class staring at Elizabeth Arlen's...ah...sweater. That's the only thing most people know about catholics: they EAT THEIR GOD!!! Bwwaahahahaha!!! Cripes, when we were in sixth grade we had the little lutheran boy that lived next door convinced that for two hours after mass all catholics had super powers because of it. Yeesh people, learn to take advantage of your opportunities, OK? Confession? Get out of jail free card, who's with us?

“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”

 Not true, Mr. Silverman. We looked forward to reading the bible as kids. Our favorite part was where god threatened to give the Israelites all hemorrhoids, although to be fair, we really didn't enjoy the poop eating parts even if the King James version did use the word "piss" which made the next favorite bible quote day at school really interesting. Come to think of it now, that was also the last favorite bible quotes day.

*Now you know