Alarming levels of ignorance about religion...

[Cypress]

...., probably mostly within the rightwing

Cultural Literacy – Why the Well Educated Person Should Know About Religion

A recent poll of Americans revealed an alarming lack of basic knowledge about the world’s religions. The vast majority of Americans cannot name the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism or the Five Pillars of Islam. Only 38 percent know that Vishnu and Shiva are Hindu gods. Most do not know what Ramadan is or when the Jewish Sabbath begins. More surprising still, a Gallup poll revealed that only half of American adults can name even one of the four Gospels of the New Testament.

Why should we study these religious traditions? One reason is to better understand our world. You cannot open a newspaper or watch the evening news without encountering stories with a religious dimension.

Another reason is to better understand our neighbors. Recent surveys show that, on average, half of a person’s close friends practice a religion different from their own, and two-thirds of Americans have at least one extended family member of another faith. In a very practical sense, these lectures will help you understand the religious objects and texts that would be found in the home, the special diets that might be eaten, and the rituals that might be performed by someone close to you.

Finally, religions deal with the fundamental questions of human existence: Who am I? Is there a God or an ultimate reality? Why is there evil in the world? How should I live? Understanding religion helps us to better understand ourselves.

Source credit: Mark Berkson, Ph.D., Hamline University


My contribution to cultural literacy:

The History and Achievements of the Islamic Golden Age

The study of Western Civilization traditionally follows a well-known but incomplete arc: the grand achievements of Greece and Rome, several hundred years of the “Dark Ages,” and then the bright emergence of the European Renaissance. But most students of history have only a passing familiarity with a significant period known as the Islamic Golden Age in the Greater Middle East, from about 750 to 1258. Advancements in medicine, algebra and astronomy; influential figures like Avicenna and Averroes: these asides in the traditional story of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance only gloss the surface of one of the most important periods of world history.

It is nearly impossible to overstate the power and importance of this crucial 500-year history, headquartered in Baghdad but impacting the wider world. The Abbasid Empire, which ruled the Middle East as well as much of Northern Africa and Central Asia in much of the Middle Ages, is a vitally important bridge between the ancient and modern worlds. While much of Europe was quietly passing the time, the Abbasid Empire was an international, multicultural hub of trade, travel, education, art, science, and much more. Just a few of the many events and achievements of the era include:

Advancements in mathematics, including the birth of algebra and new insights into geometry and trigonometry.
The origins of the scientific method, along with the development of chemistry, physics, and astronomy as discrete fields of inquiry.
The invention of the modern “teaching hospital” and a medical encyclopedia that served Europe for the next 600 years.
The preservation and translation of the world’s great literature, from the Hadith to the master works of Greece and Rome.
Ontological philosophy that served future Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians concerned with the nature of God and the relationship between faith and reason.

Although the word wasn’t coined until much later, today we would call many of the influential figures of the Islamic Golden Age “scientists”—experimental thinkers who researched everything from the circumference of the Earth to the classifications of chemical compositions. This period saw the birth of the scientific method—including the origins of the “control” in an experiment—and ushered in transitions from what we would call astrology to astronomy, and from alchemy to chemistry.

source credit: Eamonn Gearon, Johns Hopkins University

[Mason Melchizedek]

...., probably mostly within the rightwing

Cultural Literacy – Why the Well Educated Person Should Know About Religion

A recent poll of Americans revealed an alarming lack of basic knowledge about the world’s religions. The vast majority of Americans cannot name the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism or the Five Pillars of Islam. Only 38 percent know that Vishnu and Shiva are Hindu gods. Most do not know what Ramadan is or when the Jewish Sabbath begins. More surprising still, a Gallup poll revealed that only half of American adults can name even one of the four Gospels of the New Testament.

Why should we study these religious traditions? One reason is to better understand our world. You cannot open a newspaper or watch the evening news without encountering stories with a religious dimension.

Another reason is to better understand our neighbors. Recent surveys show that, on average, half of a person’s close friends practice a religion different from their own, and two-thirds of Americans have at least one extended family member of another faith. In a very practical sense, these lectures will help you understand the religious objects and texts that would be found in the home, the special diets that might be eaten, and the rituals that might be performed by someone close to you.

Finally, religions deal with the fundamental questions of human existence: Who am I? Is there a God or an ultimate reality? Why is there evil in the world? How should I live? Understanding religion helps us to better understand ourselves.

Source credit: Mark Berkson, Ph.D., Hamline University


My contribution to cultural literacy:

America has lost its soul.

[Charoite]

America has lost its soul.

Well it's to be expected in the country of greatest excess and waste that we'd throw away a lot of character in our pursuit of things.

[Cypress]

Well it's to be expected in the country of greatest excess and waste that we'd throw away a lot of character in our pursuit of things.

I have encountered numerous self identified Christians who do not know Catholics are Christians, who couldn't even begin to articulate anything about the history of Christiananity, and do not have the foggiest idea that Muslims consider Abraham, Moses, and Jesus to be great prophets of God.

I find remarkable that anyone claiming to be a devout Christian actually knows almost nothing about their religion or other related world religions