So as some of you may have heard, The Pew Forum on Relgion & Public Life recently released the results of a survey that found that Atheists know more about religion then believers. Now some people may have found this rather surprising...and I am not one of those people.
So why are Atheists so knowledgeable about religion? Well, for starters how people become Atheists partially explains this. Unlike believers, Atheists are generally not indoctrinated from childhood; rather they come to their Atheism gradually over years and years of self exploration and questioning. Part of this exploration involves learning about all the different religions out there and realizing how ridiculous some of their claims are. Then add onto that fact that Atheists tend to be people who value intellectualism and learning and it makes perfect sense. When you take a subset of the population that represents, almost in it's entirety, people who are highly educated and who tend to have a questioning mind that is always seeking to learn more you are invariably going see results like this recent survey.
Now if only this survey would silence all those people who are convinced that Atheists are only Atheists because they don't know anything about the "virtues" of faith...yeah I'm not holding my breath either.
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