"How many times in your life do you get a chance to watch history unfold, to actively participate in building a better society, to come together with thousands of people where genuine democracy is the reality and not a fantasy?

For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by impotence. The one thing the elite fear most is a great awakening. That day is here. Together we can seize it."

- above source

^gwiz665 Troublesome topic to get into on a forum. But I will make a meager attempt to express myself on this matter.

Firstly, I greatly respect you as a person, and value your opinion. Please excuse any phrasing that seems belittling or disrespectful of your own personal experiences with Christianity; my purpose isn't to discredit your personal experience, but relay mine.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am not a practicing Christian, I am an agnostic atheist. My pursuit of truth and knowledge lead me away from my faith some time ago. However, it is the very pursuits Christianity grew up in me that lead to this second awakening in myself. Christianity saved me, twice. Let me explain.

Low self esteem has been the story of my whole life. I was bullied a lot as a child, and my week personality was unable to cope. I always was pretty good in school in terms of grades. But the scars of my low self esteem means I never tried to live up to my full potential. I sold myself short in everything, I gave up, gave in, quit trying. Always managing slightly above average marks, several shallow friendships, and anything else that wasn't to risky.

That all changed in high school. I met one of the most influential friends I had in my life. He radiated self confidence. He also happened to be a Christian. I formerly mocked Christians via the evangelists I saw on TV, it was my only real experience with Christians till that point. I eventually "converted" to Christianity and my life was forever changed. I felt good about myself. Felt I could actually be something, do something, affect something. I was encouraged not only in personality, but in mind. I read countless books on theology, philosophy, and science. I grew in ways that I couldn't fully appreciate until my second great awakening. I was forever a different person. Gone where the rational bounds I placed on myself. I was no longer constrained by the ordinary. It was light in my darkness. A cure to the miasma of my existence. It instilled in my the responcibility to myself for goodness, purity, kindness, and truth.

The pursuit of truth eventually lead me to realize that if there is a God, it can't be the God of the bible (I won't go into that here), and so ended that phase of my life. But I am forever indebted to Christianity. And while someone might rightly point out it was me saving me, it still wouldn't of happened (I believe) without those people in the place they were doing the things they were with the believe that they were, I wouldn't be where I am now (most likely would of killed myself). All things have their share of evils and goods. For my part, even though I am no longer a Christian, I can't ever call for its eradication, or even that it is a moral bad.

To me, the great evil that works in us is a 2 billion year old tail; that this world is a world of violence. 2 billion years of animals eating other animals can't be laid at the feet of Christianity, or Islam, or any other scapegoat. We are humans, a tragic creature able to understand its own tragic nature. We seek to pass the blame to something we created, but it is what 2 billion years of life has created working in us, through us. We are the result of that, not the result of ourselves...yet. Perhaps in time we will come to terms with ourselves, and deal with ourselves. To this day, we only at best manage ourselves. I can't stop feeling anger at someone for cutting me off in traffic, I can only manage it the best I can. And I guess that is my closing thought. Right now, the best person is just a manager of their human condition, our fate was determined long ago through the course of billions of years of ooze... perhaps; or maybe God did it all, I don't know.

(edit: grammar and spelling, ugh)

Jonathan Edwards was a preacher heavily involved in the First Great Awakening. His sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" summarizes accurately the feeling of the time: paranoid Calvinism. You should read it, though, it's pretty well-written, and quite terrifying, if you believe it.

Eventually, Jonathan Edwards died of smallpox after receiving a smallpox vaccination.

Looking at the results they give this scales perfectly with with education, and I'd bet there's a positive correlation between education and religious affiliation. So really its not a matter of religious affiliation being telling of your religious knowledge, but your education. But I guess the headline educated people know more stuff isn't as exciting.

I got 13/15. Had no idea about the great awakening, gave Catholics way too much credit for being rational with the blood and wine question, and got the suffering question wrong. I thought it was Abraham, I was thinking of god's psycho girl friend moment when he was all, 'if you really loved me you'd kill your kid. Oh Emm Gee you were really going to do it? I was just testing you, I wouldn't really make you do that... now burn this goat as a sacrifice to me instead... no seriously O_O'

14/15; Atheist.. I didn't know the founder of the first Great Awakening.

Hey Milkman. You were correct about the day of the Jewish Sabbath, it just starts sundown on Friday and goes to sundown on Saturday.

I didn't know about the Great Awakening either, although I had heard about it. (Scored 14/15, without watching the video first.)

My Mormon relatives will be pleased to see that they do well in general knowledge.

I'd like to see all 31 questions.

14/15 here from an Atheist. Had I not read about this report yesterday and saw the video, I probably would have gotten 13/15 (I would have scored reading passages from the Bible in class as Literature wrong). Otherwise a fairly easy test.
I scored wrong on the questions about the First Great Awakening, which I never knew of.
Clearly though they didn't poll enough people since Muslims seem to be missing from the people who surveyed. Also missing are Pagans, who I would expect to score really high as they tent to read and research a large number of regions... at least if they are serious about it and don't just "dabble in witchcraft" when they are younger. I live in a heavily Pagan area, so it is easy to see what they know and don't know, and my ex's family is Muslim... I would expect them to score a bit better that evangelicals did, and be near the Jews and Mormons...