Atheists Know Most About Religion

Want to strengthen your faith life, taking it beyond the standard Saturday or Sunday worship routine? If so, befriend an atheist. Cling to your beliefs, but listen to a nonbeliever poke holes in the foundational beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, Islam or whatever religion you obey. Chances are good this person will know a lot about the faith.

Tuesday, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released results of its "religious knowledge" survey. It found that, on average, atheists know more about religion than do believers. It can't be terribly surprising to those who have met a former atheist turned preacher, rabbi, priest or imam. The atheist has found the apparent weaknesses and inconsistencies of modern belief. The former atheist has worked through them to find indisputable truth.

Why do atheists know more about religion than believers do? Because atheists routinely question faith, dissecting words of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Quran.

It's easy to blindly accept religious tenets. It's a challenge to be sincerely faithful. It involves fully understanding the faith, questioning the faith, seeking the truth and remaining prayerful and reverent through spells of confusion and doubt. Only through this process is a man or woman of normal or high intellect able to reach a place of tempered faith — a place in which the faith can be defended against the atheist, the agnostic, the hypocrite or the heretic who can't make sense of it.

A classic example of a religious believer building stronger faith, through friendship with an atheist, is Christian physician Dr.

Francis Collins, a famous geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Collins considers himself a close friend of atheist author and proselytizer Christopher Hitchens, who is battling throat cancer. Religious simpletons and frauds are praying for the swift death and damnation of Hitchens.

People of genuine faith, including Dr. Collins, are praying for Hitchens' recovery and/or salvation. Additionally, Dr. Collins is diligently directing Hitchens to the best life-saving options that God has provided through human innovation. In a Washington Post column, Dr. Collins spoke of Hitchens as a man of integrity with a "warm humanity that is easy to perceive."

From his friendship with Hitchens, Dr. Collins has tempered his own faith. He has been forced to defend it.

"I would like to think that Christopher's sharp intellect has challenged my own defense of the rationality of faith to be more consistent and compelling." He quoted Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

Hitchens has a similar respect for Dr. Collins, which he expressed in the September issue of Vanity Fair: "Dr. Francis Collins is one of the greatest living Americans. He hasn't suggested prayer, and I in turn haven't teased him about The Screwtape Letters," a C.S. Lewis novel about the planned damnation of a British man known as "The Patient."

A survey that shows more knowledge of religion among atheists should be a wake-up call for believers. Perhaps those with little knowledge about their own beliefs haven't been properly tempered.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

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