I had heard about the famous/infamous Pew Trust Forum poll. The take away I remember was that most folks didn't know about their own religion, never mind the religion of others. Additionally I remembered Jews and Atheists did the best. In fact my Rabbi even rolled that information into one of his sermons. So when today I saw on a friend's facebook post a link to their site and a with a mini poll/survey I went right to it!
http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/index.php
How much do you know about religion?
And how do you compare with the average American? Here's your chance to find out.
Take our short, 15-question quiz, and see how you do in comparison with 3,412 randomly sampled adults who were asked these and other questions in the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. This national poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life from May 19 through June 6, 2010, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish.
When you finish the quiz, you will be able to compare your knowledge of religion with participants in the national telephone poll. You can see how you compare with the overall population as well as with people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services frequently or less often, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college.
How much do you know about religion?
And how do you compare with the average American? Here's your chance to find out.
Take our short, 15-question quiz, and see how you do in comparison with 3,412 randomly sampled adults who were asked these and other questions in the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. This national poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life from May 19 through June 6, 2010, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish.
When you finish the quiz, you will be able to compare your knowledge of religion with participants in the national telephone poll. You can see how you compare with the overall population as well as with people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services frequently or less often, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college.
now go take the test...then come back here and keep reading
I took the test and the results for me, raised Catholic, a Buddhist Unitarian Universalist who converted to Judaism, were predictable, I got all the answers right. I am not proud of this nor surprised by this, but what did shock me was how simple it was. They do a wonderful job of breaking down their data so that you can see who got questions right and wrong broken out into many different categories. I feel dismayed about the polls results. These questions were basic, nothing jumped out as esoteric or overly challenging.
And once again, my own experience with this quiz pointed out my unique conundrum....even though I do not believe I need reminding, but there it was....I fit nowhere near any majority and or any mainstream demographic group.
I spent a good amount of time when I was younger lamenting my plight of perpetual outsider when it comes to how I view the world...the shorthand I came up with was "I am not a sheep." I tend to go out there on my own, searching and questioning. But that can be a dangerous place to be and would think there is some protective energy with being just like all the other sheep. but anytime I attempted to put on sheep clothing, my true nature shown and I was found out.
So far, I must say ,the synagogue I am calling home has accepted my non sheep self. In fact in some ways I think they find it interesting. I bring life experiences and organizational experiences that can be a positive addition to our shull....I feel at home organizationally but more to the point I am home religiously and spiritually.
and look what I found in the floor of former living quarters of the popes! There were a whole bunch of them! 
