Roundtable
Test Your Savvy On Religion:
The Roundtable Open Forum # 47, Oct 10 - 17
Based on an article by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The following is this week's (October 10 - 17) topic for discussion.
TEST YOUR SAVVY ON RELIGION
Nicholas D. Kristof, with his usual incision and insight, has highlighted some of the issues we should be canvassing in terms of our prejudices around religion - our own and that of others.
We produce hereunder his wonderful quiz - courtesy, The New York Times - for your persusal and introspection:
The New York Times reported recently on a Pew Research Center poll in which religious people turned out to be remarkably uninformed about religion. Almost half of Catholics didn't understand Communion. Most Protestants didn't know that Martin Luther started the Reformation. Almost half of Jews didn't realize Maimonides was Jewish. And atheists were among the best informed about religion.
So let me give everybody another chance. And given the uproar about Islam, I'll focus on extremism and fundamentalism - and, as you'll see, there's a larger point to this quiz. Note that some questions have more than one correct choice; answers are at the end.
1. Which holy book stipulates that a girl who does not bleed on her wedding night should be stoned to death?
a. Koran
b. Old Testament
c. (Hindu) Upanishads
2. Which holy text declares: "Let there be no compulsion in religion"?
a. Koran
b. Gospel of Matthew
c. Letter of Paul to the Romans
3. The terrorists who pioneered the suicide vest in modern times, and
the use of women in terror attacks, were affiliated with which major
religion?
a. Islam
b. Christianity
c. Hinduism
4. "Every child is touched by the devil as soon as he is born and this
contact makes him cry. Excepted are Mary and her Son." This verse is
from:
a. Letters of Paul to the Corinthians
b. The Book of Revelation
c. An Islamic hadith, or religious tale
5. Which holy text is sympathetic to slavery?
a. Old Testament
b. New Testament
c. Koran
6. In the New Testament, Jesus' views of homosexuality are:
a. strongly condemnatory
b. forgiving
c. never mentioned
7. Which holy text urges responding to evil with kindness, saying: "repel the evil deed with one which is better."
a. Gospel of Luke
b. Book of Isaiah
c. Koran
8. Which religious figure preaches tolerance by suggesting that God
looks after all peoples and leads them all to their promised lands?
a. Muhammad
b. Amos
c. Jesus
9. Which of these religious leaders was a polygamist?
a. Jacob
b. King David
c. Muhammad
10. What characterizes Muhammad's behavior toward the Jews of his time?
a. He killed them.
b. He married one.
c. He praised them as a chosen people.
11. Which holy scripture urges that the "little ones" of the enemy be dashed against the stones?
a. Book of Psalms
b. Koran
c. Leviticus
12. Which holy scripture suggests beating wives who misbehave?
a. Koran
b. Letters of Paul to the Corinthians
c. Book of Judges
13. Which religious leader is quoted as commanding women to be silent during services?
a. The first Dalai Lama
b. St. Paul
c. Muhammad
Answers
1. b. Deuteronomy 22:21.
2. a. Koran, 2:256. But other sections of the Koran do describe coercion.
3. c. Most early suicide bombings were by Tamil Hindus (some secular) in Sri Lanka and India.
4. c. Koran. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet to be revered.
5. All of the above.
6. c. Other parts of the New and Old Testaments object to homosexuality, but there's no indication of Jesus' views.
7. c. Koran, 41:34. Jesus says much the same thing in different words.
8. b. Amos 9:7
9. all of them
10.
all of these. Muhammad's Jewish wife was seized in battle, which
undermines the spirit of the gesture. By some accounts he had a second
Jewish wife as well.
11. a. Psalm 137
12. a. Koran 4:34
13. b.
St. Paul, both in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, but many scholars
believe that neither section was actually written by Paul.
And yes, the point of this little quiz is that religion is more complicated than it sometimes seems, and that we should be wary of rushing to inflammatory conclusions about any faith, especially based on cherry-picking texts. The most crucial element is perhaps not what is in our scriptures, but what is in our hearts.
POINTS TO PONDER
We welcome your comments on the spirit, word and intent of this piece; on how you personally fared with the quiz; and your thoughts on how much the average Sikh knows about a) Sikhi, and b) other faiths.
[Courtesy: New York Times]
October 10, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Gur Singh (Chicago, U.S.A.), October 10, 2010, 11:49 AM.
Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel laureate, gave the following comment on receiving the First English translation of the Guru Granth Sahib: "I have studied the scriptures of the great religions, but I do not find elsewhere the same power of appeal to the heart and mind as I find here in these volumes. They are compact in spite of their length, and are a revelation of the vast reach of the human heart, varying from the most noble concept of God, to the recognition and indeed the insistence upon the practical needs of the human body. There is something strangely modern about these scriptures and this puzzles me until I learned that they are in fact comparatively modern, compiled as late as the 16th century, when explorers were beginning to discover that the globe upon which we all live is a single entity divided only by arbitrary lines of our own making. Perhaps this sense of unity is the source of power I find in these volumes. They speak to a person of any religion or of none. They speak for the human heart and the searching mind."
2: G. Singh (Chicago, U.S.A.), October 10, 2010, 11:54 AM.
It would be worth doing a similar quiz on Sikhism, including questions pertaining to the Dasam Granth.
3: G. Singh (Chicago, U.S.A.), October 10, 2010, 11:59 AM.
Questions from the Hindu Gita could have been included to support the point being made. I am afraid it too has some dangerous and destructive stuff in its teachings.
4: K. Singh (Boston, MA, U.S.A.), October 13, 2010, 9:05 AM.
I agree with G. Singh. I know the attendees at Sidak, the 2-week long leadership retreat hosted by SikhRI did a similiar quiz, which Dr. I.J. Singh referred to a couple of weeks ago on this site. I would request and will see if we can make that quiz available; otherwise, we should design our own!