What Do You Know About The Separation of State and Church?

[RiverStone]

Take this short 21 question quiz and find out.

http://ffrf.org/quiz/ffrfquiz.php

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Thanks! I can think of a lot of people I know who should take this quiz but who either

would blow it off in the first place or cry out that it has a liberal bias.

I made the 14-17 range. I got the constitutional stuff right but was off in terms of who brought which cases to court and so forth.

[BOSSHOG]

7. Steve Colbert comes to mind

Truthiness has a liberal bias. I scored 17, got my Catholics and Lutherans mixed up and falwell and robertson are one entity to me. I also got the constitutional stuff correct.

That liberal bias of an objective test asking mutliple choice questions is just so evil.

You done real good for a 27 year old.

Got my handy dandy hardbound Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Article of Confederation with a handy dandy Index and chronology of events. Available at Barnes and Noble. It would make a great Christmas Present for any religious zealot on your shopping list.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Hmmm, I wonder if I could get a good deal if I bought them in bulk?

[Arkansas Granny]

27. Same here.

[AllegroRondo]

2. 19 right!

woohoo!

[RiverStone]

5. wow!

I got 16 - though you get an A AllegroRondo in understanding what it means to keep religion OUT OF OUR GOVERMENT!


peace~

[BOSSHOG]

19. I think afternoon liberty is in order for you Teammate

I got 17, can't tell falwell from robertson or lutherans from Catholics but I aced the actual constitution questions.

[Neurotica]

3. I'm a "scholar"

Great questions -- this quiz successfully rebuts many of the common myths.

Unfortunately, no matter what the facts are, certain people will believe what they want to believe and you can't convince them otherwise.

[Xipe Totec]

4. I know that if you don't keep them apart, they'll screw each other

Got 15 out of 21.

Some of the questions are tricky!

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Only one wrong

I missed question 8, about which early colonies practiced freedom of religion.

Very nice test, thanks for the link!

Added: According to the test results page, the average score out of 28,090 people taking the test is 12. That is shameful.

[RiverStone]

12. You should teach this stuff - maybe you do?

Ok, how'd you get so damn smart

[TechBear_Seattle]

30. I was born that way

That, and I've long been a student of religious liberites.

[Neurotica]

21. Helping your kids with social studies

is a great review for some of the questions! That's the only reason I got early colonies questions right!

[JuniperLea]

8. 16 out of 21!

This is great! People need to be educated. I never thought I knew enough about the Constitution, but according to this test, I know more than most Americans. That is truly scary!

I'm sending this link to everyone I know! Thanks for posting, RiverStone!!

[Zenlitened]

9. All I know is that when Jesus signed the Declaration of Independence...

... he said Amer'ca was a Christian Nation!!!

I don't have to take some commie-pinko-liberal-war-on-christmasin' quiz to know that!!

[watercolors]

10. I got 13 , out of 21, passing grade

A good test for all to take, very interesting

[longship]

11. Thanks

I got 18 out of 21. Missed the Q's about the Puritans, and the one about "In God We Trust". Guess I forgot that that happened in the fifties. Should have known that.

ed

[formerrepuke]

13. 18/21.. the fundies would go out of their way to dispute all the answers, though...n/t

[CT_Progressive]

14. 20 out of 21 (missed #13) Put Falwell. :)

It sounded so... Falwellian.

[hfojvt]

15. I hate when that happens

I got one wrong, since I guessed that the John Adams making Christmas a national holiday was goofy enough to be true, and I guessed that they were trying to trick me into giving the obvious answer of 'false'.

The test does not tell very much about the separation of church and state, it is mostly about historical trivia. There need to be some questions like "The first Amendment prohibits a school from allowing Gideons to distribute Bibles on school property." or "The first Amendment prohibits Congress from passing a resolution recognizing the importance of Christmas".

Also it would be nice if the test came from a law school or group of Constitutional scholars rather than an anti-religion advocacy group.

[ThomWV]

17. 19

[ceile]

18. 17/21

Not bad I guess.

[madokie]

20. better than average 15 of 21

[fascisthunter]

22. 20 of 21.... I'm Surprised

A few guesses.

14. In 1890, bible reading was outlawed from Wisconsin schools. Who was responsible?

a Lutheran family (wrong)


b. a Roman Catholic family. A Roman Catholic family objected to the exclusive use of the Protestant King James Version of the bible. The court barred all bible reading from Wisconsin public schools. . Catholicism was a small minority in 19th-century America. It is usually minority groups who need the protection of the Bill of Rights.

[napi21]

23. 16 of 21. Interesting. I wish there were a similar quiz put together by

some organization like Harvard, Yale, National Law Center so somewhere like that. I'd love to send this to a number of people I know, but I'm sure when they saw the name on the site, they'd disregard it as biased and untrue.

[blondeatlast]

24. 18/21 for this secularist Christian.

[RiverStone]

33. question for you...

What's a secularist Christian?

Is not secular defined as "seperate" from religion?

Good score BTW!


peace~

[onenote]

25. good quiz. two quibbles

While the COnstitution doesn't refer to "God" it does, in the signature clause, refer to the "year of our Lord". And while the Declaration of Independence doesn't refer to Jesus or CHristianity (or even to God), it does invoke the "protection of Divine Providence" -- a term understood as a reference to a supreme being.

[TechBear_Seattle]

31. But the question did not ask about Lord, it asked about God

Likewise, "Divine Providence." I took the questions literally.

[onenote]

34. agreed. that's why I described them as "quibbles" not disagreements

As I said, i think its a good quiz and it drives home important points. However, I thought it was interesting that they didn't ask about references to "God" in the Declaration of Independence, focusing instead on Jesus and Christianity, but they asked about references to "God" in the COnstitution. I suspect that they did so because they weren't even thinking about the reference to "year of our Lord" in the signature clause of the Constitution (which can reasonably be viewed as not really a part of the Constitution itself) and were thinking about the Divine Providence reference in the Declaration, so they skirted around the argument that its the equivalent of a refernce to God by focusing on Jesus and Christianity in that question.

[NoGOPZone]

36. There is a reference to God in the Declaration

Also a reference to a Creator. That may explain why the questions were worded that way.

[spanone]

26. 15 - semi literate

[B3Nut]

28. w00t...19 out of 21

I borked the question on where church-state separation originated, I mistakenly chose France, instead of the USA. Oops. And I picked Jewish instead of Catholic-Mormon for the question of who sued to stop prayers at HS football games. A couple others I admit were wild lucky guesses, but still...I'm pretty happy with the result.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[donheld]

29. Thank you for posting that

Very educational.

[Reverend_Smitty]

32. Woot! 20 out of 21!!!

I got number 14 wrong

[TheCentepedeShoes]

35. Got 18 right

Missed
#14 - bible reading in Wisconsin
#15 - prayer at HS football games
#16 - lemon test

[Goblinmonger]

37. Got 'em all, baby.

But I team teach a Constitution-based class, so I cover all those things when I do the unit on first amendment freedoms. I might argue that the lines between Robertson, Falwell, and Hitler are pretty non-existant.

Great test.

[RiverStone]

39. You win!

The honor of being the only person in this thread that got 100% correct (so far).

Damn good thing you know what you teach; bet your pretty good at it too.


peace~

[hootinholler]

38. Later after work, thanks n/t