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A Pew Survey from 2010 seems to indicate that this could be the case, with the atheist/agnostic group outscoring all others on a 32-question quiz of religious knowledge.

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Obviously, this lone survey hardly constitutes definitive evidence, and could be skewed by confining its sample to the United States. I've been trying to look deeper into this, but cannot find much more than anecdotes and conjecture. Have there been other similar studies/surveys done worldwide?

Of course there is not likely ever to be a definitive yes/no answer to a question such as this, but statistically, among the general public: have those who self-identify as atheists been shown to consistently demonstrate a greater knowledge of religion than those who identify themselves as believers?

Sakib Arifin
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Monkey Tuesday
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    What an interesting study & question! Given that the questions are multi-theistic (i.e. tests knowledge of Judaism, Mormonism, etc.), the study doesn't really indicate that people of a given belief know more about their own religion, but rather what they might know about other religions. The study does not measure the depth of a specific religion. While I'm not surprised with the breadth of atheist knowledge indicated in this study, I'd be surprised if most atheists had the same depth of knowledge as most believers (which is not something the study tests or reflects). – Brian M. Hunt Aug 16 '11 at 15:46
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    The question seems to contain the answer. – Suma Aug 16 '11 at 16:24
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    Should Atheists (who specifically don't believe) and Agnostics (who don't take a position either way) really be grouped together? – Randolf Richardson Aug 16 '11 at 18:26
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    @Randolf (A)theism and (a)gnosticism are not different position on the same question; they relate to two different questions: Do you believe in god yes/no? That decides whether you are a theist/atheist. Do you believe that one could ever know for certain that there is a god? That decides whether you are an agnostic. – Lagerbaer Aug 16 '11 at 19:20
  • @Lagerbaer: Many of the Agnostics I know tell me that they're not sure if there is a god and that they're basically "sitting on the fence," while many of the Atheists I know are certain that there is no god due to lack of verifiable evidence. Because of this attitude, I wonder if one of these two groups would be more or less inclined to have more knowledge about the various religions, hence the reason for my comment-question. – Randolf Richardson Aug 16 '11 at 19:27
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    @ran that doesn't make much sense: if they are not sure, they reasonably lack faith (which is by definition accepting something without proof). So both agnostics and atheists are non-religious, which is why they are grouped together. – Sklivvz Aug 16 '11 at 20:43
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    @Sklivvz: To me, Agnosticism is a form of "sitting on the fence" or "undecided" that is vaguely similar to abstaining in a vote; you can type "define agnostic" into the Google.com search field for a definition that includes "a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God." (Additionally, typing "define atheism" reveals "The theory or belief that God does not exist.") If it came down to voting for whether gods are real, Atheists would obviously vote against, "believers" would surely vote in favour, and I strongly suspect that most Agnostics would abstain. – Randolf Richardson Aug 17 '11 at 00:00
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    @Randolf I find the dictionary definitions of atheism and agnosticism to be very poor, and I think culturally influenced too much by people's prejudices. It should read: One who is without a belief in any god(s). That's it. Gnosticism is the state of knowledge. Thus you can be Agnostic Atheist or Gnostic Atheist. Gnosticism is ONLY a statement of knowledge, you need another word in there to define what thing the knowledge state applies to. – Larian LeQuella Aug 17 '11 at 00:40
  • @Monkey Tuesday, You did indeed answer the question yourself in the question. I just wanted to add that in general (Please note limitation) adherents to a particular religion are not encouraged to study other religions. Also, in general, people who arrive at atheism through study and examination try to find out about other religions. Note: IN GENERAL! So the real question should be, do atheists know more about more religions than adherents do. I would say, generally yes. – Larian LeQuella Aug 17 '11 at 00:43
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    @Larian LeQuella: Thanks for that clarification on what the definition should be, especially with your hair splitting examples that provide an interesting perspective for justifying the need to improve those definitions. +1 – Randolf Richardson Aug 17 '11 at 01:08
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    It makes sense to me that believers are satisfied with their beliefs and tend to not be so much interested in the details of other religions. Athiests on the other hand probably have (at times), some interest in looking into the religions for the purposes of one or both of these:
    • convincing themselves that faith really is just a crutch
    • fending off proselytizers with tough questions
     – Captain Claptrap Aug 17 '11 at 01:14
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    @Randolf :) Yeah, I get rather "uppity" (is that really the right word for it) on that particular definition, because, as I said, there seem to be too many cultural biases as it is towards atheists. – Larian LeQuella Aug 17 '11 at 01:15
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    @Larian LeQuella: I can relate to that -- a few years ago a right-wing Christian slashed my tires after discovering that I'm not a believer (I'm not the militant type of Atheist trying to push this view on others), and I had to get the police involved. Perhaps this image of Mr. Gruff will at least give you a laugh for reflecting how worried some of the right-wing-nuts can get: http://www.southdacola.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/safety.png – Randolf Richardson Aug 17 '11 at 01:26
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    @Randolf, I had the exact type of thing happen, except it was bible verses scratched into paint of my car, and the police pretty much refused to investigate it based on "lack of evidence" (the irony hurt). This was in the South-eastern US... Glad to be in New England now. – Larian LeQuella Aug 17 '11 at 01:45
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    @Larian I would agree with your generalities, as my anecdotal experience tends to validate the knowledge of atheists (myself included, for purposes of disclosure) vs theists, and even foregoing the temporal aspect of the question (if x amount of atheists are former theists, their self-ascribed title would then depend mainly on when they were asked) I'd still need to see more data on this topic, such as if it holds cross-culturally or is consistently repeatable before I'd go so far as to say that the question answers itself. – Monkey Tuesday Aug 17 '11 at 01:56
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    @Larian also, thank you for clearing up a little of the terminology hair-splitting. I had a terrible fear that by the time I got back to this question it would be 4,000 comments arguing about atheist/agnostic. – Monkey Tuesday Aug 17 '11 at 02:08
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    The title should read "religions". – vartec Aug 17 '11 at 10:11
  • btw. http://ibcsr.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=150:is-atheism-linked-to-intelligence&catid=25:research-news&Itemid=59 – vartec Aug 17 '11 at 10:15
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    @Larian - In database terms, atheism is "" value in "which god(s) do you believe in" column; whereas agnosticism is NULL value. It's a subtle difference from database design point but an important one. NULL means you don't have an answer. – user5341 Aug 17 '11 at 13:41
  • The results show that statistically they know more than others about the trivia questions asked. That is all that this showed. This survey had no questions about Hindu, Buddism, Jainism which have a signifigant following. And I am not certian that the answers to the questions all provided the best choice of wording. – Chad Aug 17 '11 at 15:54
  • @DVK, this isn't math or databases, it's language. :) You are free to disagree, but look at the root words. Gnosticism is a state of knowledge. Not a null set. Atheism is the null set. Literally: A-Theism. Greek: A=Without Theism=God(s). – Larian LeQuella Aug 17 '11 at 22:24
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    @Larian - you're mixing up NULL value and null set. Two unrelated things. – user5341 Aug 18 '11 at 01:19
  • @DVK I always thought agnostics did not believe in religion rather than god. So in the god field would be n/a and the religion field would be null. – Chad Aug 18 '11 at 18:11
  • @Chad - no. Agnostics state that they don't KNOW what the correct theistic answer is (be it "no god" or whatnot). People who don't believe in religion are called Kevin Smithies :) – user5341 Aug 19 '11 at 02:19
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    When will they learn to put some standard/deviation, confidence intervals or whatever measure of variability they like in these tables? Like that those numbers mean absolutely nothing. – nico Aug 19 '11 at 13:58
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    Why would you expect people to be educated in a religion they do not follow? – Neil Meyer Oct 29 '13 at 10:18
  • The study cited in the question indicates that atheist citizens of the United States have a better knowledge of "basic concepts of various religions" then Christian citizens of the United States. The study also excludes Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and many other religious groups. So, we don't know which group has a better knowledge of religion and we can't know until a more accurate and worldwide study is conducted. The simple answer to this question is, we don't know. – Sakib Arifin Jul 09 '16 at 19:02
  • The wording of your question is ambiguous. It seems to imply that an average atheist knows better about Christianity than an average christian. But that's not at all what the study says. It says that an average atheist knows better about basic concepts of many religions than an average christian. To clarify the wording you should always use the term religions with the plural. – Bakuriu Jul 10 '16 at 09:58
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    This comment will probably get buried, but isn't the real reason for this the minority effect? Most people in the US are Christians, implying that only the more intelligent and interested would have enough knowledge to buck the trend. Which explains why Mormons are so knowledgeable about religion. In my majority-Buddhist country, Christians have higher educational qualifications than any social group, including Atheists. – Twilight Sparkle Jul 10 '16 at 22:41
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    It's possible to ask a set of questions that non-believers are more likely to know than believers. For example, a Christian coworker and I (atheist) knew about the death penalty for leaving Islam, while a Muslim coworker didn't know about it. – Golden Cuy Jul 12 '16 at 08:40
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    Apart from the "minority effect" and unrepresented groups, why doesn't anyone question the validity of the data in this poll? Only 3,412 participants isn't many. And then of course, these numbers aren't distributed evenly over the various religious groups. For example, looking at the base data there are 667 White evangelical Protestant, and only 212(!) Atheist/Agnostic. It's a statistical fact that large numbers tend to move to an average and that small numbers are more likely to produce outliers. Unfortunately, no statistical analysis is provided. We're looking at pretty random results here! – Gert Arnold Jul 14 '16 at 21:43
  • It doesn't surprise me that atheists know a bit more about religion than their religious peers. One of the more common arguments atheists have during conversations is using what religious people don't know about religion against themselves. – T. Sar Jan 26 '17 at 13:49
  • Just from skimming the questions, it seems to me that there might also be an effect that what they are asking are exactly the kind of things atheists would know about religions: High profile points of dissent among religions (which lead to religious strife, one of the main arguments atheits use against religion) and teachings that look most absurd from a materialist point of view like the catholic church's teachings on communion. That is, the facts asked about are probably not such that they require in-depth knowledge of a religion (which is fine but skews the picture.) – sgf Feb 02 '17 at 10:07

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Someone pointed out that the answer was in your question. But do you really mean, "Do atheists have a better knowledge of religion than believers, all other factors being equal?". What if atheists have a better knowledge of many things than beleivers, because they tend to be better educated. Your figures also showed Mormons and Jews to be exceptionally knowledgeable. Perhaps they too tend to be better educated?

Your source, The Pew Foundation, itself notes that

Data from the survey indicate that educational attainment – how much schooling an individual has completed – is the single best predictor of religious knowledge.

And even some theists concede (404) that

atheists have historically been drawn from upper social grades and higher education levels

Web_Designer
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Raedwald
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    Sorry, had to convert my +1 to –1 because you’re quote-mining and thus distorting the quotation: the Theos site actually concludes the opposite of what your quotation seems to say, namely that converts to atheism are drawn from low education backgrounds while converts to theism are drawn from high education backgrounds. (Personally I’m convinced that their research is BS but that’s irrelevant here.) – Konrad Rudolph Aug 19 '11 at 15:13
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    Yes, they then go on to talk about converts. But they still seem to concede that atheists are in general better educated. Indeed, if atheists are generally better educated than theists, and the conversion were uncorrelated to education level, then naturally converts from atheism to theism are more educated than converts from theism to atheism. – Raedwald Aug 19 '11 at 15:20
  • definite +1 for "all other factors being equal" – Monkey Tuesday Aug 22 '11 at 20:11
  • @KonradRudolph I had to do the same. – Sakib Arifin Jul 09 '16 at 18:26