Survey: Teens’ Religious Knowledge Shallow

The majority of American teens believe in God and worship in conventional congregations, but their religious knowledge is remarkably shallow and they have a tough time expressing the difference that faith makes in their lives, a new survey says. [...] Though the phone survey depicted broad affinity with religion, the face-to-face interviews found that many teens’ religious knowledge was “meager, nebulous and often fallacious” and engagement with the substance of their traditions remarkably shallow. Most seemed hard put to express coherently their beliefs and what difference they make.

Okay, so that’s the funny part — i.e., “Oh, definitely, I’m a believer — but I have no idea what the hell I believe.” But then, as you might expect, in comes the monkey wrench of moral bias, which is so prevalent in religious surveys like this:

The research found that devout teens hold more traditional sexual and other values than their nonreligious counterparts and are better off in emotional health, academic success, community involvement, concern for others, trust of adults and avoidance of risky behavior.

Now, some of this makes sense, i.e., traditional sexual values. But better off in emotional health? Greater concerns for others?

And an important question here is: given all this, how can one even put these two things together in any relevant way? That is, on the one hand, we have a completely inadequate, “meager, nebulous, and often fallacious” religious belief that teens can’t even express coherently; and, on the other hand, we have the claim that religious teens are “better off” than their non-religious friends in these areas.

But it’s probably me. I must be missing something.