By DAN RESITONE
KIRO Radio

It might say "In God We Trust" on our money, but new numbers show in that in America, if you want correct information about God, you're better off asking the Godless.

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life's Alan Cooperman said its first-of-its-kind survey found that in the U.S. many of the faithful are pretty clueless.

"We found that a fair number of people did not correctly answer fairly basic questions, not only about other religions, but their own religion," said Cooperman

Most Protestants didn't know who Martin Luther was and 40 percent of Catholics didn't know the principle of transubstantiation in communion.

According to the new survey, it was the doubters and disbelievers that scored highest, and among those practicing their religion, Jews and Mormons came out with top scores.

"Atheists and agnostics have generally higher levels of education than average," said Cooperman," but they did better on this survey than members of many other religious groups, even adjusting for education levels."

Cooperman thinks there is a reason behind why those who don't practice religion seem to know more about it. "If you think about it, atheists and agnostics, who are a small part of the population, about four percent of the U.S. population in total, are people who've thought a lot about religion and pay a lot of attention to religion."

Americans did seem to have a good grip on some facts like Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Moses got the Ten Commandments, however those seem to be the facts that someone can get that from listening to Christmas Carols or watching Hollywood epics.

You might also be interested in:

• Pew Forum on Religion & Public Live
• Pew Research Center