Mike doesn’t do his homework:
Look at what the illiterate believe. By far most of them believe the bible is the word of God. Most of the barely literate believe likewise. As you move up the scale of literacy, you find belief in the Bible drops off.
Actually, the nation which has the highest percentage of atheists in the Western world, France, only ranks 27th in literacy; it’s 99 percent rating is equal to that of the notoriously religious United States. Vatican City, meanwhile, has a 100 percent literacy rate; ultra-Catholic Poland ranks 9th, compared to secular Sweden’s ranking of 28th.
Furthermore, precisely none of the countries ranking in the bottom 30 are historically Christian nations with citizenries who believe that “the bible is the Word of God”. And it is the Christians in their midst who make up the majority of the literate minority in those countries.
Now, I am dubious of these literacy rankings, as if 99 percent of the adult American population is “literate”, then the bar is set so low as to be almost meaningless. Furthermore, given the failing performance by recent college graduates on a test of their history, law, economics and civics knowledge, it is clear that the attainment of post-graduate degrees cannot be considered evidence of a higher level of literacy. One would also be forced to reach this conclusion by surveying the papers published by PhDs across a wide variety of academic and scientific disciplines.
It never ceases to amaze me how much the typical atheist approach to debate resembles that of the medieval religious philosopher. No facts, no evidence, just a logical structure constructed upon a baseless assumption.