A terrible Christmas article

[mindstalk]

A friend shared this https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/christmas-jesus-christ-birthday-25-december-brits-ignorant-nativity-christianity-bethlehem-a8094496.html for reasons of his own; I find it notable as a case of a newspaper trying desperately to find pearls to clutch. The tone is of shocking British ignorance about Christmas, but it only makes sense if you assume that every single Briton should know about it. "Almost one in ten didn't know!" "Only 8 in 10 knew!" If you instead consider that nearly 8% of Britons claim non-Christian religions[1], and 25% no religion at all, and the possibility that some people will troll pollsters with dumb answers, then 80-90% of Britons knowing the basics about Christmas and Jesus's life is pretty damn good. The only things that fell below that level were Maundy Thursday, which I've barely heard of myself, and Jesus probably knowing Greek, which I'd grant is non-obvious to the average person knowing little about the ancient world.

I wonder if pollsters have done calibration questions, like "can you name the Queen?"

]1\ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_UK