Despite the lack of enthusiasm about the Bible among the 900 respondents, three-quarters said they owned one and almost a third said it was significant in their lives.
SHOOT: The Bible is an important book. It's an important part of our cultural heritage, the source of many of our prejudices and cultural constructs. It is probably far more important than it should be, and is quoted as though it is quotations out of God's mouth, verbatim, which it obviously ain't. That said, it's also not an irrelevant,unimportant work. It has formed the basis for some communities, and divisions, and understanding it, even if that is simply the basis for understanding what is wrong with the world (how deluded and unrealistic are some of our hopes), it is not an entirely useless pulp. Unfortunately.
More:
There's no God, relax.
Forty percent did not know that the tradition of exchanging Christmas presents originated from the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts for the infant Jesus, while 60 percent could not name anything about the Good Samaritan, the Durham University study found.
Youngsters were particularly disillusioned, telling researchers that the Bible was "old fashioned," "irrelevant" and for "Dot Cottons" -- a reference to the church-going EastEnders' character, the National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 showed.
One respondent to the survey said David and Goliath was the name of a ship while another thought Daniel, who survived being thrown into the lions' den, was "The Lion King."
Atheists, however, were not unduly worried about the decline in the Bible's popularity.
"It shows really that religion is becoming less important to people," said Pepper Harow, campaigns officer at the British Humanist Association.
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