A questionnaire given to students after finishing The Discarded Image, yet before beginning a conversation about the book.
On a scale of 1 to 6, where…
1 means “Strongly Disagree”
2 means “Disagree”
3 means “Kind of disagree,”
4 means “Kind of agree”
5 means “Agree”
6 means “Strongly agree”
…please respond to the following statements.
1.___The Medievals were more superstitious than contemporary Americans.
2.___The Medievals were less moral than contemporary Americans.
3.___Because the Bible is more commonly accessible to contemporary Americans, the average American has a more sound understanding of Christian theology than the average Medieval.
4.___The printing press, and the widespread distribution of cheap Bibles, has had absolutely no negative effects on modern American society whatsoever.
5.___The Medievals were less philosophical than contemporary Americans.
6.___The widespread acceptance of the heliocentric model of the universe, and the rejection of the Ptolmaic model, has been good.
7.___The widespread acceptance of the heliocentric model of the universe, and the rejection of the Ptolmaic model, has helped men to live lives which are more pleasing to God.
8.___It is obviously better for men to live to be an average of 75 or 80, rather than only living to be an average of 45 or 50.
9.___ The world is a much better place to live now than it was a thousand years ago.
10. ___Medieval people lived boring lives.
11. ___Modern American life is pretty boring.
12. ___Very little of what I do during the day could have been done a thousand years ago.
13.___America is the greatest nation in the history of the world.
14. ___America is the most righteous, most Christian nation in the history of the world.
15. ___Most of what I believe about God has been gained not through conversations with friends, not through participation in church services, not through paying attention to sermons; rather, most of what I believe about God has arisen directly from personally reading the Bible.
16. ___If I could never read a Bible again for the rest of my life, my life would completely fall apart.
17. ___Because the average Medieval laity (common man, not in the clergy) did not have access to the Bible, they were less moral and less ethical than contemporary Americans, who have access to the Bible.
18. ___Because the average Medieval laity (common man, not in the clergy) did not have access to the Bible, they were less philosophical than contemporary Americans, who have access to the Bible, not to mention cheap copies of Plato we can buy at any used bookstore.
19. ___The Medievals had a poor understanding of what a human body was.
20.___Modern Americans treat human bodies with dignity and respect.
21. ___I would prefer to have a modern American doctor perform an appendectomy on me than have a Medieval doctor try to treat my appendicitis.
22.___Medieval laity were more apt to believe in miracles because they did not have Bibles.
23.___Most of the activities I do throughout the typical Saturday have only been done for the last twenty years. On a typical Saturday, I do almost nothing that someone my own age would have done one hundred years ago.
24.___Modern clergy are better educated than Medieval clergy.
25.___I enjoy my life greatly primarily because I live when I do; the thought of living in the 1960s is somewhat horrifying to me.
