Meme

[llcoolvad]

The Belief-o-Matic meme

(I think one and two are reversed, honestly)

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (98%)
3. Liberal Quakers (88%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (82%)
5. Nontheist (72%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (70%)
7. Neo-Pagan (64%)
8. Bahá'í Faith (55%)
9. New Age (49%)
10. Taoism (47%)
11. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (46%)
12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (43%)
13. Orthodox Quaker (42%)
14. Mahayana Buddhism (40%)
15. Reform Judaism (40%)
16. Jehovah's Witness (36%)
17. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (33%)
18. New Thought (33%)
19. Jainism (30%)
20. Sikhism (29%)
21. Scientology (27%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (20%)
23. Hinduism (18%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (16%)
25. Islam (16%)
26. Orthodox Judaism (16%)
27. Roman Catholic (16%)

http://beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

OK, *** SOOOO *** not accurate that I match more stuff in Mormon, Scientologist, or Christian Scientist faiths than in Jewish or Roman Catholic. And Jehovah's Witness? Seventh Day Adventist? This is all just filler. I'm an atheist, people. Secular Humanist. I'll take the UU, that's fine. The Quakers, Nontheists, also fine. Anything crazy? Not fine! No sacred undergarments. No thetans. No "clear". I don't know what Jainism is. I always think of Baha'i as flaky 60s-leftover faith. I like holidays, so there is no Witness here (or wait, is that the Adventists? feh!). Stupid test!

When your test starts out and asks what is the number of the deity and you say "No God or supreme force" shouldn't the test filter out belief systems that include gods? Foo.

Comments

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I got about the same results, but this test was no good for atheists or agnistics. First of all, non-God explanations were always mixed in with not knowing whether there is a God and with not caring whether there is a God. I think this could be three very different kinds of people.

Also, there was only ever one nonreligious description of beliefs. For example, one thing I picked was "Humankind is "saved" through human effort rather than through religious or spiritual means." It doesn't ask me what kind of human effort. (And why is my notion of saving in quotes, like it's not real saving?) Is my guide to living properly based on compassion, good works, taking care of myself so that others don't have to, respecting the environment, staying one step inside the law, or what?

For another example, why is there so much human suffering? My answer is "None of the above; human suffering has nothing to do with the supernatural or karma." That's not an answer. Do I think it's because people are naturally whiny, because resources should be distributed more evenly, because there is some randomness that can't be controlled, because we need more laws and punishments to control evil people, or what?

To be fair, there aren't a lot of organized belief systems they could list at the end that don't involve a deity. My description of my belief system would be something like Compassionate Realism. The closest actual organized belief system is probably Girl Scouts (not generally considered to be spiritual, but they do have rules on how to act). The closest thing on this list is probably Secular Humanism for which I got 99%! Ha! I beat you! But I also have the Unchurch first, which is wrong, because I no longer enjoy discussing the possibility of a deity. At all.

[kicking-k.livejournal.com]

This is, in many ways, about what I expected:

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (96%)
3. Orthodox Quaker (90%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (87%)
5. Seventh Day Adventist (70%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (67%)
7. Bahá'í Faith (66%)
8. Hinduism (64%)
9. Neo-Pagan (63%)
10. Theravada Buddhism (62%)
11. Jainism (59%)
12. Reform Judaism (59%)
13. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (58%)
14. New Age (58%)
15. Eastern Orthodox (56%)
16. Roman Catholic (56%)
17. Secular Humanism (55%)
18. Taoism (51%)
19. Sikhism (50%)
20. Orthodox Judaism (39%)
21. Scientology (37%)
22. New Thought (36%)
23. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (35%)
24. Islam (35%)
25. Nontheist (35%)
26. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (31%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (25%)

Not that I know the details of all these creeds. I actually am a liberal Protestant, so that's fair enough, and I'm a pacifist because I can't countenance killing people ever being right, so that's where the Quaker thing must come from. And I'm guessing the Neo-Pagan thing is from my tendency to go all "Hello trees! Hello sky!" when faced with the natural world.

I have very little idea what the Unitarians or Seventh Day Adventists actually believe, though the latter sounds kind of millenarian (I may be wrong).

The only thing I know about Jainism is that it's the one where you mustn't kill anything, not even step on insects. Which does sound quite like me.

I'm quite tempted to get my husband (highly moral non-theist) to take this and see what he comes out as. Though there doesn't seem to be a heading for Self-Flagellating Perfectionists.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

my tendency to go all "Hello trees! Hello sky!" when faced with the natural world

Ha! This made me actually laugh out loud.

I guess I could follow that part of Jainism to some extent -- except mosquitos. There must be a clause about mosquitos. No one could possibly suffer them to live.

I'd like to think of myself as a highly-moral non-theist, if I'd actually thought of it in those terms before. I had a discussion with a work friend about a year ago about religion, and she asked me something along the lines of "without religion, why would anyone be good?" and I replied "why wouldn't they? I mean, I believe that this life is all you get. So why wouldn't I want everyone to have a good time?" She was a bit flummoxed, I think. She said "so you really believe that starving orphans in Africa are just going to die, and that's it? No heaven? That's pretty awful!" and I said "Why yes, it IS pretty awful, isn't it?! Doesn't that mean we need to do as much as we can to improve lives everywhere? Rather than just writing it off and saying "oh, how terrible, but at least they'll get their eternal reward!"

She's still unconvinced, of course. Which is fine. But I think she understands my position a little better. It's like you say "atheist" and people hear "anarchist" and visualize cities burning.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I completely agree about the test questions. I guess I'm putting a lot of burden on some free quiz on the Vast Intertubes -- but why create something like this if you don't put some thought into it?

I came across the term Secular Humanist a few years ago and realized that's probably the closest to what I feel. [see my comment to K below]

because I no longer enjoy discussing the possibility of a deity. At all.

And that is totally how I feel. Which makes it hard to live with my newly superstitious mother -- she's rediscovered her magical thinking since Dad died. Everything is "Oh, GreyKitty is in heaven with your father, he's taking care of her now". Endlessly annoying. And not too fun for Dad -- he was never a cat person...

[kicking-k.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree - and at the moment when you say "Christian", many people have a tendency to hear "fundamentalist". It's a struggle!

As I see it, atheists of your (and my husband's) stamp are certainly more morally laudable than people like me, who can't quite shake off the idea that it must all sort itself out hereafter. It's the Devil's Disciple worldview - that true goodness is not self-interested, and if you act morally without believing you'll be rewarded for it, that's less self-interested (and therefore more worthy) than acting morally in the belief that you'll be rewarded in heaven (or even on earth, I suppose). (Oh, dear, Shaw put this all so much better.)

I'm sorry to say that "Hello trees! Hello sky!" was a misquotation of "hello clouds! hello sky!", and not original to me.

[george-wesley.livejournal.com]

I got a chuckle out of your post and have excerpted from it on my blog.

georgewesley at http://bahaiviews.blogspot.com