I haven't posted Beliefnet's Belief-O-Matic quiz results in years. I just went over to re-take the quiz, and here are my results:
Unitarian Universalism (100%)
Secular Humanism (97%)
Theravada Buddhism (93%)
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (88%)
Liberal Quakers (87%)
Taoism (81%)
Reform Judaism (80%)
Sikhism (80%)
Mahayana Buddhism (78%)
Nontheist (76%)
Neo-Pagan (75%)
New Thought (74%)
Scientology (74%)
Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (69%)
New Age (64%)
Jainism (56%)
Hinduism (55%)
Baha'i Faith (52%)
Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (47%)
Islam (45%)
Orthodox Judaism (45%)
Orthodox Quaker (45%)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (41%)
Eastern Orthodox (35%)
Roman Catholic (35%)
Seventh Day Adventist (24%)
Jehovah's Witness (19%)
I've long described myself as basically a scientific skeptic and a sociological Christian with philosophical Buddhist/Taoist metaphysical sympathies. To entertain myself, I need to re-take the test to try and score 100% for a religion I target, e.g., Islam. How would I need to answer the quiz's twenty questions to score 100% Muslim?
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1. Secular Humanism (100%)
ReplyDelete2. Unitarian Universalism (93%)
3. Liberal Quakers (76%)
I don't care enough to check the rest, but I'd say at least the top two are accurate.
My scores:
ReplyDelete1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (94%)
3. Liberal Quakers (82%)
Don't care for #2 at all; #1 is definitely accurate for me, though.
Interesting-- what a pack of religious liberals we are. Nobody opted for the emailed (full) results, I see.
ReplyDeleteI gave a bogus name and email the first time I took the quiz. I decided to take it a second time; almost all my answers were the same. So here's the full results:
ReplyDeleteSecular Humanism (100%)
Unitarian Universalism (94%)
Liberal Quakers (80%)
Neo-Pagan (78%)
Theravada Buddhism (74%)
Nontheist (72%)
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (70%)
Reform Judaism (62%)
New Age (60%)
Taoism (58%)
Orthodox Quaker (45%)
Sikhism (45%)
Mahayana Buddhism (44%)
Scientology (44%)
Baha'i Faith (42%)
New Thought (41%)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (37%)
Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (32%)
Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (29%)
Eastern Orthodox (25%)
Islam (25%)
Jainism (25%)
Orthodox Judaism (25%)
Roman Catholic (25%)
Seventh Day Adventist (20%)
Hinduism (14%)
Jehovah's Witness (5%)
For the record, I have extremely low opinions of a number of cults and religions found in this list (and that's putting it mildly!) Taoism is cool, though! That said, all in all, I am most definitely a secular humanist.
Well that's interesting...
ReplyDeleteMainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
Baha'i Faith (86%)
Liberal Quakers (81%)
Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (73%)
Orthodox Quaker (70%)
Reform Judaism (69%)
Sikhism (69%)
Unitarian Universalism (68%)
Eastern Orthodox (63%)
Roman Catholic (63%)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (61%)
Orthodox Judaism (61%)
Neo-Pagan (56%)
Seventh Day Adventist (54%)
Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (50%)
Islam (49%)
New Age (47%)
Mahayana Buddhism (46%)
Theravada Buddhism (45%)
New Thought (45%)
Jehovah's Witness (41%)
Secular Humanism (36%)
Scientology (36%)
Taoism (36%)
Hinduism (32%)
Jainism (32%)
Nontheist (24%)
#1 was not too surprising. #2 was, though--I had never even heard of the Baha'i Faith before. I also seem to be the least secular humanist of the bunch so far (and will probably remain so).
I had some fun with data. I plugged Kevin's, Charles', and my own numbers into an Excel spreadsheet. I discovered that the overall scores of "belief" are 1715 for Kevin, 1271 for me, and 1493 for Charles (assuming my numbers are right). I had expected Charles to have the highest score, but the honour goes to our mutual friend Kevin, it seems.
ReplyDeleteThis means that Charles' "belief" score is 87% of Kevin's, while mine is only 74%, which is perhaps a reflection of my own minimalist belief-system.
Of course, how BeliefNet quantifies conviction and belief will be very much open to question. It would seem that BeliefNet has an interest in associating people's convictions with organized religions, and this may be highly problematic as a methodological issue. Furthermore, I don't know how accurate their understanding of different religious traditions is.
For my part, I tend to consider these types of quizzes as somewhere between astrology and astronomy in terms of their usefulness; they're basically the way a lot of people have of trying to impose some order on the universe. That is, these kinds of quizzes are a rudimentary approach to putting oneself in the context of the rest of the web and what's out there.
On the other hand, there's obviously much to recommend many of these quizzes, and even when they're wrong, they can still show a certain amount of insight. Well, this one was certainly a fascinating exercise. Thanks for posting it, Kevin!
I thought this sounded quite interesting, so I went and took the quiz:
ReplyDeleteMainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
Liberal Quakers (84%)
Reform Judaism (81%)
Baha'i Faith (80%)
Unitarian Universalism (74%)
Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (68%)
Orthodox Quaker (67%)
Orthodox Judaism (63%)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (61%)
Islam (59%)
Sikhism (58%)
Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (57%)
Neo-Pagan (56%)
New Age (54%)
New Thought (53%)
Seventh Day Adventist (53%)
Jehovah's Witness (51%)
Mahayana Buddhism (50%)
Eastern Orthodox (48%)
Roman Catholic (48%)
Secular Humanism (46%)
Scientology (45%)
Theravada Buddhism (44%)
Taoism (36%)
Jainism (35%)
Hinduism (33%)
Nontheist (29%)
I have no idea what that all means, but I'm pissed off that even though I opted out of their newsletters I am getting them in my email! I went to unsubscribe and what do you know, there was an error and I couldn't unsubscribe. [insert angry face here]