The Belief-O-Matic

Today I went on Beliefnet.com and took their religion quiz. I marked off boxes saying that I do not believe in any sort of God, that there is a supreme force beyond the universe, but still there is no afterlife, people should be kind to one another, divorce should be restricted, rituals are useless, and we should revere nature.

These were the results:


1.
Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2.
Secular Humanism (95%)
3.
Liberal Quakers (91%)
4.
Theravada Buddhism (81%)
5.
Neo-Pagan (76%)
6.
Mahayana Buddhism (75%)
7.
Taoism (73%)
8.
Nontheist (69%)
9.
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (67%)
10.
New Age (65%)
11.
Hinduism (57%)
12.
Orthodox Quaker (54%)
13.
Jainism (54%)
14.
Bahá'í Faith (52%)
15.
Scientology (51%)
16.
Reform Judaism (49%)
17.
New Thought (48%)
18.
Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (39%)
19.
Sikhism (38%)
20.
Seventh Day Adventist (36%)
21.
Eastern Orthodox (27%)
22.
Islam (27%)
23.
Orthodox Judaism (27%)
24.
Roman Catholic (27%)
25.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (24%)
26.
Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (23%)
27.
Jehovah's Witness (13%)

Notice the religion I was raised in is in the bottom five. It makes sense, I rejected an incarnation of God, God itself, the value of penance, I said abortion and homosexuality were okay. It is easy to see how Roman Catholicism ended up there.

Recently I have taken this test and I kept getting a high value for liberal Protestantism (e.g. Episcopalians I assume) which made no sense. I rejected any notion of Christ's divinity, which I think is a pretty big part of Protestantism, no matter how liberal a Christian you are, I think that is one major prerequisite. If you don't accept Jesus as the son of God, then why not take up Islam or Judaism instead? Same God, interesting rituals, see the East.

I put down that I think scientific medicine is better than spiritual varieties. I think that knocked my Christian Science and Jehovah's Witness scores down. The ritualistic religions all suffered similarly, Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox Judaism.

Since I did not put down very many defining characteristics of my beliefs, I of course was given a perfect rating for UU. I suppose maybe one day I will become a member, but I am afraid the whole church might be a little wishy-washy for me. Buddhism sounds good, but I don;t know what the American variety is like, if one would be dealing with a lot of aging hippies whose understanding of the Buddha is based on mistranslated texts and acid trips in their youth, or if it would be a purer system of belief that emphasizes renunciation and compassion. Liberal Quakerism sounds interesting. I bet if I join I can get all the oats I want, and maybe of them big ol' floppy hats.

http://www.beliefnet.com/quizzes/beliefomatic/page2.asp