30 November 2008

A Conunundrum of a Quiz

Via James McGrath, I found the Belief-O-Matic quiz. Top five results above the fold, the rest are below.

There were several questions where, from my perspective, there was no meaningful distinction between two of the responses, so I picked the one whose wording I liked better. Probably choosing the other would have altered my results. I do find it amusing that I placed only at 51% as a "non-theist" when, in fact, I would accept that label. I wonder if this quiz considers it synonymous with "atheist"... The distinction that I make, which may or may not be standard, is that "non-theist" means simply "not a theist". Thus it would include polytheists, pantheists, atheists, etc. Atheist is sometimes defined in the same way, but I tend to think of it as "one who lacks belief in any god or gods." Feel free to attack these definitions in the comments, as I have no particular attachment to them. I just prefer to define my terms before using them.

Oh, as for my #1 result: Universalist, yes. Unitarian, green. That is all.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (89%)
3. Neo-Pagan (83%)
4. Theravada Buddhism (80%)
5. New Age (78%)

6. Secular Humanism (77%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (76%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (75%)
9. Taoism (74%)
10. New Thought (63%)
11. Scientology (63%)
12. Reform Judaism (60%)
13. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (54%)
14. Orthodox Quaker (53%)
15. Nontheist (51%)
16. Baha'i Faith (49%)
17. Sikhism (45%)
18. Jainism (44%)
19. Hinduism (44%)
20. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (29%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (29%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (25%)
23. Islam (24%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (22%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (20%)
26. Roman Catholic (20%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (7%)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi :-)
I define atheist the same way you do. Hadn't considered where poly- or pan-theism would fit in though.
It got me about right -
1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (90%)
3. Nontheist (82%)
I thought it was weird how they lumped together some quite different answers, as in 'No God or supreme force. Or not sure. Or not important.'

John said...

Here's my top 10.

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Nontheist (90%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (86%)
4. Theravada Buddhism (73%)
5. Liberal Quakers (59%)
6. Neo-Pagan (55%)
7. Mainline to Liberal
Christian Protestants
(40%)
8. Taoism (37%)
9. New Age (30%)
10. Reform Judaism (27%)

Word verification: congist - to pretend to understand what someone is saying in order to get them to shut up.