Thursday, February 18, 2010

What religion am I?

Today I came across an unusual, interesting website, called Beliefnet.
I took a quiz to find out just where my religious views fit. I was surprised how thorough and thought-provoking the questions were, and liked the fact that I was asked to weigh the importance (low-high) of each question. It starts asking about concepts God, afterlife, human nature, but goes into moral issues too. Like I said, I found it more thorough than most quizzes of the "20 questions" variety...

The top 3 that came up for me were:

Liberal Quakers
Unitarian Universalism
Neo-Paganism

The first 2 did not surprise me at all (that's pretty much what I had figured), but the third came as a bit of a surprise -- I suppose it has to do with my love for nature, rather than any Wiccan tendencies hidden deep in my soul...

On the very bottom of the list (which basically ranks how much your view match with over 20 religions), I found out that I match the very least with the Roman Catholic Faith. That did not surprise me either, but I do still have a a great deal of respect for RC and other traditional/orthodox religions. That is, if they truly follow Jesus Christ's teachings, concentrating on things like love, and fight for social justice rather than stupid things like opposing gay marriage...

When asked to describe her religion on her Facebook profile, a friend of mine put "Religious no, spiritual yes", which I think describes me too.
I do care deeply about many things, and do believe in some sort of supreme force or Ultimate Truth, but am not too worried about details. I think there are many paths to God, and that no one religion or belief system holds a monopoly on truth or salvation.
What matters to me a great deal is how we treat life on this earth: each other, animals, plants, the environment (and I suppose that makes me a Pagan!? -- for a discussion of the origin and definition of the term "pagan", see this Religious Tolerance website)

If you're curious and want to take the test for yourself, here's the link:
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx

1 comment:

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

I don't think I even need to take the test... don't believe in god or gods --but I have seen spirits before (without having first imbibed a lot of spirits) as WP has one.

And I certainly don't care for organized religion.

If someone else wants to worship in whatever way they want to, then fine. Just don't try to invade my brain with it.

Oops, sorry... serious comment from me. Won't happen again!