Tuesday, October 2, 2007

My Belief-O-Matic Results

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (99%)
3. Liberal Quakers (94%)
4. Neo-Pagan (85%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (81%)
6. New Age (80%)
7. Theravada Buddhism (70%)
8. Nontheist (67%)
9. Taoism (64%)
10. Mahayana Buddhism (63%)
11. Reform Judaism (63%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (56%)
13. Scientology (50%)
14. Bahá'í Faith (48%)
15. Sikhism (46%)
16. New Thought (46%)
17. Jainism (40%)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (38%)
19. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (27%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (27%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (26%)
22. Islam (25%)
23. Hinduism (25%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (23%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (16%)
26. Roman Catholic (16%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (11%)

These are the results. Some parts are surprising, some are not. So let's start from the top.

First on the list is Unitarianism. I've always known that my beliefs fit in really well with the Unitarian faith. My dad put it this way: "It's the least religious of the major religions." I don't exactly see it that way. Unitarianism does let its member basically hold whatever beliefs they want, to an extent, while uniting around a core set of morals and ideals. Obviously, I share these morals and ideals.

Next comes Secular Humanism. I had no idea what this is and had to look it up. For some reason, the name made me think it was evil or something. This, of course, was not based on any actual evidence. I had never even heard of it. After I did some research, I discovered that secular humanism and unitarianism are pretty similar. However, there was a "Dangerous Reading" section on their website. That kind of scared me off.

Liberal Quakers. Where to start. I know nothing about Quakers beyond what I've read in [fictional] books. And I don't have time to do research because I have a major paper due tomorrow. So, I'll withhold judgment for now.

Neopagan: not happening.

Now, let's move on down the list to my "actual" religion. Roman Catholicism. I think this story says something interesting about Catholicism. A couple of weeks before my Confirmation, I informed my mother that I had no desire whatsoever to be confirmed in to a church that is ruled by bureaucracy and makes a lot of really stupid decisions (like discrimination against gays and outright forbidding abortions). Her response: "You'll be glad you did it when you're older". I've thought for a while that initiations take place way too early in the Catholic Church--the rationale behind baptizing babies, who have no say in the matter at all, is way beyond me.

The hypocritical aspects of the Church drive me insane as well. I mean, they say that you should treat everyone as you would like to be treated, and then proceed to restrict liberties and exclude minority groups. They preach that poverty and restraint saves your soul, then takes donated money and builds giant churches with huge stained-glass windows and golden crucifixes.

I wrote an opinion article for the magazine about how stupid excluding gays and lesbians from religions is. I'll post it at some point.

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