Hmmmm… this is unexpected: according to the Belief-o-Matic™ over at BeliefNet, the religion that most closely matches my personal beliefs (at least as interpreted by an online multiple-choice-style quiz) is Unitarian Universalism, with Liberal Quakerism and secular humanism tied for second place. Mormonism, the dominant faith of my home state and the one with which I have the most personal experience and knowledge of, came in at number 24 out of 27 possible matches. That’s lower than Islam, Hinduism, and even Scientology.
I usually self-identify as an agnostic — I’m not comfortable flat-out denying the possibility of the divine, but I have a lot of doubts, and religion simply doesn’t play any role in my day-to-day existence, except for those moments when living in Utah inevitably demands one to deal with it — so I expected this thing to tell me I was a big ol’ secular humanist. The Unitarian and Quaker results genuinely surprised me. And to be honest, it also surprised me that Mormonism ranked so low. After all, I was raised here, immersed in that faith, even if I wasn’t practicing it; most of my family and friends are LDS, and I really don’t think of myself as hostile to Mormonism, at least no more so than I am to any other religion. (By which I mean that I object to those of any faith who would tell me how to live my life or that I’m not a moral person because I don’t do all the things they do, but I really don’t care what people do or do not believe themselves.) You’d think that a lot of Mormon ideas would be present in my belief system simply by default.
I’m probably making too much of this — after all, Internet quizzes have also told me that I’m Arthur C. Clarke and Spider-Man, and I should know to take them all with an iceberg-sized grain of salt. Still, it’s food for thought, isn’t it?
If you’re interested, the complete breakdown of my results is below the fold:
- Unitarian Universalism (100%)
- Liberal Quakers (93%)
- Secular Humanism (93%)
- Theravada Buddhism (85%)
- Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (77%)
- Neo-Pagan (75%)
- Nontheist (68%)
- New Age (64%)
- Mahayana Buddhism (63%)
- Reform Judaism (62%)
- Taoism (61%)
- Orthodox Quaker (60%)
- Baha’i Faith (50%)
- Jainism (48%)
- New Thought (46%)
- Scientology (40%)
- Orthodox Judaism (33%)
- Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (33%)
- Seventh Day Adventist (31%)
- Sikhism (31%)
- Hinduism (28%)
- Islam (28%)
- Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (28%)
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (27%)
- Jehovah’s Witness (16%)
- Eastern Orthodox (14%)
- Roman Catholic (14%)
Thanks to my buddy Mike G. for the link.
It will come as no surprise to you that I scored 100% LDS… but I also scored 100% Jehovah’s Witness.
Next highest, at 84% was Baha’i Faith… which I’ve never heard of.
Interesting… I wouldn’t think there’d be much overlap between LDS and Jehovah’s Witness doctrine. But then I honestly don’t know much about the subject of comparative religion.
I worked with someone once who was Baha’i. I never did get a good grasp on what it was about. I had the vague notion that it was kind of a new age-y thing, but I could be wrong.
It said I was a Mormon? What the…?
Actually considering most of the internet quizes, I like this one. It was really interesting to read all of the answers for each question and then decide what I felt best fit me. Not sure that too many people, religious and not, get a chance to really sit down and explore like this. I liked it.
Cool, glad you enjoyed it. It was a bit more thoughtful than the usual fare you encounter out there on the web, wasn’t it?
I am equally neo-pagan and unitarian universalist. My professed faith group, reform Judaism, was number 11.
FYI, I would not recommend this particular method of choosing a faith!
Um, no, probably not a good idea… 😉