Quiz re: faith

[pegkerr]

Gacked from jeanineers:

You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 80% spiritual. 40% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Weird. I'm not at all sure about the results. I thought that it was rather Procrustean, trying to force either 'yes' or 'no' answers and they certainly have a different understanding of Christianity than I do--but the way they map the various faiths is interesting and worth discussion.

Edited to add: And here is just one obvious "duh" about the underlying assumptions which shows how poorly this quiz is designed.

Does the designer really think that none of these religions could possibly overlap???

Comments

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

I can already tell just by looking where they place things on the axes that I wouldn't like this quiz.

[sophie-spence.livejournal.com]

I wanted to answer so many of the questions: hmm, well, that depends, what do you mean by "recant" or "redemption" or "explain everything"? The quiz thinks I fit in with Humanism, which does not surprise me - but the map did: where's Islam?

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there were more than one question where I was looking for the hidden third button. "Do you believe that your own redemption lies in your own hands or those of a superior power?" indeed. Yikes, I believe that the superior power created a system in which redemption is mine to accept or reject, so which one of us deserves credit for my salvation? (I picked God, of course; my momma didn't raise no dummies.)

The map does seem odd to me too. As to your question, I should think that Islam should be lumped in with Judaism/Christianity. (Indeed, I think that we should phase out the word "Judeo-Christian" and replace it with "Abrahamic", but we'll save that for another day.) I fell under Taoism myself, which is well-observed. I don't practice it at all, but you might say that if Christianity is the steak that I eat then Taoism is the marinade that it was soaked in. But combining philosophies (i.e. Fundimentalism) with religions (i.e. Scientology) is rather a mishmash.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

It's a crock. But it makes pretty colors!

[eatmorewaffles.livejournal.com]

That quiz seems to be very basic. If you want more of a comprehensive religion test, I would recommend the Phd certified (whatever that means exactly, I'm not sure) religion test at Tickle.com. The link can be found here. (http://web.tickle.com/tests/religion/?test=religionogt)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

That one was interesting until I found out they wanted to sell me the results for $4.95. All they wanted to tell me for free was that I was best suited to religions compatible with open-mindedness, which, oddly, didn't come as an eye-opener.

(Mind you, I realized that I was ticking off the box for 'You should only lie to avoid hurting others' after telling them my name was Abcd Edghi, e-mail address globglob@hotmail.com. So, you know, my results wouldn't necessarily have been very accurate, anyhow.)

:)

[eatmorewaffles.livejournal.com]

Hah. That sounds more of like a white lie (sort of...) I guess it would be more of a self-preservation issue of your e-mail account since you probably don't want spam. I've actually discovered a bug in their system that allows you to access the professional reports for free, and they seem to be pretty comprehensive and accurately researched.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

their complete separation of reason and faith disturbs me. i can already tell i don't agree with the quizmakers.

"A split between reason and faith is as intolerable as a reduction of faith to what reason will allow." -- Carl Braaten, Christian Dogmatics

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I, and most of the people I know who've taken this, have gotten the 'Spiritualism' result. At least it's on the reasoning end of the spectrum.

I wonder why the designer considers Judeo-Christian belief more 'Scientific' than Buddhist/Hindi religions? (Which at least have some directly experiential practices like yoga/meditation.)

I see the dichotomy between Faith and Reason, but am not sure why they consider Scientific-Spiritual a dichotomy, or the proper countervaling axis. It makes more sense to me to use 'objectively-oriented' vs 'subjectively-oriented' as the 2nd axis. And I think different religions tend to emphasize different sensory-modes, too; i.e.: Christianity focuses on The Light, some pagan religions more on kinaesthetic senses.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

This quiz gave me conniptions when I did it, yes.

I like the Belief-o-Matic better, which, despite the name, has much more flexible and meaningful questions.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Er, link here.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

Does the designer really think that none of these religions could possibly overlap???

Sure. If you're a Unitarian. :P

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

I received the *exact* same results when I took this quiz.

It is my professional theological opinion that the designer of this quiz knows very little about world religions. The major flaw is the assumption that dogma=faith. Oh, and the assumption that the axea of faith-reason and scientific-spiritual couls divide or define any religious tradition. There are adherents of all the faith systems (and non-faith systems) listed who fall anywhere on this graph, so you can't use a person's reason--for example-- to chart her religious convictions.

Also, Muslims seem to not exist.