I stumbled across this interesting quiz a few days ago:
Even if YOU don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-Maticâ„¢ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Maticâ„¢ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice…or ought to consider practicing.
Of the religions it listed for me, the one I actually practice was third (a 92% match), and the top one (which it said was a 100% match) is the closest organized religion that I know of.
For those more interested in the bottom of the list: the last three were Islam and Roman Catholic (tied at 11%) and Jehovah’s Witness (at 7%). I guess I just wouldn’t make it as a door-to-door Bible pusher. 😉
The problem with the quiz for me is that it’s a theology quiz. My religion doesn’t really focus on that, and its all over the map with regards to afterlife etc, other than a few key principles. So the survey doesn’t work at all for me.
Did you try to take it? GoddessJ just did… she had the same top-four items as I did, though in her case the top one was the one we both practice. And the bottom one on her list was also Jehovah’s Witness. 🙂
I took the same one before, I assume Belief-Net hasn’t modified it a lot.
This is what I wound up with. Funny, I don’t wear a turban or always carry a knife. 😉 I think the test is a biased one, simply because half the time, my beliefs weren’t even represented. (For example, the nature of G-d; acosmic, personal, and no incarnation? Not an option. Also, all forms of Orthodox Judaism doesn’t even always have my belief, though Monotheism of course is a constant, as is the practice of halachah by its adherants. (The “way of walking”, literally, or “laws”.) It asked a whole bunch of questions that only fitted Xtianity, especially Protestantism, too.
Though really, Orthodox Judaism wound up at least tied for third place. Surprisingly, your beliefs (undisclosed) were rather low on the list. That’s because of the test being mostly focused on theological minutia, which considering Orthodox Judaism’s focus on praxis (everyday actions done with G-d’s will in mind), doesn’t make sense for a test meant to detect if your religion of choice matches it. 🙂
In general, I haven’t found the BeliefNet site to be edifying, and those few times it treated Orthodox Judaism it was slightly condescending and uninformative, so I stopped reading it.
Yes, I found that some of the questions didn’t have an answer that fit my beliefs well either. I just picked the one that was closest. In one or two cases, when even the closest answer wasn’t all that close, I marked the question as low priority as well.
And yes, it’s far more Christian-oriented, but that makes sense — most of the native-English-speaking world is Christian, as (I’m sure) are the people behind that site.
Then call it “denomination-o-matic.” 😉