22 April 2003 by Published in: rants 2 comments

A friend of mine linked the Belief-O-Matic yesterday. I’ve seen it before and taken the quiz several times, but I went to take it again, just for funsies. Now mind you the quiz has several disclaimers about how it may or may not work for you very well and so on and so forth. I guess before I start into full on rant mode I should say that this isn’t an angry rant, but more of a perplexed rant. Usually when I take social, political, or religious quizzes I get answers exactly like I expect them. Beliefnet has me scratching my head every time I take this test (three times in the past three years or so). Why, you ask? I’ll paste the top three matches of my result set below :

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Orthodox Quaker (91%)
3. Liberal Quakers (87%)

Now you, too, are scratching your head, right? Of course blah blah blah Protestant comes as no surprise as I have been heavily steeped in Protestantism all my life, but Quaker?! How is Quaker even a category? How am I a Quaker? I don’t even like oatmeal, except in cookies, and I’m certainly not at all like the most famous Quaker I know (that’d be Nixon). So…..what’s going on here? Last time I took this test, if memory serves, I came out 100% Quaker. I’ve never been to a Quaker service and don’t know any Friends personally. I don’t even know where the geographically closest group of Quakers to me might be! I come from a highly religious background, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about my spirtuality and religiosity. My beliefs are usually fairly thought through and personal. It’s just plain weird and I don’t know what to make of it. The beliefnet link to what Quakers are and believe in is a lot of some like blue, some like red and not all believe in orange, so it’s not much help deciphering what pegs me as a Quaker. I find it very mysterious, though.

Comments

Lanf
Tue 22nd Apr 2003 at 4:18 pm

It tells me I’m 1. Reform Judaism (100%), 2. Sikhism (98%), 3. Orthodox Judaism (83%) and 4. Liberal Quakers (80%). Maybe EVERYONE gets Quakers….

Wed 23rd Apr 2003 at 10:08 am

I got:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%),

2. Secular Humanism (86%),

3. Theravada Buddhism (81%),

4. Liberal Quakers (81%)

Maybe it’s the pacifism angle?

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