Monday, April 09, 2007

New belief quiz

QuizFarm has a new belief quiz that is interesting, but flawed in my opinion. Try it before you read my score below, which I’ll compare with my Belief-O-Matic results. I’m interested to see if you get the same surprising results I did.

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Ok, first my Belief-O-Matic results:
1. NeoPagan, 100%
2. New Age, 100%
3. Unitarian Universalism, 98%
4. Liberal Quaker, 97%
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestant, 91%

Considering that I admit to being a NeoPagan and a pledge-paying member of a UU congregation, I’d say they were reasonably close.

The QuizFarm results:
You scored as Islam.
Your beliefs are most similar to those of Islam. Do more research on Islam and possibly consider taking the shahadah and officially becoming a Muslim, if you aren't already. Despite the actions of some - who go against the teachings of Islam - Islam is a religion of peace; the word "islam" means "peace through submission to God." "Muslim" means "one who submits to God." Islam is the third of the three Abrahamic faiths, and it shares much with Judaism in Christianity; its differences are the acceptance of Muhammad as the last and final prophet, and the oneness of God - in other words, that Jesus, though he was a revered prophet, was not in fact God, and only one God exists. Apparently the Taliban could not read (though their name means "students"), because the Qur'an states that men and women are equal as believers, and that all believers should be educated and seek knowledge. Modesty in dress and behavior is required in Islam for both men and women to preserve the values of society and move the emphasis from superificial appearance to intelligence, knowledge, and God.
Islam 83%
Satanism 79%
agnosticism 67%
Paganism 63%
Hinduism 58%
Buddhism 50%
Judaism 46%
Christianity 29%
atheism 8%

Ok, I can understand the high Satanism score- Satanists are quite Libertarian, as am I (although to my mind, they take the next step to full libertine). But Islam 83%? Surely the author of this test must be very niave about what is and isn’t tolerated within the faith of Islam. Yeah, yeah, religion of peace, got it... but would the average Imam take it peacefully if he knew that someone in his flock who professed to be Muslim was also a panentheist, an animist, and practiced religious witchcraft? If I have a reader more knowlegeable of Islam than I, (which wouldn’t take much, I’ll admit), perhaps they could tell me if that would be within the acceptable range of practices? Can Islam be syncretic with Wicca?

3 comments:

Lilylou said...

I took it too, Joel, and was advised to investigate Islam! Maybe it's a promotional tool for the religion!

Anonymous said...

Apparently unitarianism triggers the Islam detector. My scores:

Islam 67%
Paganism 54%
agnosticism 50%
Judaism 46%
Hinduism 46%
Buddhism 42%
atheism 42%
Christianity 38%
Satanism 38%

Cee Jay said...

My highest scores were 71% Hindu, 63% Pagan,54% Islam and 54% Buddhism on the Quiz Farm test. There is apparently no Unitarian Universalist. Strange that so many of us had a high score for Islam. The Hindu and Pagan scores I can understand.

I've taken the Belief O' Matic several times and it varies but UU is always among the top two or three. My top five seem to stay the same just in a different order sometimes. It probably depends on the weight I put on my answers to the various questions. This time it came out

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (95%)
3. New Age (91%)
4. Mahayana Buddhism (89%)
5. Liberal Quakers (83%)