Tuesday, January 17, 2006

I'm almost failing as a Catholic

I was browsing the vastness of the internet today and found a site called Beliefnet. There was a quiz called the Belief-o-Matic. I did it, and these are the results that it listed. The top score on the list is the faith that matches my beliefs the closest:

1. Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
Also sometimes referred to as secular, modern, or humanistic. This is an umbrella term for Protestant denominations, or churches within denominations, that view the Bible as the witness of God rather than the word of God, to be interpreted in its historical context through critical analysis. Examples include some churches within Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church of Christ. There are more than 2,000 Protestant denominations offering a wide range of beliefs from extremely liberal to mainline to ultra-conservative and those that include characteristics on both ends.
2. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (84%)
3. Conservative Christian/Protestant (76%)
4. Liberal Quakers (76%)
5. Orthodox Quaker (76%)
6. Jehovah's Witness (69%)
7. Bahá'í Faith (68%)
8. Unitarian Universalism (67%)
9. Reform Judaism (63%)
10. Neo-Pagan (62%)
11. Sikhism (59%)
12. Eastern Orthodox (56%)
13. Roman Catholic (56%)
14. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (54%)
15. Mahayana Buddhism (54%)
16. Orthodox Judaism (53%)
17. Theravada Buddhism (53%)
18. New Age (51%)
19. Seventh Day Adventist (50%)
20. Secular Humanism (48%)
21. Jainism (43%)
22. Hinduism (43%)
23. Islam (43%)
24. Scientology (39%)
25. Taoism (37%)
26. New Thought (36%)
27. Nontheist (21%)

It was interesting to see that I have some beliefs similar to Judaism, or Buddhism, or even Scientology. It all leads back to the fact that we as human beings believe in the same things, we just call them by different names. We all try to live our lives in the best way possible to achieve a higher state of being, both here on earth and in the afterlife. Our "religions" are just labels that we put upon ourselves.

1 comment:

Tracey said...

I was leaning toward a generalization. I realize that my statement cannot be taken as a literal blanket over all "religions", b/c it is never that simple in life. But as someone raised in a very narrow ideology, these revelations of different spiritual venues are eye-opening, and it is comforting to see that I am not alone, or pigeon holing myself into one new ideology that is still as narrow as the one I came from.

Blah, blah, blah.. I'm 25 and I babble :-)