Monday, January 5, 2009

Know Thyself

The Belief-O-Matic is a website that poses 20 faith-based questions, and then compares your responses to the prescribed responses of a variety of religions. After you submit the survey, the faith at the top of the list is the one Belief-O-Matic found that most closely matches your own beliefs. The following 26 faiths are listed in order of how closely they align with your professed beliefs. In terms of TOK, this is a great tool both in process and product. Each of the 20 questions requires an evaluation of stances you may or may not addressed in yourself, and can help help you to define your views. The resultant list gives you the terms (names of religions) whose connotations allow you to effectively convey your beliefs, both to others and for yourself. I, for example, came up 100% Liberal Quaker, and 98% Unitarian Universalist (the religion I currently practice)

Have fun!

http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx

I thought it might be interesting if people posted their results as comments, along with your response to their accuracy or inaccuracy - is this an effective way to gain knowledge?

12 comments:

Rachel said...

If you feel comfortable doing so, let us know you results and your response.

Rachel Dean: 100% Liberal Quaker, 98% Unitarian Universalist.

I currently consider myself a Unitarian. Because that was reflected so accurately in my score, I am intrigued by the placement of Liberal Quakerism above that.

Anna said...

My results were 100% Orthodox Quaker, followed by Orthodox Judaism at 98%, and Liberal Christian Protestant at 94%. I'd consider the quiz fairly accurate, as I catagorize myself as a practicing Protestant.
I noticed as I went through the questions that I was able to pick out some answers that I knew the general Christian population would agree with, tempting me to maybe check those boxes instead of choosing what I truly believe.
I think the quiz would be very interesting and effective on one who does not currently affiliate themselves with a particular faith, and see what the quiz can make of their unbiassed responses.

Drivebracket said...

So I took this test out of curiosity, and my results were 100% Theravada Buddhism and 96% Mahayanna Buddhism. Which I find odd. The next closest religions were Unitarian Universalist, Hinduism, and Neo-Pagan. The test was indeed interesting, but I don't feel that it is very accurate. Many of my beliefs were not represented at any point the entire way through in any responses.

griffin said...

I found the results to my test very accurate, with 100% Secular Humanist and 91% Unitarian Universalist, whatever that is. While the test in itself presented an accurate choice of beliefs, though I don't believe any knowledge was gained since I had already been aware of what the results would be before I took it.

Erin said...

I was 100% Unitarian Universalist, then Liberal Quaker, then Mahayanna Buddhism. I had definite opinions on most of the questions, and I think the results were quite accurate (I'm a practicing Unitarian Universalist). It was also interesting to research and compare the three religions.

Lauren P said...

In response to Anna, I never actually afiliated myself with any set belief, thinking that this would be too exclusive. On the Quiz, I got 100% Secular Humanism, which after reading the decription, found to be very accurate. The ones after that were 95% Unitarian Universalism, and 86% Theravada Buddhism.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Max Dean said...

It seems pretty accurate. I got Eastern Orthadox 100% and Roman Catholic 100%. As a Catholic, I was a bit interested that Eastern Orthadox got tied with Roman Catholic. Both demoninations have very similar beliefs compared to other denominations though. I agree with Anna; it seemed like the test might be geared for people who aren't members of a particular religion. Many answers seemd to fall into particular religions too neatly. Did anyone else get people outside of TOK to try the test? I got most of my family to try, and interestingly enough, they got the same top two religions as me, but wildly different ones after that. How much of a role does everyone think family and background play in determining beliefs?

justina said...

My top three were:
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Neo-Pagan (98%)
3. Liberal Quakers (85%)

I do not consider myself to be of any particular religion/belief system (baptized Catholic, Lutheran family members) and found this to be interesting. I also noticed that the phrasing of some of the questions pointed directly (or used the exact words of) specific religions, such as Roman Catholic. Odd reference.

In the end, as a knower's perspective, what does this all mean?

Elliott said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tymyshu said...

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (99%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (98%)

It seems to me like all my religions have "very diverse beliefs" for all of their individual facets(belief in deity, incarnation, etc...). so I think my answers never fit into one religion, and so they said the most diverse religions they had.
This was an interesting quiz, and gave me some insight into other religions and beliefs, but I really don't care what religion something tells me I am. I have my beliefs, and I will stick to them, regardless.

tymyshu said...

yeah, this is Kellan by the way.

Ilya said...

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (92%)
3. Liberal Quakers (85%)
4. Neo-Pagan (83%)
5. Nontheist (79%)


I'm not sure what to make of it, really.... I don't consider myself to be of any particular religion... you could accurately call me a heathen, in fact... so this was an interesting thing to look at and try to figure out how I supposedly fit into specific religions...

To Rachel: cheers and thanks for the interesting post!


Ilya Smirnov