Meme of the moment

[chipotle]

I'd actually taken this "Belief System Selector" quiz before over a year ago, but I've seen it floating around LiveJournal today. I took it again and I think my results are--close to what they were before, although I think Secular Humanism flipped with Theravada Buddhism.

1. Unitarian Univeralism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (98%)
3. Secular Humanism (92%)
4. Theravada Buddhism (84%)
5. Neo-Pagan (83%)

For the record, coming in last was Jehovah's Witness, at 9%.

Comments

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

If you believed "nothing"--you chose every answer in that test as "not applicable," "doesn't matter," etc.--you would come in at 100% Nontheist and 100% Secular Humanist. Try it. (UU comes in third at 86%, then there's a precipitous drop-off, with 18 out of 27 getting a 0% match.) UUs aren't particularly theistic but they tend toward having a common liberal ethic--about 40% of the questions in the test (13-20) are about moral beliefs, not theism, and many UUs have pretty strong opinions about some of those issues. I haven't been to church in a couple years, but the only one I attended here in Tampa was a UU church, and that's how I've identified myself since the early '90s.

I would suggest that your political rants, which make you sound like the love child of Dennis Miller and Pacifica Radio's Amy Goodman, belie your claim to believe in nothing. You have to believe in something to get pissed off, or even to get acidly sarcastic.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

This is essentially the response I was hoping for... thank you. And this is a belief test, not a religious belief test, as you point out; although the test is couched in terms of religious belief. I am mistaking lack of concrete religious belief for lack of belief, or mistaking religious belief for the full range measured by this test. Nevertheless, my overall feeling is that my beliefs are not strong or focused enough to constitute a serious faith... in fact I'm unsure I understand the concept of faith. My rants are attempts at scientific dissection. Obviously they're not objective (since objectivity is a mythical state anyway), but they attempt to be logical, in as much as logic is any more accurate a way of understanding the world than belief in demons or ill humors are. I have faith in the scientific process... whether the functioning of my mind is sufficiently logical enough for this process to divulge an objective reality is another question.

And now, an aside. You would agree that human beings are incapable of true objectivity, correct? If this is the case, then of what use is absolute truth, even if it exists, to creatures who cannot perceive it?

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

This is probably why you come up UU; nearly anyone who has a belief in some kind of ethics that aren't entirely relativistic but doesn't believe in a dogmatic truth is going to end up rating pretty high on the UU scale. This is about as dogmatic as UU's get:

We believe that personal experience, conscience, and reason should be the final authorities in religion. In the end religious authority lies not in a book, person, or institution, but in ourselves. We put religious insights to the test of our hearts and minds.

We uphold the free search for truth. We will not be bound by a statement of belief. We do not ask anyone to subscribe to a creed. We say ours is a noncreedal religion. Ours is a free faith.

We believe that religious wisdom is ever changing. Human understanding of life and death, the world and its mysteries, is never final. Revelation is continuous. We celebrate unfolding truths known to teachers, prophets, and sages throughout the ages.

We affirm the worth of all women and men. We believe people should be encouraged to think for themselves. We know people differ in their opinions and lifestyles, and we believe these differences generally should be honored.

We seek to act as a moral force in the world, believing that ethical living is the supreme witness of religion. The here and now and the effects our actions will have on future generations deeply concern us. We know that our relationships with one another, with diverse peoples, races, and nations, should be governed by justice, equity, and compassion.

UUs often get accused of believing "nothing," but I think the idea that you can feel religious about a lack of dogma is pretty alien to most Americans. Culturally, we certainly have a great deal of trouble approaching concepts like Zen. And in practice, most of the atheists I've met have been at least as dogmatic as the fundamentalist Christians. (Any honest social anthropologist would describe your average Secular Humanist Society meeting as functionally identical to a church service.)

As for the worth of absolute truth, what's the value of seeking truth--absolute or otherwise? Even if it's arguably a quixotic quest, people who seem to treat life as a constant search for real truths, small and large, are far more alive than those who aren't interested in the quest at all (and generally both more interesting and less dangerous in an Orwellian sense than those who believe they've succeeded at it).

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

The description makes me sound so noble. *smile* Or perhaps it seems flattering to me because it's an accurate outline of my moral structure. But I don't know that it's really true. The test doesn't check for certain things; it assumes one's beliefs are consistent from day to day or hour to hour.

I worry that I will never accomplish anything, because it appears to me that in order to accomplish a goal, one must have faith in the validity of one's actions, or faith in the usefulness of the objective, or a strong desire to adhere to a system of belief; and I'm just not that sort of person. I see a system of belief and I rip it apart, I vivisect it. I find the flaws and I beat on them until it all falls apart. It's not something I do out of belief, it's just what I do. It's involuntary and increasingly uncontrollable. I'm aware that even my own orientation has nothing solid to recommend it, that I'm sticking to it because it gratifies me to do so. I wonder sometimes if it's the open-minded people who are flawed, if one has to be ignorant or narrow-minded or paranoid or xenophobic in order to really get anything done. I don't want to have to be like that.

Incidentally, check out my other blathering (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=postvixen&itemid=171348&thread=1181524#t1181524) about the value of reason....