Edited by author 06-04-2002 10:25 PM
Please post the results of your Beliefnet quizzes here. These are What's your spiritual type? and Belief-o-matic, as discussed in this mcgees.org post.

Josh, here are my scores:
   1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
   2. Unitarian Universalism (87%)
   3. Liberal Quakers (82%)
   4. Orthodox Quaker (71%)
   5. New Age (66%)
   6. Mahayana Buddhism (65%)
   7. Theravada Buddhism (65%)
   8. Reform Judaism (65%)
   9. Neo-Pagan (64%)
   10. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (63%)
   11. Hinduism (54%)
   12. Taoism (53%)
   13.Bahá'í Faith (53%)
   14. Sikhism (52%)
   15. New Thought (49%)
   16. Seventh Day Adventist (49%)
   17. Jainism (47%)
   18. Secular Humanism (45%)
   19. Scientology (44%)
   20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (42%)
   21. Orthodox Judaism (39%)
   22. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (37%)
   23. Eastern Orthodox (34%)
   24. Nontheist (34%)
   25. Roman Catholic (34%)
   26. Islam (33%)
   27. Jehovah's Witness (27%)

 You scored 73, on a scale of 0 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score:
 Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the
                               particulars but not the Big Stuff

Not exactly what I expected. If you had asked me what I thought I would score, I would have probablu thought 50 to 60.

You scored 17, on a scale of 0 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score:
25 - 29
Hardcore Skeptic -- but interested or you wouldn't be here!

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (98%)
3. Liberal Quakers (85%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)
5. Nontheist (79%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (68%)
7. Neo-Pagan (67%)
8. Taoism (55%)
9. Bahá'í Faith (54%)
10. Reform Judaism (53%)
11. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (48%)
12. New Age (47%)
13. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (47%)
14. New Thought (41%)
15. Mahayana Buddhism (38%)
16. Scientology (37%)
17. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (36%)
18. Orthodox Quaker (36%)
19. Sikhism (36%)
20. Jehovah's Witness (20%)
21. Eastern Orthodox (17%)
22. Islam (17%)
23. Jainism (17%)
24. Orthodox Judaism (17%)
25. Roman Catholic (17%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (13%)
27. Hinduism (8%)

Um...belief-o-matic is on crack. I found many questions troubling as they asked for belief, but not reasons for belief. It seems when i'm constantly stating that i don't believe in god and the afterlife but i'm tossed into a category of Liberal Quaker (85%) while only 79% nontheist. Secular Humanist...yes...good call, but 100% Unitarian??? Belief-o-matic just had a good time w/ the lightbulb. Also it didn't allow the non-reliegious to blame religion for problems in the world. The religious get to say that the problems of the world are the fault of the "sinners," but I can't say that a large sum of the violence in this world smacks of religious hypocrisy...but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Regarding /m3, I agree about the 'on crack' bit. The unilateral blame issue is a big one; it shows that the site is indeed "BeliefNet" and not "BeliefOrNonBeliefNet". This is highlighted by the semantic compression in options such as "No God, or don't know, or doesn't matter".

I think the site also hedges its bets and guesses that everyone is a Unitarian Universalist.

Nice Dennis-Miller-rant-ism, by the way.

Edited by author 06-28-2002 07:42 PM
In addition to the What's your spiritual type? and Belief-o-matic quizzes, please post the results of your Political Compass quiz here.

I've been trying out a slightly different lifestyle (get your minds out of the gutter): Waking early even when I don't have to work. I've found that I have much more free time and have actually become quite bored during the day even though I've gotten all my work done...this also leads me to taking quizzes online and posting my results.

I scored:
Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.03

I was actually surprised at my economic score, but now that I think about it; it doesn't seem too off. I tend to be troubled by a free market economy and ethics (especially environmental). So I want free economy with regulated bussiness practices...um...does that make me a hypocrite?

Edited by author 06-30-2002 02:22 AM
We are pretty close, aren't we? Your score puts you two squares to the right and one square up from my chart. That's closer than Hitler and Thatcher are to each other, so we must be very similar indeed! :-)

There are elements of free trade I like, but I too am troubled by a free market economy and the ethical concerns it raises. I do not think these are contradictory nor hypocritical, despite what some free-marketeers might claim. It would be like saying a retail establishment is improperly discriminatory if it requires patrons to wear shoes in the store. The proper response is "We just need to establish a baseline of safety. We do not want you stepping on broken glass and hurting yourself. Once that is satisfied, everyone is welcome." Such a policy is significantly different from a sign which says "no gays" or "no whites". So if the rule is "no torturing children", that is a far more reasonable rule than "we don't want anything from Peru (or China, or Norway, or Tuvalu....)"

I am assuming you expected your score to be more free market-leaning?

I actually thought that I would sit further to the left. I thought my scores would show me as the anti-corporation hippie that want every process and strategy regulated by the government. The other week at work I found an article taped to the door of every bathroom and breakroom. This article was exactly the sort of thing that should not show up at work: A political posting. The author decided that they really disliked California’s new emissions law (AB1058). They claimed that it would outlaw personal watercraft that used two-stroke motors and stated that we should call the governor’s office and key state senator’s offices and complain about the law.

This enraged me for several reasons. 1) I considered it cowardly to not put your name on a posting of this nature. 2) I considered it deceptive that the full text of the legislation was not posted right next to it. 3) It is completely inappropriate for a workplace environment (creates a potentially hostile work environment that opens the company up to lawsuit, and it’s impolite to start conversations about religion or politics in the workplace). 4) This posting is exactly the kind of misguided interpretation of freedom that makes me foam at the mouth and seriously consider violent protest in the form of a baseball bat to the back of somebody’s head (key word being ‘consider’). The idea that I was working with somebody that would post something in this manner and of this environmental disregard made me boil. In fact, after reading the legislation and all the amendments I was even more angered that it was as weak as it was. I wanted it to say something like “Listen, we know it’s hard for car manufactures to come up with this stuff, but it’s like you people haven’t even been trying. Get it together in 7 years or don’t expect to sell any cars in California. That’s right Detroit; we want clean cars in 7 years…and make them affordable while you’re at it. I mean really, who did you think you were fooling with the EV-1? Honda’s knocking at the door right now with the Insight and what do you guys have to show for it? An SUV style car built on the same premise but that gets half the mileage and isn’t even out yet...good work guys, next time you complain about Japanese cars elbowing you out of the market we know what we’re going to say.” But no...it’s much softer than that.

So that’s why I thought I would be a bit further left...but like I said, now that I think about it...

Here's my political spectrum chart...

Economic Left/Right: -5.38
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.69

Josh, you are way too conservative for my tastes. :)

My results:
Economic Left/Right: -2.75
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -3.49

I don't know why, but I found it hard to strongly agree or disagree with most of the things. I also wish they had an "I don't know!" option.

Since I forgot my scores and found they were not listed here, let me copy from mcgees.org:
Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.85

Amal, you fall just where I would have expected you to, i.e., within the quadrant (-4,0) to (0,-4). In our new political spectrum terminology, I guess that would mean you are "southwest-center." :-)

It is interesting that you found it hard to strongly agree or disagree with most things and that you wanted an "I don't know" option. Jennifer initially answered strongly agree/disagree for each option, then realized how black-and-white she was being and retook the test. I never thought "I don't know", but frequently thought "That depends." I would answer agree/disagree based on the cumulative mass of different options. So much of this reduces to a personality question, in the way one answers questions.

Josh - I think you said what I was thinking much better than I did. I would have liked a "that depends" option which is what I meant by "I don't know". I got a feeling of "that depends" on several questions, which is why I had trouble strongly agreeing or disagreeing with some questions. I have a hard time feeling absolutely one way or another about statements. I'll have to look at it again sometime. There were a few in particular that I didn't really know how to answer.

Now I'm rambling!

Amal

Got it. And as a note, I think I only stated "strongly agree/disagree" on certain questions. "Social workers waste time on people who were just born bad", for example, was a a "strongly disagree." :-)