The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #72381   Message #1245845
Posted By: GUEST
12-Aug-04 - 11:25 AM
Thread Name: BS: Religion
Subject: RE: BS: Religon
I'm really not surprised that my #1 was reform Judaism. I do share most of the beliefs as they are laid out (quite well, I think, for this sort of a thing) here.

Most everyone I've ever been close to/been friends with have been Catholics, Jews, Native Americans who were either traditionalists or Catholic, and African Americans raised in the Baptist tradition who have become secularists like myself.

I do share certain beliefs with certain religions, but I wouldn't use the term "god/God" to describe those beliefs. However, the questions don't allow you to make secularist responses to the questions, just the new agey sorts of answers are allowed. How Protestantly predictable. ;-)

For instance, my #2 was Sikh. Here is the definition given for Belief in Deity:

"God Almighty is impersonal, formless ultimate reality and He is the Creator, personal savior, inner teacher, omniscient, omnipotent, and incorporeal."

Now, if you replace 'God Almighty' with 'the force which created the universe' that statement is a very accurate description of what I believe.

As far as my #5 choice being Islam, I'm guessing it is because I responded to the questions about Jesus (not that this quiz is Christian centric or anything--no mention of BVM, Allah, etc) not being an incarnation of the Christian God. Muslims view Christ as one of many prophets, but not as an incarnation of God. I too believe in human prophets, and in fact, I believe BVM to have been one. But I would believe they are specially endowed with a gift of communicating thoughts related to the aspects of existence that are far greater than ourselves.

So you can see, in many ways I think this little belief quiz, if it weren't so Christian centric, could be a fairly useful tool for a lot of people to learn more about different religious beliefs. I'd even recommend it if it focused more on the teachings of prophets, poets, and philosophers, rather than all those stern vs sweet God Almighties.