h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ever wondered if you chose the right religion? Well, here is the chance to find out, where you really belong:

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

As it turns out I am a "unitarian universalist" - what a surprise!

I also scored high as liberal quaker and secular humanist while I failed big time as roman catholic, eastern orthodox, muslim and orthodox judaist

(You have to wait for an e-mail to learn how you score in other religions. I did and have since marked other emails as spam so have no problems with this)

can you do that without giving them your email details?

Another unitarian universalist here.

secular humanist

Add me to the Unitarian column. 45 years ago, I found a Unitarian church that I liked. I was still in college then. Since then, I've found that there are great differences among Unitarian churches. I get bored silly in some of them. Others are great. The older I get, the less patience I have for doctrinal nitty gritty. I'm perfectly happy to think of Jesus as a good and wise man who later had his life and teachings distorted by crazy people, including some of his disciples who had some loose screws. Doubting Thomas was later vilified, but I think he had his head on straight. Mary Magdalene was vilified, too, mainly because Jesus wanted her to lead the disciples after his death. The disciples saw it differently. She got a raw deal, I think. Not that it matters a lot now.

The ancient Romans had a bee in their bonnet about immortality. Who knows if anyone's soul will still exist after death? I wouldn't mind still being around in some form, but praying for it to happen isn't likely to make any difference whatsoever.

re 3:

I gave them a name and an email address, but if they bother me any more I'll mark their email adress as a spammer - et voila

re 6: My late uncle in Texas was a unitarian as is his eldest son in Chicago. (I think the younger son in Philly is too, but I'm not sure). Very sensible people

Secular Humanism is the second-strongest option for me [88%].

I'm a Unitarian Universalist myself, a syncretic rather than a catholic (taking those two terms in the most generalized sense possible).

My Catholic friends say to treat me as orthodox.

An orthodox syncretic unitarian universalist?

Actually, I'd read the myths of the Greeks and the Romans, Aesop, a considerable body of native American tutelary animal fables, the Arabian Nights, the basic Buddhist literature, and a considerable body of Polynesian fairy tales before I ever made the discovery, in third grade of elementary school, of religion, when I met a young man who had one.

It was only then I got around to reading the Bible.

Religion(s) became for a time an issue of fascination for me.

I do have orthodox friends too.

Douglas Adams described himself as a radical atheist. He used the term radical to emphasize that he *really* did not believe there is a god.

And yet he said: "I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting".

So do I - but I can't tell you why

Here are some other quotes on atheists and their atheism

“To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.” - Woody Allen

"Atheism: the religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority." - Stephen Colbert

"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls - on the last priest." - Emile Zola


(agnostic)

Many Unitarian Universalists are atheists.

For me, it is a question which does not excite me.

I disagree with Douglas Adams, who at least on one occasion used the term "wishy-washy" about agnostics:

"In England we seem to have drifted from vague, wishy-washy Anglicanism to vague, wishy-washy Agnosticism - both of which I think betoken a desire not to have to think about things too much.

People will then often say, "But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?" This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it."

I find it odd and incomprehensible why Adams did not see agnosticism as open-mindedness. I do. I have no faith and I can neither prove nor disprove the existance of a force (spiritual or not) behind the big bang and why I am circling around the sun.

We may one day find all the answers to "how" - but will science ever be able to answer "why"?

Smug senses of superiority are not the exclusive domain of atheists. Smugness comes naturally to people of all faiths and creeds, and makes intelligent onlookers cringe. Shakers were pretty cool, in my opinion. They kept to themselves and did their own thing and found meaning in a simple life. They did not produce descendants who could follow their example, though.

I confess to curiosity about the history of crucial eras, the first century A.D. being at the top of my list. Octavian was showing the world what an empire was capable of, given a first rate administrator at the helm of government. Vesuvius famously erupted, freezing Pompeii and Herculaneum in time; millennia later, archaeologists were able to get an idea about what a Roman-era village looked like before centuries of erosion wore away the paint from surfaces and corroded the statues. Some time around the time of Vesuvius' eruption the Jewish temple was destroyed, and the Jewish people went into their diaspora. Then there was this guy Jesus, whose followers were so passionate about spreading his message that they outdid themselves in writing about his life and works. Tantalizing bits and pieces of Jesus-related documents have been rediscovered here and there. In Nag Hammadi in 1945, 50 or 60 long-buried documents were unearthed. There were gospels according to Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, and others. Monks had been ordered to destroy these documents, but there were some who disobeyed, hence this cache of documents. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered a couple decades later. The most recent finds have been made in the last two decades during excavations under condo developments in Jerusalem. Given the age of the ossuaries there [roughly 2,000 years ago], one would not expect to find pictures or illustrations on the ossuaries, as Jewish custom forbade it. Nevertheless, a depiction of a man emerging from the mouth of a large fish was found on a number of them. Jesus was known for invoking the tale of Jonah and the whale. These must have been early Christian burial sites...

I got Hinduism, but I am surprised I did not come out as a Buddhist.

Did Buddhism originate as a form of Hinduism?

I have just done some internet searching and found that Hinduism and Buddhism are not related but may have similar beliefs and are two separate beliefs.

I remember having a book of world faiths with their origins but I don't have it anymore.

Another Unitarian Universalist aparantly. And here I was thinking I was God