Belief-O-Matic

Hi, my Unitarian brother.

My top five:
1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (99%)
3. Liberal Quakers (92%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (78%)
I'm trying to figure out #4. How could the an atheist "align" so closely with "Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants"? It must have been my positions on social issues, I guess.

Yeah - because, if you note, they assume you have SOME religion. There is no "atheist"; UU or SecHumanism or Nontheist are the closest you can get to that. (Maybe Nontheist is atheist?) And if you're id'd as one of those, you're still then labelled as who you're close to. Being an atheist apparently doesn't stop you from being very close to being to Christian ... weird. It must, as you say, be social issue positions.

Top five:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Theravada Buddhism (88%)
3. Secular Humanism (86%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)
5. Nontheist (81%)

Yes, they apparently assume some religion, since I align 100% with UU, despite saying there is no god. Is that what UUists believe? Nontheist was next highest. I was, however, relieved to score 0% for scientology.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (88%)
3. Secular Humanism (88%)
4. Liberal Quakers (86%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (74%)
6. Neo-Pagan (68%)
7. Bah�'� Faith (64%)
8. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (62%)

Dudes! In the age of Google, you can't take three minutes to research what Unitarian Universalists believe and attempt to reason why you'd score as one?

The short version: UUs believe in =at most= one god.

The long version (aw fer crying out loud, it's at www.uua.org):

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love;
Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.

The Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association
The Unitarian Universalist Association shall devote its resources to and exercise its corporate powers for religious, educational and humanitarian purposes. The primary purpose of the Association is to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new congregations, extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions and implement its principles.

The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility, and that of its member congregations and organizations, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its and their activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, language, citizenship status, economic status, or national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or creed.

Nothing herein shall be deemed to infringe upon the individual freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and Unitarian heritages or to conflict with any statement of purpose, covenant, or bond of union used by any congregation unless such is used as a creedal test.

Tree, UU by free choice since 1991

Go to a local Fellowship and check it out for yourself. They have great (free trade) coffee.

Dudes! In the age of Google, you can't take three minutes to research what Unitarian Universalists believe and attempt to reason why you'd score as one?

dumbass, i've attended UU churches. they're non-creedal.

1. Bah�'� Faith (100%)
2. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (98%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (97%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (93%)
5. Liberal Quakers (90%)
6. Nontheist (90%)
7. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (88%)
8. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (81%)
9. Secular Humanism (75%)
10. Neo-Pagan (75%)

My choices were basically atheist, with social conservatism and spiritual environmentalism, and low on humanist stuff, and this is what it gave me. Not impressed.

Mark--
despite saying there is no god

You CAN'T say that on the quiz, or anyway not just that. Anytime that's a choice it's married with *or don't know* and *or unimportant*.

My top five:
Unitarian Universalism (100%)
Secular Humanism (98%)
Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (87%)
Liberal Quakers (86%)
Nontheist (75%)

Wonder how I (Episco lite upbringing) came out a tinsy bit less close to 'mainline or liberal Christian Protestants' than atheist Muslim background Razib. Prob. the *how important is this factor* button, which I mostly left alone. And which for atheist/agnostic types is probably not genuinely indicative of much.

Mark
I was, however, relieved to score 0% for scientology.

How do you think you managed that? Like Razib I came in at 40% alignment there (well he was 37%).

Being an atheist apparently doesn't stop you from being very close to being to Christian ... weird.

Not if you know much about liberal Protestant Christian groups these days. Very different animal than the evangelical types. People forget how large a part of the total US Christian universe these groups are, especially in the northern and western states. Smaller than the fundies or the Catholics for sure, but not negligible. (Methodist congregations, probably the main "mainline" group the quiz writers have in mind, run a real gamut depending on the congregation so it's a bit tough to place this 3rd biggest US church group on the liberal near deist vs. fundie scale.) Basically the liberal churchs (and some of the methodists) are secular humanists with a fuzzy deism lite, who do continue the tradition of some readings from scripture here and there for moral instruction, but very rarely for cosmology other than of the *grand mystery of all God's creation* type, and with a bump up on the social obligation theme (as a marker of community status, etc. "To us to whom so much is given, much is expected" (*and by the way that just makes us all the more admirable, don't you have to agree?*) Whatever the historical doctrines, their big emphasis is on social uplift for the poor unfortunates, and maybe humanist style psych counseling for their own. E.g. mainline liberal Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, etc.

Razib--
i've attended UU churches. they're non-creedal.

Me too. The real experience is the quasi Quaker style meetings, seems to me. Earth mother and tree hugger central. Hard to get a whole lot more smothering acceptance of just about everything. Or at least everything on the leftward side of the political scale.

there's regional variation. the ones in the northeast are more conservative and often christian (e.g., the only UU church which is a converted anglican church is in boston). a friend told in NYC that UU church in the upper east side will have a picture of jesus, one on the upper west side won't :)

[don't fucking insult me in my own house. unless you leave a phone number and address, ok bitch? no anonymous bullshitting]

Mine:
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Theravada Buddhism (88%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (81%)
4. Liberal Quakers (80%)
5. Secular Humanism (71%)

Not too far off (atheist/practicing Theravadin). I'm guessing they ranked a couple of the "optional" Buddhist ideas as more important than they really are. But geez, UUs really are all things to all people, aren't they? I put down "no god exists" with high emphasis and still got 100% UU.

MJ Memphis--
But geez, UUs really are all things to all people, aren't they?

No.

They're marked by extreme multiculturalism and aversion to all religious dogma. Start indicating any very definite God dogma excluding others and you move into sharp contrast with them. Insist on the Trinity for example. Or the virgin birth.

In fact, the UU multiculturalist roots go back to some of the original quasi multiculturalists, the New England Transcendentalists (secularizing post-Puritans of New England cultural origins, including Emerson and Thoreau in the broader cultural movement). This source of multiculturalis much predated the always more dogmatic and purist Frankfort School of cultural emphasis Marxists, whose views pervaded the New York Intellectuals school, but were evangalized most effectively in the US by Franz Boas and his school (includeding eg Margarette Mead). In the 30s to 50s this school took over US cultural anthropology lock stock and barrel, mission complete by the early 1960s, with vast influences throughout the social sciences.

By the way, personally I'm much in favor of the older classical liberal style multiculturalism (of which New England origin Transcendentalism was a part). That is, of the style that's open to what one can learn from many and perhaps in some respects all other cultures, and of improving whatever one's own beliefs and knowledge are by comparison to and competition with these cross influences and fertilizations.

Openness and competition are one thing. Credulous acceptance everything Other is something very different.

What I'm strongly opposed to is the notion that all cultural practices and ideas are axiomatically equally desirable in all respects for all purposes, and that it's evil incarnate to challenge this. The evil is scared out of opponents or anyway they are scarred silent by threat of the most horrible of all imaginable contemporary Western condemnations: "racism". Loss of or demotion in career and social standing is of course the enforcement arm.

The contradictions of the full acceptance of all cultural persuasions viewpoint are quickly obvious yet the multi-cultie creed retains incredible public shaming power, which is quite remarkable.

For example, do the multi-culties really want to insist that ceremonial religious human sacrifice is just fine? How about female genital mutilation? How about de jure polygamy? On what intellectually coherent basis do they say no, white remaining faithful to their no cultural judgments of 'the Other' injunction?

Further do they really claim there's been no improvement in Western culture over the last 200 years? For example, in such things as moving from broad acceptance of slavery to near universal condemnation of it? Or from belief that democracy should be restricted to the educated and at least in some respects responsible (propertied) classes, to believing it should be extended to the poorest and least educated as an aid in uplifting them among other things, and as well extended from males only to also females? These were hardly just structural political changes, since the prior order was supported by most at earlier times.

So if what the Western publics popularly (culturally) support has clearly improved or anyway inarguably notably changed in consequential ways over the last two centuries, and if the change only occurred over some time and with great amounts of struggle and sometimes sharp conflict, how can the multi-culties possibly maintain that it is obvious to all but "racists" that each popular national or regional (or however else you want to slice it) culture is as immediately capable and desirous of embracing some particular Western social/politcal ideal as each other one? Such as liberal democracy, for example?

That's obviously ridiculous.

Now just how long and what factors it might take for a culture to peacefully embrace liberal democracy isn't obvious at all. It's a legitimate subject of debate drawing upon very murky empirical evidence. But the notion that different cultures face higher hurdles than others to come to that particular social goal (if it is to be one for them) is widely and reflexively condemned as "racist" by the multicultural faithful, who dominate not only the academy but also almost all of the media including in this respect by in large Fox News and even most of the National Review Online (or otherwise) (with folks such as the ever empirical Derbyshire being exceptions).

It's absurd. But a powerful, career threatening set of taboos nonetheless.