What's Your Spiritual Type?

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http://www.beliefnet.com/section/quiz/i ... urveyID=27

25 questions, I haven't even checked them but I'm going to do it just now

Ok, I've finished


You scored 49, on a scale of 25 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score:

25 - 29
Hardcore Skeptic -- but interested or you wouldn't be here!
30 - 39
Spiritual Dabbler -- Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed
40 - 49
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion
50 - 59
Spiritual Straddler – One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality
60 - 69
Old-fashioned Seeker -- Happy with my religion but searching for the right expression of it
70 - 79
Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff
80 - 89
Confident Believer – You have little doubt you’ve found the right path
90 - 100
Candidate for Clergy

44 - Active Spiritual Seeker - Spiritual but turned off by organized religion

Neat site, thanks. Try the "Belief-O-Matic" it nailed me exactly.

I gave up on this test as its obviously written by somebody who doesnt even know what the Bible states, or basic Christian doctrine for instance :-

Q14. Each day’s newspaper brings reports of crimes, natural disasters, and disease. My most basic reaction is:
1. My faith is tested because I cannot understand how a just God could tolerate the agony of the world
2. I feel sadness, but accept that both the good and the bad of life are somehow part of God’s plan
3. Such tragedies make me confused about the nature of the Higher Power
4. Tragedies and disasters in the world convince me there is no God

How about a answer 5 which gives the Bibles explaination for a wicked world namely that untill Gods Kingdom comes, "Let thy Kingdom come", this world is at present under the rulership of Satan, "The whole Earth is lying in the power of the wicked one"

I scored 58 – "Spiritual Straddler - One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality" - but I would actually regard myself more as “Active Spiritual Seeker – spiritual but turned off by organized religion".)

However, I would not say I was actually “active” in seeking spirituality, just that I believe there is something there but there are a number of different ways to access it.

40 - 49
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion

You scored 70:

Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff


I don't know anymore.

58 - Spiritual Straddler – One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality

25

33: Spiritual Dabbler -- Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed


The number is accurate, but the associated summary is total hogwash. I never "dabble" in spirituality--when I've been religious, I've gone all the way. Any other approach would make zero sense. It disgusts me when people shop around and buy beliefs a la carte.

My number only reflects the fact that I'm more strictly agnostic than most atheists.

68 Old-fashioned Seeker -- Happy with my religion but searching for the right expression of it

Some questions kind of pigeon toed me...

Especially about terrible events and how it relates to God. And some of the nature/science and God questions...

Gwen, even when you were Catholic did you not have doubts? I'm kind of confused when you say "I never dabble"... how can one go all the way when you aren't 100% sure about what you are going into?

I agree with this about people pulling parts and making their own Christianity/worldly religion. They are tailoring God/Spirituality into what makes them feel good, not what the truth is.

But it's really easy to fall into this trap, of putting your personality into your description of the World... either physical or spiritual.

You scored 37
30 - 39 Spiritual Dabbler — Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed

Yeah. The test-maker obviously regarded theodicy as a major issue. For me, the question of evil in the world was never evidence for or against faith in a higher power. I think people who are turned on or off to faith based on this one subject lack imagination. My true answers on a number of questions were not listed among the responses and I had to choose the next best option.



Yes, I had huge doubts. But in the Christian framework, doubts are accounted for as a routine and necessary component of the idea of faith as an act of the will.

What I didn't dabble in was the practice of my faith. I could not be certain whether the basis of my faith was or was not real, but the teachings were crystal clear regarding lukewarmness. It would be pointless to decide that I liked abc but not xyz. It would be like trying to marry half of a person when you don't like the other half. "Yes, darling, I love you, but only if you will you shave your head, study medicine, join the communist party, become a vegan, and stop reading comic books." I suppose those who invent their own faith (or obsessively control their lovers ) are fulfilling a deep psychological need, but such a practice is self-contradictory and too obviously illogical for my mind to embrace.

Any given piece of information may or may not be true, but if I fabricate it spontaneously, molding it around my own wishes... well, based on all known rules of the universe it has a nearly 100% chance of being false.

I have quite a lot of patience for a lot of things, but I have very little for those who want to make Jesus or any other religious figure or text comply with their own notions of what the world ought to be like. It's intellectual dishonesty to toss out the parts of the Bible that one doesn't like and call the resulting Frankenreligion "Christianity". They should just admit they don't like the Church and get the hell out of it, but I reckon they're afraid of the idea of a godless world and so need to insulate themselves with feel-good stories.

As for me, I'd rather take a long, lonesome, terrifying look into the void, if that's what reality appears to point toward... than to embrace anything conveniently comforting, but unreal. The only reason I ever liked Catholicism is that I wanted Truth and I hoped it could be found and explained so easily and explicitly. Truth alone is my ideal and my "god".

What I grapple with now is the fact that insulatory distractions or intoxications of one kind or another appear to be man's only incentive to live. Pain and suffering seem somehow more "real" and "true" than their opposites. Look up "intoxication" in the thesaurus and you will see that the antonyms are gloominess, depression, misery, melancholy... "knurd", as Quatermass quoted Pratchett. Our happiness is at the mercy of the ebb and flow of neurotranmitters, yet we've somehow evolved with the unfortunate dissatisfaction in being creatures of this ilk!

Is there any new way out of this conundrum? Might I find my answers in the metaphysics of quality? In the elevation of Truth to godhead? Are such philosophical constructs merely another attempt to bend the universe to my own liking, which is the very thing I so despise seeing in others?

(edited for typo)

Last edited by gwenevyn on 06 Oct 2007, 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Your once again forgetting the universe is a completely subjective experience.

Religion isn't the almighty search for "truth" (There is no universal truth anyway, only the truth as you perceive it.) for everyone. Or maybe they perceive the search differently. For some religion is just an invisible security blanket, a way they can say things happen for a reason in a random and heartless universe. The most powerful prescription of Ritalin or Prozac known to mankind.

Remember, your only right for yourself in your little version of the universe.

40 - 49
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion