rowyn

On the first page of the quiz, there are questions about the attributes of God and the universe (why is there evil, are there souls, what type of consequences are associated with actions ....) I think that the problem with the survey along the lines you've described is not that is fails to ask about beliefs, but that the questions it chooses are not well designed to focus on Christian beliefs. For example, a Christian would probably be choosing among these answers for question 1: --Only one God, a corporeal spirit (has a body), supreme, personal God Almighty, the Creator --Only one God, incorporeal (not body) spirit , supreme, personal God Almighty, the Creator. --Multiple personal gods (or goddesses) regarded as facets of one God, and/or as separate gods. None of these accurately reflects the concept of the trinity since the 3rd choice implies more separateness than traditional Christian belief. There are some places to be more specific, though. For example, selecting one human incarnation in question 2 is a close approximation to saying that you believe in the divinity of Christ (or at least I can't think of another major religion besides Christianity which has a single human incarnation of God). I don't think the quiz was designed nearly as poorly as you two do since I think its goal is to sort out belief systems which the author may not have heard of in advance in addition to the traditional beliefs of major American religions. To do this, the questions have to be broadly worded. It's true that none of the questions ask about specific beliefs: "Should the record of Mohamed's life (the Sunna) take precedence over directives of Imams?" (i.e. are you a Shiite or Sunni Moslem). In practice, though, there are too many such questions which would need to be asked to cover all major religions and still leave the survey of reasonable length. There are also more detailed surveys available in some categories which become visable after you click on one of the denominations that the first survey selected. One that I saw was on kinds of non-theists. So, the author at least understands that this problem exists. Perhaps there are similar surveys on Christian denominations which do ask more detailed questions. I don't think that the approach of focusing on general attributes denies the possibility that a religion is an internally consistent philosophy which is adopted by its adherents based on their beliefs and desire to live by its rules. Those types of attributes, though, don't lend themselves to identifying which religions share general values similar to a given person's. Someone with strongly held specific beliefs and a community with which he worships doesn't need a survey to identify that community. I see this, instead, as suggesting places where someone with general beliefs who has not yet found a community might explore to see if the other aspects of those religions are a good fit. I don't see anything wrong with this process. It always struck me as unfortunate that most people are born into their religions and make decisions about how observant they want to be, but not about whether that religion is the best choice for them. If surveys like this help even a handful of people to find a religion more in line with their preferences (whether those preferences are related to views on doctrinal, social or even cultural issues), I think it has a useful role. Disclaimer: I'm an athiest myself, and have somewhat cynical views about how most (but not all) people choose their religious affiliation and the effects of religious doctrine on human progress, but that doesn't mean I'm evangelical about my beliefs. Telnar