You know what? I recently found this informal test in the Internet that had my feelings mixed. I don't know whether I should be alarmed with this or just laugh it out. I found this web application that shows the affinity of your deeply-held beliefs to a religion, whether what you deeply believe in about spiritual things share with adherents of a religion whether you are a member of that or not. This web application, called Belief-O-Matic, will ask you 20 questions about your concept of God, afterlife, humanity, death, eternity, and more, then the web application will tell you what religion you practice, if you have any, or what religion you ought to belong with. A part of me is alarmed because some finer points of what I think I believed with (not believed in) are not what I think they are. But another part of me also just wants to laugh this out because it's neither that serious nor anything authoritative so as to actually determine what I profess with (not what I profess in).
By the way, the web address is http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html. And now, here are my results, with screen clipped from the Belief-O-Matic:
Reading from that screenshot, the No.1 in the list is what Belief-O-Matic thinks most closely matched my beliefs, and my score as a "Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant" is a perfect 100%. Ok now, is it possible for someone whose No.1 religion in the list is not a 100%, maybe just a 95% or lower? I'm hoping somebody answers this question, but I'll dig more about these results myself later. Most probably, I'll post in my next blog what I'll find more.
And having said that, I do agree with the No.1 result. I would be shocked if the No.1 result showed a 100% which is not what I believed, and this blog would have a totally different content matched with half-indignant reactions. I have no further more to say about this, other than "mainline to conservative" should be more specific than generic. Maybe Methodism belongs to this… group, or maybe Calvinism, or Baptist. And how does this… group… differ with the No.10 "Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants"? What doctrines have they differ? No matter what those doctrine technicalities they hold but as an FYI, my belief system is not really religious in doctrine, so to speak, but if one uses religious nomenclature, mine could be categorically placed more as an Assemblies of God.
So why exactly I am alarmed? 95% of what I believed with (not what I believed in) is shared with Seventh Day Adventists when I anticipated only around 50-80%. It's alarming to me that I'm essentially almost an Adventist, contrary to what I thought I'm not. Not only that, 88% of my beliefs are shared with Eastern Orthodox guys, contrary also to what I thought. And what is it in my belief system that made it 51% Islamic, I kind of wondered. Having shown these statistics made me realize that I have much more to learn in apologetics. As another FYI, I had been self-studying Christian apologetics since July this year. For comparative reasons, I had also been reading a general overview of apologetics from other beliefs. Me being alarmed in these subjects means that I have much more to self-learn on apologetics. Remember that insight on "loving the LORD your God with all your mind" (Mark 12:29-31)?
Anyway yes, a part of me is just taking this for fun because, as I have said earlier, this is not authoritative. Imagine, everything can be determined by a set of only 20 questions? This should not be meant as a final word on the label for your own belief systems. Another thing also is that, after all, it is not that God will give you salvation if you are a member of a particular religion. I fundamentally believe that one can only be saved through the redeeming blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ that anyone who believes in Him will be saved in the afterlife. This is the only thing that God will look upon whether to accept you as His own or not.
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