Science vs. Religion! And how, yet again, I'm unique (hooray?)
I just took the pair of quizzes linked at the beginning of this article:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/02/science_and_religion_viral_pew_surveys_yield_surprising_results.html
Unsurprisingly, I did reasonably well on both. (See the bottom section on this page for some exploration of this duality.)
In the religion quiz, I found the questions interesting in what they covered, and what they didn't. The quiz is clearly biased in the direction of Christianity, for instance. I'm not sure that I'd count all of the questions on the "religion" survey as being ABOUT religion, either; some would fall into the category of "social studies" or "world culture," I think (mis-identifying the dominant religion of Pakistan was the one I got wrong; when I think of it further, it "should have been obvious." Oh well. :^).
But the most interesting thing about the quizzes was to go look to see how my results compared with those of various other religious groups.
Apparently, I don't exist.
There's no category for "pagan," which is not surprising. However, there's no "OTHER" category, either. There are several different varieties of Christian (e.g., White Catholic and Hispanic Catholic... I'm wondering how all the black or Asian Catholics feel about these divisions, since those are the only two Catholic categories listed?). If you count "Mormon" as Christian (debatable, I know), there are SIX different varieties of Christian listed. The other categories are "nothing in particular" and "Atheist/agnostic." Nothing at all for the many Buddhists, Muslims, Wiccans, Shintoists, or other religious practitioners in our country. Did they survey absolutely NO one from any other minority religion? Or did they just not publish the results on this website? In either case... why? Or are we lumped in with either the "nothing in particular" folks, or the Atheists/Agnostics, and if so, which one?
*sigh* Whenever I start thinking of myself as any sort of "normal" (after all, it feels pretty normal in my day-to-day world to be a bi/poly/pagan/switch!), I find yet another reminder that really, I don't really fit in anywhere. I'm unclassifiable. Unique. Sometimes a Unicorn, even. ;)
On the one hand, this is disconcerting. The drive to belong and to be accepted is a strong one, after all (for most people, at least.) I've struggled with not fitting in most of my life, and with not feeling accepted by my blood family, and a lot of the mainstream culture. That's not comfortable.
And on the other hand, the fact that I'm not represented on this chart -- and neither are a whole lot of other groups/people I can think of off the top of my head -- provides me with the sure knowledge that my voice is worth hearing, if for no other reason than that there aren't a million others just like me.
Still singing my own song....
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/02/science_and_religion_viral_pew_surveys_yield_surprising_results.html
Unsurprisingly, I did reasonably well on both. (See the bottom section on this page for some exploration of this duality.)
In the religion quiz, I found the questions interesting in what they covered, and what they didn't. The quiz is clearly biased in the direction of Christianity, for instance. I'm not sure that I'd count all of the questions on the "religion" survey as being ABOUT religion, either; some would fall into the category of "social studies" or "world culture," I think (mis-identifying the dominant religion of Pakistan was the one I got wrong; when I think of it further, it "should have been obvious." Oh well. :^).
But the most interesting thing about the quizzes was to go look to see how my results compared with those of various other religious groups.
Apparently, I don't exist.
There's no category for "pagan," which is not surprising. However, there's no "OTHER" category, either. There are several different varieties of Christian (e.g., White Catholic and Hispanic Catholic... I'm wondering how all the black or Asian Catholics feel about these divisions, since those are the only two Catholic categories listed?). If you count "Mormon" as Christian (debatable, I know), there are SIX different varieties of Christian listed. The other categories are "nothing in particular" and "Atheist/agnostic." Nothing at all for the many Buddhists, Muslims, Wiccans, Shintoists, or other religious practitioners in our country. Did they survey absolutely NO one from any other minority religion? Or did they just not publish the results on this website? In either case... why? Or are we lumped in with either the "nothing in particular" folks, or the Atheists/Agnostics, and if so, which one?
*sigh* Whenever I start thinking of myself as any sort of "normal" (after all, it feels pretty normal in my day-to-day world to be a bi/poly/pagan/switch!), I find yet another reminder that really, I don't really fit in anywhere. I'm unclassifiable. Unique. Sometimes a Unicorn, even. ;)
On the one hand, this is disconcerting. The drive to belong and to be accepted is a strong one, after all (for most people, at least.) I've struggled with not fitting in most of my life, and with not feeling accepted by my blood family, and a lot of the mainstream culture. That's not comfortable.
And on the other hand, the fact that I'm not represented on this chart -- and neither are a whole lot of other groups/people I can think of off the top of my head -- provides me with the sure knowledge that my voice is worth hearing, if for no other reason than that there aren't a million others just like me.
Still singing my own song....