Amusing test. I'm apparently "The Guilty Party". The results are in, and it appears that you have scored 40%... This test doesn't do well with people who believe, but I wouldn't expect it to. I found many of the answer choices limiting.

LOL. That's funny I felt the exact same way... the test creator's biases show in the questions. One of the questions I found really annoying was:

You are stranded on a desert island with a handful of other survivors. What is the first thing you would do?

• Nominate someone to hold a prayer meeting
• Panic!
• Kill, gut and cook the weakest member
• Let the others figure out what to do

How about "start looking for firewood"? Or any other of a zillion different things one might need to do if stranded on a desert isle?

That's funny -- that one really aggravated me, too. (Bri, why take an atheist test if you believe? How can you be any kind of atheist?)

I'm an "ardent atheist," but again, the test was very silly.

I guess if you're a believer you are a very bad atheist. :-/

Well, I took it because I was curious about the test design and how the designer sought to "classify" atheists. And if you pick all the true believer answers, you are labeled as a Believer, complete with all the unflattering descriptive terms you'd expect from an angry atheist site.

I also was annoyed at the deserted island question. I'm not sure why taking an active role was not an answer. Or is he saying atheists don't want to get involved in anything?

Huh I'm apparently:

The Ardent Atheist
The results are in, and it appears that you have scored 63%...
You are an atheist, pure and simple. You think God is just one big lie, and consider religious people to be both annoying and beneath you. Ardent atheists will argue tooth and claw for their position, and have no truck with people that won't listen. You think being an atheist is the only way to lead an honest life, and see no reason to accept the pleas of faith. Ardent atheists are the backbone of atheism. Be proud.

Of all the atheists I know I'm probably the least. I don't even call myself atheist. I think I got my results mixed up with Chuck's.

B.O.B.

I'm an ardent atheist and scored unusually high on "pentagrams." I suppose that's because of my taste in music, plus the fact that if God and Satan existed, I'd want to be best friends with Satan. Why? Because God is supposed to love me, no matter what. Satan's a little more finicky.

As for the deserted island thing: you want to organize a prayer group asap so that you and the other nonbelievers can sneak out on a life raft while the others are praying. Your supplies will last longer if you only have to share with a few people.

Julie

I got that pentagram thing, too, and I picked god. I really don't want to be friends with either, but I'd really rather chat with god. And I didn't pick the heavy metal, either, so pentagrams must mean something else.

Ardent atheist here.

WHich is weird, because I'm really more agnostic. I'm definitely not a Christian, but I could believe that a god exists. I just don't believe it.

I would have to insist that someone define "god" before proceeding with a serious conversation as to what I do or can believe.

For virtually all purposes, however, the answer is not only no, but why are we talking about it at all, never mind taking it seriously. This "debate" exists only because certain people demand that it be the focal point of everyone's lives. Why should people be expected to take a position on something when there is no reason to believe that it exists? Just because someone (even if it's a lot of people) puts forward an unsupported idea, does that mean that everyone else has to consider it seriously, even when it's completely meaningless to them?

Of course, by the time it gets to the legislative level, you're kind of forced to deal with it in some way, which I resent. It annoys me to have to say "I don't believe" when that's not completely accurate. (I say it anyway because it's polite.) Saying "I don't believe" is an acknowledgement that the subject deserves contemplation, as if I've opted out of something. It'd be more accurate to say that I don't opt in, because I don't see anything to opt into. There are communities and rituals that are built around the god-concept, but there are also communities and rituals that are built around other things that I take seriously, if I wanted to opt into something like that.

I think of joining a church as similar to joining a fan club. Everybody there is a fan of God. That'd be great if it stopped there, but it's scary when fan clubs bring their agenda into the government.

Incoherently,
Julie

I think that was very coherent.

This quiz was very silly, as all multiple-choice quizzes are, but moreso because there was no subject matter prepared in advance that I'm supposed to memorize and regurgitate. I can't remember the questions I wanted to argue with, but there were plenty besides the desert island one.

I would like to say that it's fine if people are religious as long as they don't push it on me, unfortunately, I don't believe that. If somebody has a pattern of believing things for no reason (or for bad reasons, as I've seen that as well), then IMO, that calls all of their reasoning capabilities into question.

I am neither saying that my beliefs are completely scientific, based in logic, or reasonable (although I'm doing the best I can), or that everybody who believes in God applies that pattern of thinking to anything else, or that there aren't other ways people go off the deep end in their thinking. It's just a scary indicator for me of what else might be going on in there...

I'm planning on posting a little occult story on my blog, but I'm too busy with finals coming up at the moment. Maybe I'll get a free minute tonight. (HALF my students flunked exam 2, almost all of the other half got A's. Argh.)