History Memes

Hmmm, 14 out of 15 on that quiz, better than I thought I'd do. I forgot that days in Judaism technically begin at sunset, so I got the one about the Sabbath wrong.

Am atheist, so I guess that tracks.

@SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social @Typhoon@lemmy.ca

As a context, I was born Catholic, was atheist for a while, then agnostic, then "unchurched" Protestant (during 2020), then Luciferian, currently a follower of a syncretic left-hand path focused on Lilith as Goddess. Part of this current syncretism involves several religions and belief systems, but I have no specific religion anymore.

Even when I did have a specific religion, I was always curious and somewhat open-minded to other beliefs, even during my Protestant phase, when I had nice and productive conversations with a practitioner of Brazilian Umbanda (even though Christianity see Exus and Pomba-Giras as "demonic": I used to feel some fear about the names, yet I kept myself open to learning about because, deep inside, maybe I always had a leaning to the so-called "forbidden knowledge" as the "demonic" somehow always attracted me).

That said, I tried the quiz out of curiosity, and i got 12 out of 15 questions correctly.

But some of the correct answers seem so oversimplified.

For example: "Which of the following best describes the Christian doctrine of the Trinity?". Turns out that it depends on which Christian branch we're talking. There's nontrinitarianism, there are specific denominations (e.g. JW) who don't see Jesus as "God the Son". Also, there's Filioque among Orthodox Catholicism, something that ended up splitting Catholicism (the Great Schism). So the answer to such a question isn't straighforward.

Similarly, "Which of these religious groups traditionally teaches that salvation comes through faith alone?" also depends on the denomination. Some Protestant branches, such as Calvinism, believe salvation doesn't come through faith but, rather, God's Will and predestination (they often refer to the biblical verse that goes something within the lines "Before you were in the womb, I knew you"). Some Protestant branches believe that salvation comes from "church's work". Again, no straightforward answer for such a question.

The questions I got wrong were:

- "Which of the following best describes Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion? The bread and wine": Here, my esoteric perspective and my focus on symbolic archetypes talked louder.
- "On which day of the week does the Jewish Sabbath begin?": here, my "literal" side talked louder.
- "Which of these religious groups traditionally teaches that salvation comes through faith alone?": I ended up picking "not sure" due to what I explained above.

So the quiz is not complete insofar it oversimplifies many things. Also, considering that the quiz covers Abrahamic religions alongside Hinduism and Sikhism, I missed questions about other religions and spiritual perspectives as well, such as Wicca, Neo-Hellenism, Luciferianism, Thelema, Hermeticism... Even Gnosticism, which shares some ties with Christianity, as well as Orthodox Catholicism which is a direct branch of Christianity, aren't covered by this quiz.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/07/23/what-americans-know-about-religion/#question-list