23 October 2009

How to choose a religion that matches your beliefs


A handy, tongue-in-cheek, flowchart that has some errors and arguable points (discussed here), but otherwise concisely summarizes a vast spectrum of belief.

10 comments:

  1. The reddit comment thread is wonderful, better than the chart. Witty and generally quite well informed.

    My favorite comment (not necessarily either of the above):

    somehow i ended up just staying on the box with bacon in it.

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  2. Mormon here, and I take great offense to the "naturally annoying" question. I have to work freaking hard at being annoying.

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  3. @Manpace - I certainly didn't mean to offend Mormons (or anyone else) with the posting of this flowchart.

    I do, however, think it's important for people with religious convictions to allow a sense of humor to be applied to their view of themselves and their beliefs.

    I'm a Lutheran by baptism, and on almost a weekly basis I hear Garrison Keillor making fun of Lutherans, and I laugh along.

    The humor of Woody Allen also comes to mind.

    It's religion without humor that I find a bit offputting (or frankly scary).

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  4. @Stan

    I agree about humor. That's why I made a joke...

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  5. (in his Lily Tomlin voice): "Never mind..."

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  6. I like it, but with one correction: the buddhist one goes over there right next to the atheist spot. Gods are not part of the religion, in fact there's quite a bit of stuff in the literature about 'the buddha' (who was just some dude, not a god) warning people against believing in magical things. Also reincarnation is a pretty debatable topic with some buddhists all in to it, others rolling their eyes at it.

    Which isn't to say there aren't buddhists who believe in gods and jesus and ghosts and oprah, but it isn't part of the 'religion.' You could draw a 4th split from "how many gods" that leads to "N/A" or "Who cares?"

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  7. @ Minnesotastan said...
    in his Lily Tomlin voice: "Never mind..."

    I would like to bring the following correction to your attention:

    Emily Litella was a fictional character played by comedian Gilda Radner in a series of appearances on Saturday Night Live (SNL).

    A typical example:
    "What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a "deaf" penalty? It's terrible! Deaf people have enough problems as it is!"

    When the news anchor interrupted to point out her error (eg. "that's death, Ms. Litella, not deaf"), she would crinkle her nose, usually saying, "Oh, that's very different...", and then meekly turn to the audience, saying, "Never mind."

    Radner based Litella on her childhood nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, known as "Dibby," who was allegedly hard-of-hearing. The line "Never mind" became a light-hearted catch phrase of the era.

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  8. Ontariostan, you're absolutely right! I used to watch all the Saturday Night Live episodes in that era. Too bad there's no way to "corrrect" comments.

    I like your name, BTW...

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  9. Not very original, another 'nom de keyboard' choice was to go with 'NORTHoftheBORDER'.

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