Attached Link: Belief-O-Matic

I vaguely recall hearing the ‘be your own God’ thing associated with Mormonism, but a quick check shows that it is not part of official doctrine. If you start getting into details about the different states of heaven etc. I can imagine a few people coming to such a conclusion. That is IMO, one of the biggest problems with religion. The scriptural intricacies of even a relatively new religion like LDS, not to mention those composed in another age in a starkly different culture are subject to just about any interpretation you want to give them. Even members of the same church disagree, and when it gets too hot, there’s a schism – look no further than the Episcopalians/Anglicans over homosexuality. People pick the parts they find congenial and try to minimize or rationalize the parts they find absurd or offensive.

For an interesting diversion, try Beliefnet’s Belief-O-Matic quiz. Contrary to the tone of the name, it actually requires you to do some thinking about what you really believe before presenting you with a ranking of where you fall among an array of different religions. Apparently, I’m down 100% with the Unitarian-Universalists, 97% Neo-Pagan?, and 93% Liberal Quaker, which I find kind of cool, even though the only Quakers I know were the guy on the oatmeal box and Richard Nixon. My Mormon rating is 37%, and sadly for my Saturday morning visitors, Jehova’s Witnesses bottom out the list at only 13%.

In general, though, I pretty much agree with Mr. Jefferson – President, scientist, philosopher and (possibly) practitioner of the late night slave quarters booty call. So, I close with some of his gems.

“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.”

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”

“My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.”

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken