I'm a Buddhist and I'm fine with calling it a religion, as it has many of the traditional components: mythologies, rituals, sacred texts, holy days, ordination, study, contemplation, etc. Some people find calling a school of thought that doesn't recognize God as being inherently disqualified from being called a religion, but I think most of those people probably believe in God :-)
Western, hippified Buddhism is more of a "way of life." In rural Thailand you're gonna find something that looks a lot closer to a traditional religion.
Agreed - it's interesting to realise there's no actual word that means "having a belief in reincarnation". That's a riddle that'll take me few lifetimes to contemplate.
I remember visiting a friend who had moved to Pennsylvania and as we drove on a country road she happily pointed out the easiest way to distinguish a Quaker house from an Amish house- the former would have a telephone line going to the house, while the latter would have it going to the barn.
Tried payote, payoti, payotte, payotti, pajote, pajoti, pajotte, pajotte, pyote, pyoti, pyotte, pyotti. If the quiz was a few more hours, I might have eventually tried peyote. Or maybe there could be some flexibility on this one?
That China answer surprised me. Notwithstanding the government's official position on the matter, I would have thought there would be much higher religious adherence amongst the population.
Contemporary Chinese life is still heavily influenced by Confucianism and Maoism and some consider these to be religions (with a dash of Buddhism, Taoism, and ancestor worship thrown in for good measure), but I think what this says is that the average Chinese person does not think of it this way.
Few of us practice "Maoism" in any way that would be considered a religion. The reason we are so low is because the Communists murdered a massive amount of religious people in the past century and still underreport stats (theories put Christian population between 40 and 100 million).
Most Chinese people are not Atheist, they are agnostic. Chinese people are actually very open to religion, as most of us are vaguely spiritual in some way.
As someone's who has never been particularly religious, I'm coming to the opposite conclusion. So many people are sad, lonely, and disconnected from their communities. This only gets worse over time, and I think it's correlated to the decline in religiosity over time. Western society has been left with a religion size hole and what's replacing it is worse. Rituals give us meaning, even if they might seem silly to a rationalist. When Western societies abandoned religion, we really threw out the baby with the bathwater so to speak.
I find this rationalization hard to countenance. Religion may have been plugging a hole, but its loss is itself not an issue. The issue is that so many people have that hole to fill. If you have a life filled with love and meaning, you won't notice the loss of religion. People are not lonely because they are turning away from God. They are lonely because they're lonely.
I suppose one could say something like "We don't need religion. All we need to do is build communities of shared meaning and belonging." That's a nice thought, but it's not actually happening in real life. There are few new communities coming up to replace those that are being abandoned. People in Western societies are more alienated than ever.
I think the principal of Chesterton's Fence is something that we should keep in mind here.
We should not destroy things that are "old and unnecessary" until their replacements have been built. And, if those replacements prove to be impossible to build, maybe there was something to those old things that wasn't so unnecessary after all.
This request is impossible (as there are more religions than there are questions on this quiz) and impractical (as not all religions are equally well-known to visitors of this website).
Also, I'd expect 'Ayahuasca' as a correct answer instead of Peyote (assuming native Brasilians are counted as native americans). Probably not even the only two answers that meet the description.
What is the term for a person who has been canonized? Me: Um, "Human Cannonball?" I did get the question right, but my brain fart kept making me giggle.
That definition about the Indian principle is pretty "rough". I pointed this out on the Buddhist quiz as well, but I might as well say it here, too. "What goes around comes around" is the common Western adage that has been conflated with the actual meaning of Karma. It's unfortunate that most people will never think of Karma beyond this common, glib definition. Karma are actions. The law of Karma is what the western adage aligns with!
They're even less a part of the Oceanic "continent" (the continental part of Oceania being Australia)... is it your position that all island nations must be in Oceania? So.. the United Kingdom is in Oceania?
Most Chinese people are not Atheist, they are agnostic. Chinese people are actually very open to religion, as most of us are vaguely spiritual in some way.
I think the principal of Chesterton's Fence is something that we should keep in mind here.
We should not destroy things that are "old and unnecessary" until their replacements have been built. And, if those replacements prove to be impossible to build, maybe there was something to those old things that wasn't so unnecessary after all.
so... Hinduism is ahead of most. What are you complaining about?
Wikipedia confirms Pallas Athena refers to Athena: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallas_Athena_(disambiguation)