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The "Scale of Doubt" Quiz

  1. Do you believe that a particular religious tradition holds accurate knowledge of the ultimate nature of reality and the purpose of human life?
    yesnonot sure

  2. Do you believe that some thinking being consciously made the universe?
    yesnonot sure

  3. Is there an identifiable force coursing through the universe, holding it together, or uniting all life-forms?
    yesnonot sure

  4. Could prayer be in any way effective, that is, do you believe that such a being or force (as posited above) could ever be responsive to your thoughts or words?
    yesnonot sure

  5. Do you believe this being or force can think or speak?
    yesnonot sure

  6. Do you believe this being has a memory or can make plans?
    yesnonot sure

  7. Does this force sometimes take a human form?
    yesnonot sure

  8. Do you believe that the thinking part or animating force of a human being continues to exist after the body has died?
    yesnonot sure

  9. Do you believe that any part of a human being survives death, elsewhere or here on earth?
    yesnonot sure

  10. Do you believe that feelings about things should be admitted as evidence in establishing reality?
    yesnonot sure

  11. Do you believe that love and inner feelings of morality suggest that there is a world beyond that of biology, social patterns, and accident — i.e., a realm of higher meaning?
    yesnonot sure

  12. Do you believe that the world is not completely knowable by science?
    yesnonot sure

  13. If someone were to say "The universe is nothing but an accidental pile of stuff, jostling around with no rhyme nor reason, and all life on earth is but a tiny, utterly inconsequential speck of nothing, in a corner of space, existing in the blink of an eye never to be judged, noticed, or remembered," would you say, "Now that's going a bit far, that's a bit wrongheaded?"
    yesnonot sure
Reprinted from Doubt: A History (Harper SanFrancisco, 2003) with permission of the author.
  
 

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