I scored 20 out of 21- but admittedly, I guessed on several of them.
-Ben
Ben, you know I love ya, and I did enjoy the quiz, but, um, where’s the debate?
I guess he’s witnessing for the separation of church and state.
Kim,
Don’t worry…soon, a flamin’ fundie will arrive to critique that entire quiz.
On second thought…worry a lot!
Flamin’ Fundie here. 
I got 17 out of 21. I missed #6 because when you say “First Amendment” to me, I respond, “Free Speech”. Forgot it was also Religion. My bad.
I also missed #13 and #15 but like most of these, they were trick questions, so I don’t feel so bad.
Missed #18. :o
The Critique: Lots of trick questions. Cute. And the OP’s point was…? 
I posted it here because SOCAS is a typical GD topic. If FoG can post suggestions that we go see Mr.T movies, then surely I can point out the SOCAS quiz to the group of people who would most appreciate it.
Anyway, like Monty said, there are people here who oppose SOCAS as it is interpreted by the FFRF, and I would be interested in hearing what they think of the quiz. Once they voice their opinions, debate will inevitably ensue.
Patience, my child…
-Ben
You’re more of a smolderin’ fundie, DDG.
BTW, I got 21:21.
Knee jerk reaction there?
Your secret’s safe with us, DDG. Don’t worry, we won’t tell the really flamin’ fundies about that.
There were, IMHO, exactly ZERO trick questions in that quiz.
How about:
a) Telling us which ones were “tricky,”
&
b) Telling us why they’re “tricky?”
Wishful thinking? 
See above about the trick questions.
As to the OP’s point: I think your response is setting that up.
Cheers!
-Chip
Well, they themselves admitted that #8 was a trick question, as the Pilgrims were initially tolerant of other religions.
The rest I considered obvious because I either knew the answer, or went for the answer that woud most emphatically make their point (<i>eg<i>. Hitler saying we should have religion in schools, religious families or groups getting religion taken out of school, etc).
Their point, that church and state should remain separate, is valid, but I’m thinking the quiz probably mainly reaches freethinkers and makes them feel good about being freethinkers.
Hell, I’m Canadian, and I still managed to get 12 right. Go figure.
As far as church and state go… I’d rather be damned to a place I don’t believe in, than pay taxes to a government I have no faith in.
jm
I scored 20 out of 21 (though the incompetent who designed the web page gave me 19 only!). I KNEW 12 of the answers off the top of my head. And when I didn’t know, it was easy to figure out the answer the Quizmaster wanted. If a statement is pro-religious, it undoubtedly came from a Nazi; if it’s anti-religious, it comes from a Founding Father or other admired figure (that was my one mistake: I guessed that LINCOLN was the one who insisted the U.S. was not a Christian nation, when it was John Adams).
If you want to score high, just assume that the most profoundly anti-religious answer is the “right” one.
Of course, a “fundie” could turn that quiz on its head. Heck, even a a Catholic can! Let’s see…
- In what part of the Constitution is the phrase “separation of CHurch and State” found?
a) Preamble
b) 1st amendment
c) 5th amendment
d) Nowhere at all
- In the Declaration of Indpendence, Thomas Jefferson states that man’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness comes from _.
a) Reason
b) Plato’s “Republic”
c) The principles of secular humanism
d) God
- The greatest mass murderers of all time were:
a) Catholics Torquemada and Pope Clement VI
b) Moslems Suleiman and the Ayatollah Khomeini
c) Puritans Oliver Cromwell and William Bradford
d) Atheists Mao Tse-tung and Josef Stalin
- Every faith enjoys religious freedom and tolerance in all but which country:
a) Great Britain (which HAS a state church)
b) Sweden (which HAS a state church)
c) The Netherlands (which HAS a state church)
d) Communist China (which has no state church)
Gosh, this is easy! Fun, too.
Now, is my quiz factually correct? Absolutely, 100%! Is it a bit misleading, and even a tad unfair? Sure is. So take it with a grain of salt. And take the freethinkers’ piece with a MOUNTAIN of NaCl.
- They got me with the trick question, Hitler and the Pledge of Allegience.
I think I’d have to reverse the proportions of salt. The FFRF quiz is basically just arguing that SOCAS is a Good Thing, whereas astorian’s “quiz” (which I realize is not entirely serious) would appear to imply that the best way to guarantee freedom of religion is to have a state church. This is historically somewhat myopic.
Incidentally, Sweden has now disestablished its church.
Actually, none of the above are correct. The text of the Declaration says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Creator is a rather nebulous term, whereas - at least in the USA - saying “God” would tend to imply one of the Christian brands of deity.
I’m not able to find any info on this on the web (although I know of GB’s and I found Sweden’s). All I’ve found is that it’s a pretty even split 30-40% for Catholicism and Protestantism, with the the other 20 something % professing no religion (ah, if only the US were as such…). 
You know, super_head, I think you’re right. From this paper on church-state relations in the Netherlands it doesn’t sound like the Netherlands have an official state church. Here’s the Dutch Constitution–I didn’t see anything about a state church in there.
And the Swedes have now disestablished the Lutheran Church.
So, ha ha, astorian. More salt for you.
Thanks, Astorian for cleverly pointing out that the quiz was actually propaganda.
My pet peeve is the people who attack Christianity by pointing to the Crusades. But only a few thousand people died in Crusades and they occurred 900 years ago. Many of these people ignore the atrocitries you pointed out, which happened in the last century and in which 100 million people perished.
The key factor here, which most Christians tend to avoid, is why these atrocities occurred. The crusades are a clear instance of Christians killing qua Christians. Can the same be said of Stalin and Mao? To be honest, I don’t know. I’ll let Dopers post evidence.
To take an analogy, try this quiz:
The greatest murderers of all time were:
a) White people like Stalin and Hitler
b) Asian people like Mao and Pol Pot
c) Black people like Idi Amin and Mobute Sese Seko
d) Middle-eastern people like Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini
Clearly, this is a stupid question. The race of the people in question has nothing to do with why or how many they killed. Christians would like us to believe that the religion of those responsible for the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the brutal conquest of the New World is equally irrelevant. But the evidence does not bear this out.
(Before anyone responds–especially jmullaney–please look up the “One True Scotsman fallacy”)
Opus, the analogy for the one true scotsman doesen’t apply. You can clearly tell who Scotsmen are because of where they were born, however many people simply say they are christans to make themselves look better. In that case the one true scotsman doesen’t apply.
Astorian is still right about the quiz though, I took it like 6 months ago and never finished it. Quizzez that supposedly test knowledge should not have every answer obvious in wether or not it is religious or anti religious.
Sigh…
I would never attempt to pass off Thomas Jefferson as a devout Christian in any conventional sense- he certainly wasn’t. But he DID invoke the Creator and “nature’s God” as the source of man’s liberty. Did he MEAN that the way most conventional Christians would expect? Perhaps, perhaps not (maybe he used those words as a cop to the more conventionally Christian Founders). Fact remains, when he had to justify the American colonies’ secession from Britain and posit that man had certain rights, he appealed to a deity.
I was unaware that Sweden had dissolved its official ties to the Lutheran Church, but I’m not altogether surprised. For the most part, “state religions” in Europe have been purely nominal for a long time (as in Great Britain, where there are now far more practicing Moslems than practicing Anglicans). Even IF the Dutch Reformed Church is still the official religion of the Netherlands (I’d assumed it was, though that may no longer be true), that church has had no secular power to speak of for centuries). When a modern European country retains a state religion, that usually means that the royal family has its weddings and coronations under that church’s auspices… and that’s about it.
The point remains, however, that many nations WITH established churches provide complete religious freedom, while many nations that have no established religion are oppressive.
You tell me- where were Jews better off? In Puritan Oliver Cromwell’s England, in Protestant William of Orange’s Holland, or in atheist Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union?
So, astorian, are you arguing that there is no correlation between officially established religion and lack of religious freedom? This is historically myopic. The remaining European establishments are toothless and vestigial now, but they didn’t start out that way. As recently as the 19th Century “dissenters” from the Established Church in England suffered real legal hindrances, and once upon a time people died over this sort of thing in Europe and its colonies.
For sociological and political if perhaps not philosophical purposes Marxism-Leninism can be considered an atheistic religion. Its de facto (or even de jure–I believe later Soviet constitutions explicitly referred to the Communist Party as the “vanguard of society” or some such) establishment as the official state “faith” of various countries led, not surprisingly, to repression of competing religions. Which is why I’m against officially established religions and ideologies, and in favor of the separation of church and state.
The National Socialists in Germany (NAZIs) and the various Communist regimes in Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, etc. murdered over 200 million people in the 20th century. In fact, most of the killing took place within my lifetime.