What's in a name?

As human beings, we love to label things. We are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist. But that isn't enough so we have Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Anglican, Southern Baptist, Episcopalian, Orthodox, Conservative, Re-constructionist, Theravada, Mahayana, etc. We get all wrapped up these labels because we feel we need to identify with a group.

So for my first official blog entry, I'll answer the question: "what's in a name?" and I'll do it courtesy of Belief.net's Belief-O-Matic. The BoM is a great quiz that can be eerily accurate. What it does is analyze your answers and determine which belief system most closely matches your answers. Then, just for fun, it gives you the next twenty-six matches as well. Yes, twenty-six.

Here are my results:

1.	Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2.	Theravada Buddhism (88%)
3.	Mahayana Buddhism (84%)
4.	Neo-Pagan (84%)
5.	New Age (76%)
6.	Liberal Quakers (73%)
7.	Secular Humanism (69%)
8.	Hinduism (69%)
9.	Sikhism (64%)
10.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (63%)
11.	Taoism (61%)
12.	Jainism (60%)
13.	New Thought (54%)
14.	Scientology (50%)
15.	Reform Judaism (49%)
16.	Nontheist (46%)
17.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (36%)
18.	Orthodox Quaker (35%)
19.	Orthodox Judaism (26%)
20.	Baha'i Faith (25%)
21.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (22%)
22.	Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
23.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (16%)
24.	Eastern Orthodox (14%)
25.	Islam (14%)
26.	Roman Catholic (14%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (10%)

 As anyone can tell from the name of the blog, I self identify as a Buddhist. I actually refer to myself as a Theravada/Soto Zen Buddhist with Taoist tendencies. But Buddhism is not my first result according to the BoM, Taosim doesn't rate the Top Ten, and I certainly do not consider myself New Age.

So, what's in a name?