A quiz to brighten the dullest of days.
Hairshirt
Excuse us, could you just put down that hammer for a minute and listen. You’re so busy getting things done you rarely take any time out just to relax. In fact, you’ve probably forgotten how to relax. That’s because you’re so anxious to prove that it’s possible to lead a good and moral life without religion that you have built a strict and forbidding creed all of your own.
You keep a compost heap, cycle to the bottle bank, invest in ethical schemes only and the list of countries you won’t buy from is longer than the washing line for your baby’s towelling nappies. You admire uncompromising self–sacrificers like Aung San Suu Kyi and Che Guevara, and would have liked the chance to be incarcerated for your principles like Diderot or Nelson Mandela.
You would never cheat on your partner, drink and drive, accept bribes or touch drugs. You never waste money though you give lots to charity. Living a good life? You’re a model to us all. But it wouldn’t hurt you to try a little happiness once in a while. Loosen up.
What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.
Except for the insult. Lighten up, my ass.





I’m a “Haymaker” (is that British for Hedonist?)
Damn, I’m a Hairshirt. But the questionnaire failed to give me an option to note my really fine pollinator/butterfly garden.
Apparently, they think I’m a “handholder,” which just goes to demonstrate the gap between worldview and personality.
I, too, am a handholder, and I agree generally with the assessment.
“You would defend Salman Rushdie’s right to criticise Islam but you’re sorry he attacked it so viciously, just as you feel uncomfortable with some of the more outspoken and unkind views of religion in the pages of this magazine.”
But the way they phrase it, they make it sound like it’s out of a certain namby-pambyness. There’s a certain amount of smug-fuckery in the results. I’m “uncomfortable” with zealous humanists “outspoken and unkind views of religion”, I just roll my eyes them. They sound way too much like a smarted-up bitchy anti-religion 17 year-old. I _was_ that bitchy anti-religion 17 year-old, so I know the speech.
I’m a “handholder” in that I “go out of your way to build bridges with people of different views and beliefs”, but their implication is that it’s cause us handholders” are uncomfortable with confrotation. Nope. I just think nobody has it all right all the time, so I try to point it out when neither side gets it all right.
When one side vastly outweighs the other in sanity and coherence and good sense, I’ll take that side enthusiastically. But not absolutely.
However, I agree with the sign the hairshirt is holding… I _do_ want my body composted after death. Not for puritan reasons, but for reasons that can most closely be caled religious, and that desire is the more “religious” feeling I think I have……
I’m the Haymaker and I do love champagne!
I’m a “handholder” too, and I agree with KnifeGhost’s assessment of it.
Plus, half the time none of the answers were quite right for what I wanted. If my partner converted to some crazy religion I’d try to talk hir out of it and then leave if need be, but not be so harsh to kick hir out and change the locks or ignore it or some nonsense like that. Also, if I ever had to make a decision like the nativity thing for a niece of mine (no kiddies for me!) I would ask her what she wants to do and then take appropriate action from there. I mean, have these people never heard of communication????
I’m sure the quiz intended this as sone sirt if compliment, but I’d shudder at being compared to anyone who so gleefully tortured and killed democrats (small “d”), gays, or anyone who generally didn’t share his murderous totalitarian philosophy.
Wow, that should be “some sort of compliment”. Type much?
Love it. Can’t wait to play.
I’m Not Really a Humanist, But I Play One in the Blogosphere
Which might explain this (which isn’t 100% accurate, btw):
Haymaker, which I don’t think really describes me at all.
Of course, part of the problem is that I don’t consider myself a Humanist, at least not as defined there. I consider myself more of a Christianity-based Unitarian/Universalist.
If that makes sense.
Haymaker, but changing one answer made me a hairshirt. The combo is more correct. I like to work hard & play hard.
I was HAIRSHIRT too. Ouch!
Handholder. Although I would defend the right to free speech as a princible, the truth is that I told Salman Rushdie off for being a miserable pig of a human being and it wouldnt sadden me at all to find his “voice” snuffed out.
Like jon C said, perhaps the quiz-makers considered this a compliment.
Hairshirt here – I feel itchy!
Timewaster: I Am A Haymaker?
Haymaker The lost-in-no-translation questions left me in a bit of a fog (very timely), but I know Thatcher=Reagan, so I won’t take haymaker as a insult… I’ll just take it to mean optimist via feministe You are one of life’s
Apparently, I’m a Hardhat.
I’m a Haymaker – and I’m purring.
My husband is a Hairshirt – and he’s chafing. (He keeps wanting to discuss the “contradictory nuances” in the questions. Bit of a sense of humor failure…)
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We Web Browse So You Don’t Have To Middle of the week, Bu$hCo still lying up a storm (and using chemical weapons to boot) … what’s a member of the Fifth Column to read? Here you go: Pusillanimous Wankers has
And in the way the questionjs are phrased, there are time when you have to essentially admit to compromising your values if you don’t want an explicitly anti-religion answer. EG: the circumcision question. If you don’t buy that infanct circumcision is a great evil, and you’re not against it for knee-jerk anti-religion reasons, there’s no answer for you. AT BEST, you can answer that you’d, despite your Great Humanist All-Seeing Wisdom, bite your toungue and allow it, but ONLY if done in a hospital. Quite frankly, if I met and fell in love with an observant Jewish girl, I’d probably know long in advance if she wanted him circumcised in the traditional way, and frankly, I’d say “bring on the mohel”.
[...] ? Click here to find out. I will put Tim’s up once I get him to fill it out. Via Lauren. Filed under: Excellent Links | [...]
….holds hands with EricP, Thomas, Knifeghost, and tekanji
I thought the graphic for Handholder did a nice job of both patronizing the ideology and women . It pretty much said that I loved terrorists (because I support expression of diverse views, evidentally) and that I was wishy-washy on the Salman Rushdie controversy.
Like KnifeGhost I felt the questions narrowed one to specifically antiChristian prejudices and divided the world into those who were Atheist and those who were religious.
Pardon me, but I am an agnostic. More and more I believe that atheists hate my kind more than they hate fundamentalists. This test adds to that suspicion.
To be fair, from the looks of everyone else’s results, it looks like smug-fuckery is more or less universal for these guys. I wonder what the designers of the test or the editors of the magazine scored on it….. This isn’t to say they aren’t self-righteous pricks, but they’re universally self-righteous and pricky.
But then…. I’m not exactly a Humanist to begin with.
Haymaker here. I like that. :)
I’m a Haymaker, too. That quiz must have tapped into my love of good food and drink, chocolate, baking, making soaps, sex stories, and great entertainment. I do like my leisure, and I love la dolce vita. However, I’m not a Marlon Brando fan, as the quiz said. On the other hand, the quiz said I like George Bernard Shaw, which is true. I have a whole page of his quotes that I use as signatures sometimes.
Total Handholder.
But then again, I’m a born-again bible thumper, so that was the best I could do under the circumstances.
Haymaker! Though just like the Countess I could do without Brando.