Using our simple 14-question quiz you can find out where you fit on the humanist spectrum - just choose one option for each, then click submit. A quick metaphysical caluculation from our computers in the blasphemy lab will then tell you if you're happy, hedonist, hounded or hardline. Illustrations by Martin Rowson.
Hounded Humanist
Oh, God – I mean, oh, Dawkins! – why does it all have to be so difficult? You try so hard, don’t you, to be a good person and to lead a blameless life? You keep a compost heap, cycle to the bottle bank, and the list of countries you won’t buy from is longer than the washing line for your baby’s towelling nappies. You would never cheat on your partner, drink and drive, accept bribes or fiddle your expenses. You try not to waste money, but give loads to charity. But you can’t help feeling guilty a lot of the time. It took quite an effort to throw off the shackles of your religious upbringing and even today you occasionally wonder if you’ve done the right thing. At other times, though, you remember with a shudder of revulsion the hypocrisy and constraints that you’ve escaped. You feel awkward when Christopher Hitchens argues that religion is primitive. Yet you’re filled with violent loathing when Jehovah’s Witnesses bang on your door or you encounter a line of orange Hare Krishnas chanting in the street. The commentator you most admire is Terry Eagleton, who, despite having no truck with religion itself, is a powerful advocate of religious values. You’re a reluctant atheist who’d have preferred some fundamental certainties but realised with sadness that there weren’t any. Lighten up – and wear your humanism with heart.
