Survey
Note: I’ve received some initial feedback that this is quite long. Yes, it is, and I understand that you’re helping me out. You are more than welcome to answer only some, or to answer very briefly. I appreciate detailed answers, but I understand if you don’t want to spend the time right now. Any contribution is appreciated. Thank you.
If you are interested in helping with my Christian beliefs study, please fill out this survey. I have written briefly about the purpose when I first conceived the idea, and now I’m opening the research lines to anyone online who would like to participate.
The purpose of my study is to get an idea of where Christianity lies today. There are a lot of denominations, each with various divisions into smaller “sub-denominations”. Each of these differs in some beliefs or others, and even within a denomination different churches may differ in belief. On top of this, more and more people are coming to a “personal interpretation”, which espouses their beliefs which may or may not agree precisely with the church that they attend. I have been conducting interviews with church leaders from various denominations and non-denominational Christian churches. The purpose of this survey is to get an idea of these personal beliefs to compare with what the church leaders say that they are actually teaching.
As you may see from reading some of this site, I am an atheist. Why am I trying to research Christianity if I don’t believe it? That’s a good question. I was raised Catholic, but eventually developed a rejection of Catholicism and Christianity. Very often, I hear some argument of the form, “You were just not exposed to the right Christian traditions. This is what we believe…” But these beliefs are almost too numerous to count. I want to understand what Christians as a whole agree on, and what they don’t. Where they don’t, I want to see as many sides of the argument as I can. You might say I’m trying to play “God’s Advocate” (as opposed to Devil’s Advocate), in that I’m looking at as many arguments for Christianity as possible, rather than only looking at a few and dismissing the entire religion.
Of course, the nature of this investigation means that I’m most interested in the beliefs of Christians, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear from anyone. If you think your answers would be interesting or helpful or you just want to tell me how you feel, you are more than welcome to do so. Also, please understand that I mean no disrespect, nor do I want to be confrontational. I present these questions as they pertain to something of interest to this study. They could relate to controversial bible passages, controversial political topics, or issues I may have with certain teachings.
You are welcome to leave any question blank if you do not feel comfortable answering it, and you are not required to give me any identifying information or contact information if you so choose. I don’t know why anyone would try to respond to the same questions multiple times, but please don’t. If you want to answer some now and come back later to answer the rest, that’s just fine. But try to leave the ones that you’ve already answered blank on your second submission. If you leave me an email address, I may respond with deeper questions about your responses. If you don’t want that, either don’t leave an email address or tell me so in the last question (which is questions/comments). There are 30 questions, and you may be as detailed or as brief as you like. Thank you very much for your participation.
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