Across families
Ethical Culture and Secular Buddhism
Different families with 13 axes in close agreement — the sort of pairing a quiz weighting only the divine axes would never surface. Mean distance across all seventeen axes: 0.07 (0 would be identical).
Deed before creed: a congregational religious life with ceremony, community and moral education, and no theological claims at all. Keeps rather more ritual than secular humanism, which is the cell that separates the two.
The practice and the psychology kept, the cosmology set aside: no literal rebirth, no supernatural claims, no authority beyond what you can test in your own experience. A naturalist reading of the canon rather than a rejection of it.
Where they agree
A1 Divine reality
Both sit at nothing beyond the natural — a gap of 0.00.
A3 Plurality
Both sit at strictly one — a gap of 0.00.
D1 Mechanism of the ultimate good
Both sit at achieved by effort or insight — a gap of 0.00.
E4 Standing of nature
Both sit at between creation, given for use and animate and itself sacred — a gap of 0.00.
E2 Origin of the cosmos
Both sit at beginningless or natural — a gap of 0.02.
E3 Locus of belonging
Both sit at an individual choice — a gap of 0.02.
B1 Source of truth
Both sit at reason and direct experience — a gap of 0.03.
A2 Personhood
Both sit at impersonal principle or order — a gap of 0.03.
B3 Institutional authority
Both sit at individual conscience decides — a gap of 0.03.
E1 Exclusivity
Both sit at many valid paths — a gap of 0.04.
C1 Survival of the self
Both sit at ends at death — a gap of 0.05.
C3 The human condition
Both sit at ignorant but fundamentally sound — a gap of 0.05.
B2 Reading of sacred text
Both sit at metaphorical, or no text at all — a gap of 0.07.
All seventeen axes
| Axis | Ethical Culture | Secular Buddhism | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 Divine reality | nothing beyond the natural | nothing beyond the natural | 0.00 |
| A2 Personhood | impersonal principle or order | impersonal principle or order | 0.03 |
| A3 Plurality | strictly one | strictly one | 0.00 |
| A4 Locus | leaning wholly beyond the world | leaning fully present within it | 0.35 |
| B1 Source of truth | reason and direct experience | reason and direct experience | 0.03 |
| B2 Reading of sacred text | metaphorical, or no text at all | metaphorical, or no text at all | 0.07 |
| B3 Institutional authority | individual conscience decides | individual conscience decides | 0.03 |
| C1 Survival of the self | ends at death | ends at death | 0.05 |
| C2 Shape of time | one life, then judgment | leaning one life, then judgment | 0.13 |
| C3 The human condition | ignorant but fundamentally sound | ignorant but fundamentally sound | 0.05 |
| D1 Mechanism of the ultimate good | achieved by effort or insight | achieved by effort or insight | 0.00 |
| D2 Centrality of ritual | between essential and prescribed and optional or absent | leaning optional or absent | 0.15 |
| D3 The body | leaning to be celebrated | between to be disciplined and to be celebrated | 0.30 |
| E1 Exclusivity | many valid paths | many valid paths | 0.04 |
| E2 Origin of the cosmos | beginningless or natural | beginningless or natural | 0.02 |
| E3 Locus of belonging | an individual choice | an individual choice | 0.02 |
| E4 Standing of nature | between creation, given for use and animate and itself sacred | between creation, given for use and animate and itself sacred | 0.00 |
Positions for Ethical Culture rest principally on Adler’s founding addresses and AEU statements of purpose; for Secular Buddhism, on Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs (1997) and After Buddhism (2015). Per-cell sources are listed on each tradition’s own page.
The questionnaire places your answers on these same axes and ranks all 65 traditions by how closely they match. Take it.