God Bless the First Amendment Trivia Quiz

Answer: Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith had several visions in the 1820s in which he claimed to have seen a series of golden plates. His translation of these plates, a history of the twelve tribes of Israel in Central America, formed the basis for "The Book of Mormon". The church was founded in Fayette, New York in April 1830. Smith and his brother were assassinated in Nauvoo, Illinois in June 1845,

Brigham Young led emigration of the Mormon pioneers to Utah in 1846. Partridge and Rigdon were two key early leaders in the church.

Answer: Xenu

According to Scientologists, an alien overlord named Lord Xenu sent billions of his followers to the planet Earth and then killed them using nuclear weapons. The souls of these murder victims are called "thetans" and are supposedly the reason for suffering on the planet Earth.

Terl is one of the main characters in "Battlefield Earth," a science fiction novel by L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The Pyschlos were the alien race which conquered Earth.

Answer: The Flying Spaghetti Monster

The Flying Spaghetti Monster was created by Henderson in 2005. Henderson created the religion in response to Christian conservatives pushing "intelligent design" in public schools. Henderson wrote a "Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" in 2006 and maintains a website to promote the idea of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Henderson and other Pastafarians have engaged in debates with advocates of Creationism. Pastafarianism is generally a lighthearted religion; their holy day is Friday and the response to prayers is "R'amen."

Answer: Seventh Day Adventists

William Miller was a millennial prophet who proclaimed the second coming of Jesus and the end the world throughout much of the 1830s. His first date was March 21; he then adjusted that to April 18 and finally October 22. When the world did not end in October, the movement split up, with one branch forming the Seventh Day Adventists.

By the early 20th century, it was one of the largest religious groups in the world, with over 20 million members worldwide. While Seventh Day Adventists have some ideas that are a little out of the mainstream, they are generally recognized as a major Protestant denomination in the United States.

Answer: Hawaii

Huna was founded in Hawaii in 1936. Max Freedom Long was a metaphysicist who determined that ancient secrets of knowledge were encoded in the Hawaiian language. He wrote his first book on Huna in 1936 and founded Huna Research in 1945.

Huna is based on seven principles that Long extrapolated from Hawaiian words. Native Hawaiian speakers say that Long's definitions have nothing to do with the actual meaning of the words.

Huna takes its name from Kahuna, a Hawaiian word meaning expert.

Answer: Guyana

The Reverend Jim Jones founded The People's Temple in 1954 in Indianapolis. The church moved to California in the 1960s and was based in San Francisco. Under increasing pressure from the IRS, Jones fled to Guyana in 1977.

The downfall of the cult began in November 1978, when US Rep. Leo Ryan, who had several constituents with family members in the cult, visited Jonestown. The Congressman and several of his staff were murdered by cult members. Subsequently, Jones and 900 of his followers committed mass suicide, most from drinking cyanide laced kool-aid. This is where the phrase "drinking the kool-aid" comes from.

Answer: Waco

The original Branch Davidians, an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventism, was founded by Benjamin Rodin near Elk, Texas in 1955. The downfall of the group began with the arrival of Vernon Howell (later known as David Koresh) in 1981.

Howell/Koresh split off from the Roden organization in 1983, and for a decade they fought the original Davidians. The fall of Koresh's group came in the spring of 1993, with a 51-day standoff with federal officials between February 28 and April 19. The ATF accused Koresh of having illegal stockpiles of weapons. After weeks with no resolution, the government called Koresh's bluff. On April 19, the FBI led a raid on the Davidian compound which led to a fire that killed 76 Davidians, including Koresh.

The events at Waco inspired the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 two years later and remains central to the animus which some ultra-conservative groups have towards the federal government.

Answer: Hale-Bopp Comet

The Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in March 1997 because they believed that Comet Hale-Bopp was actually an alien spaceship that would transport them off Earth.

Comet Hale-Bopp was one of the brightest objects in the night sky for most of 1996 and 1997. It set a new visibility record of 18 months. At its peak, Hale Bopp was visible before nightfall.

Halley's comet appeared in 1986. Comet Hyakutake was the Great Comet of 1996, Comet Shoemaker-Levy collided with Jupiter in 1994.

Answer: The Big Lebowski

Dudeism is based on Jeff Bridges' slacker character, Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, in the 1998 film "The Big Lebowski". Dudeism is based on the Chinese religion of Taoism, and promotes Taoism as exemplified by Jeff Lebowski.

The religion was founded by Oliver Benjamin, a journalist based in Thailand. The church has grown to have 450,000 members, and dudeist priests have actually performed marriages. Benjamin has written several books espousing the principles of Dudeism.

Answer: Eris

Eris is the Greek goddess of discord. Eris was not worshiped in ancient Greece, but used as a personification of chaos and discord. The dwarf planet Eris is named after the goddess.

Modern discordianism began with the publication of the "Prinicipia Discordia" in 1963. Whether or not it is a parody religion is for members to argue about, creating further discord.

"The Judgment of Paris" is a mythological story in which Eris throws a golden apple with "To The Fairest" written on it into a wedding. Paris is called upon to judge which of three goddesses - Athena, Aphrodite or Hera - is the fairest. He chose Aphrodite, who offered him Helen, which led to the Trojan War.