Are INTP's less likely to be religious?

[PsiKik]

Are more INTP's atheists? Is there a correlation between
self-admitted followers of a religion and MBTI type?
My initial impression is that an INTP is more likely to be atheist/agnostic
on account of analysing the facts - religion seems not to have many facts
about it.

[file cabinet]

mmmm.. religion poll:
http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66
I think the poll agrees with you.

[PsiKik]

Hmm, thanks for the link fc. This does confirm my suspicions.
BTW anyone know of what type is most likely to be religious?

[PsiKik]

just found this link, pretty funny - religion and MBTI type.

http://www.degrace.ca/stephen/MBTIandReligion.html

[cloakable]

just found this link, pretty funny - religion and MBTI type.

http://www.degrace.ca/stephen/MBTIandReligion.html

Hehe, made me laugh, and looks like a genuine writing if you scan it. Good humor, though.


Rationals (NT)

These types are basically Godless and evil. Their choice of "faith" should reflect that.

INTP: INTPs are always right, therefore they should skip right to atheism, with an option on immortality as a simulation in a computer of unimaginable complexity at the end of time as proven by the laws of physics.

I dunno, that does sound quite accurate though. :D :devil:

[Aryan]

if religion is something fanatic
Them i'm sure INTPs are fanatic rationals
They would defend the temple of rationality at all costs
Now doesnt this make them religious

[cloakable]

if religion is something fanatic
Them i'm sure INTPs are fanatic rationals
They would defend the temple of rationality at all costs
Now doesnt this make them religious

You cannot define everything with logic :-

God is love,
love is blind,
I am blind,
therefore I am God.

See?

Also, there is a logical fallacy in your argument - there is no temple of rationality, and there is no religion of rationality, as that would imply organisation, and pure rationality is too diverse for that.

Any disagreements?

[Aryan]

Rationalists might argue among themselves but they all crave for that same truth
Hence Cloakable ...

[cloakable]

Rationalists might argue among themselves but they all crave for that same truth
Hence Cloakable ...

But that truth can be different for different people.

[Aryan]

Rationalists might argue among themselves but they all crave for that same truth
Hence Cloakable ...

But that truth can be different for different people.
Truth aimed by rationalism is always objective not subjective
A truth which is different for different people is subjective not objective

Well again but u do understand the rational way of thought Cloakable
We are all of the same kind and think the same way our paths may be different

Religion also offers different paths but all religious persons go after that one god
Same for objective truth

We are rational fanatics !!!

[cloakable]

I disagree, my personal view is that all truths are subjective, not objective. Yes, I consider myself rational and logical, but logic can be used to prove anything, and what, precisley, is rationality? My personal view is that rationality is an integeral part of my worldview, which is formed by my own experiences, which are unique. Because my worldview is unique, while I will be rational, it will be a different rationality to yours, or PsiKik's, for example. Can you put forth your arguement for subjective truth, please? This discussion is facinating.

[cjs55]

Mostly my N but partly my T has led me to reject religion in general on earth. I am not an atheist, but I am as sure that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist as I am that the world is round. Just every bit of experience I have had has reinforced this thought, not a single one going against it. But, I haven't actually percieved it, so I can't be entirely certain. However, even on observation, that wouldn't make it entirely certain either, so I stick with my N.

[booyalab]

Rationalists might argue among themselves but they all crave for that same truth
Hence Cloakable ...

But that truth can be different for different people.
Truth aimed by rationalism is always objective not subjective
A truth which is different for different people is subjective not objective



Truth aimed by rationalism does not always result in pure objectivity. A logical conclusion only serves to show that the process is achieved objectively. The premise is still a bias unless it can be empirically proven. For example, ontological arguments (or arguments against the existence of God, for that matter) can have good logic, but they can't possibly be based on empirical evidence because of the nature of the god whose existence is allegedly being proven or disproven. I do think the last statement is self-evident. This is why Christians and fundamental muslims are labeled as intolerant. If you actually believe what either religion entails you would be a hypocrite not to live according to your beliefs. (AKA, believing in hell but not caring that other people will go there if it's true) Also, Christianity can't be true simultaneously with ,say, Hinduism. As a matter of fact, it's more disrespectful to pretend that contradictory religions can all be true and call it 'tolerance', than it is to flat out say only one or the other can be true. You're basically saying that the only meaning and difference in multiple religions is superficial and contained in the little rituals and practices exemplified by the followers of these religions. At least if you disagree with the fact that they think they have the truth, you're suggesting that there is some consequence to the issue...and their chosen lifestyle.

[booyalab]

I guess I should answer the actual question. I think INTP's just appear to be less religious. NTs are less likely to want to belong to an institution just for the sake of it, like SJs. We also are less likely to go along with our parents' religion like a feeler might, to maintain harmony. If someone misunderstands what it means to be religious, they may go through the motions, but I don't think that makes them religious anymore than going to school means you are learning or wanting to learn anything.
Someone in an earlier post suggested that if someone is most interested in looking at the facts (like an INTP) they will usually be an athiest/agnostic.
First, I don't think you can lump athiesm and agnosticism in one category. There are different reasons involved in coming to each conclusion. Also, athiesm is closer to religion in that both are ultimately based on an assumption of reality and neither has produced an inarguable rationale. An INTERPRETATION of facts is involved in deciding what you want to believe, not analysis. Analysis is interpolation, which by definition can't go beyond that which is being analyzed. The facts in and of themselves do not satisfactorily point to whether something greater than the facts exists. .

[Johnny]

Of course INTP'ers are less likely to be religious. Why? Because INTP'ers are more likely to take the long road...

:sombrero:

[booyalab]

Of course INTP'ers are less likely to be religious. Why? Because INTP'ers are more likely to take the long road...

:sombrero:

do you mean the wide road?

[Johnny]

Of course INTP'ers are less likely to be religious. Why? Because INTP'ers are more likely to take the long road...

:sombrero:

do you mean the wide road?

Long and wide? :lol:

[booyalab]

Of course INTP'ers are less likely to be religious. Why? Because INTP'ers are more likely to take the long road...

:sombrero:

do you mean the wide road?

Long and wide? :lol:

le purrrr

[Claverhouse]

I disagree, my personal view is that all truths are subjective, not objective. Yes, I consider myself rational and logical, but logic can be used to prove anything, and what, precisley, is rationality? My personal view is that rationality is an integeral part of my worldview, which is formed by my own experiences, which are unique. Because my worldview is unique, while I will be rational, it will be a different rationality to yours, or PsiKik's, for example. Can you put forth your arguement for subjective truth, please? This discussion is facinating.


Excellent.



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[jimkopelli]

Quite.

[Boozer]

I consider myself an agnostic, although for selfish reasons... ever heard of Pascals wager?

Pascal's Wager can be presented in many different forms, usually something like this:
"If you believe, and God exists, you gain everything. If you disbelieve, and God exists, you lose everything."

Alternatively :
"It makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe. If you believe, and God exists, you will be rewarded in the afterlife. If you do not believe, and He exists, you will be punished for your disbelief. If He does not exist, you have lost nothing either way. "


Although I will admit to being fascinated by the similarities of scale in the universe. This tend to make me a little more succeptible to the possibility of a higher power.

[Johnny]

I'm not clear that experience is entirely unique for every person, and through this, that objectivity is unreachable.

Am I to take, for example, that this forum does not exist, simply because someone out there in the world is not aware of it? Or that the World Trade Center Towers continue to stand as a result of someone's ignorance?


A logical conclusion only serves to show that the process is achieved objectively. The premise is still a bias unless it can be empirically proven.
Well, observation and experience have their problems too. We can say that a weight scale will report its findings objectively, but because it is a device of our own creation there still gets to be a caveat - are we really nailing down truth, or are we only nailing down an agreement no more exciting than a peace treaty between two warring nations?

In the world today, communication technology (for example) has offered us much with respect to shared observations and experiences...we here on this forum don't worry that we may only be playing an elaborate game while the "real world" passes us by (edit: oops, perhaps not all of us).

I myself currently view objectivity as an expression of our instinct for tribalism and subjectivity as an expression of our instinct for personal survival. Guess how long humanity has been trying to reconcile those two instincts...alternately with and without any God? :lol:

:sombrero:

*edit again: a grammatical sanitation sweep was performed... :lol:

[booyalab]

I consider myself an agnostic, although for selfish reasons... ever heard of Pascals wager?

Pascal's Wager can be presented in many different forms, usually something like this:
"If you believe, and God exists, you gain everything. If you disbelieve, and God exists, you lose everything."

Alternatively :
"It makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe. If you believe, and God exists, you will be rewarded in the afterlife. If you do not believe, and He exists, you will be punished for your disbelief. If He does not exist, you have lost nothing either way. "

Although I will admit to being fascinated by the similarities of scale in the universe. This tend to make me a little more succeptible to the possibility of a higher power.

I do know about Pascal's Wager, but I think it was only a sound argument in his time. The assumption in it is that there's only 2 choices. Now we're aware of many other lifestyles and religions which maybe should be given equal consideration. Although westerners usually still only choose between one or the other, so I guess it still applies if you've decided not to consider eastern religions or satanism or islam or judaism...for whatever reason. (like not wanting to go to mecca or learn yiddish)

I think it's cool that you admit to being agnostic for selfish reasons. Most people make up some rationalization and don't acknowledge the real reason might be subjective. I know I'm selfish, too. If I believed in God, I'd have to change my lifestyle. I'm spiritually undecided, though. (if there was only a God vs. Darwin ..or Satan? or...a pair of dice? debate for us undecideds)

[booyalab]

Well, observation and experience have their problems too. We can say that a weight scale will report its findings objectively, but because it is a device of our own creation there still gets to be a caveat - are we really nailing down truth, or are we only nailing down an agreement no more exciting than a peace treaty between two warring nations?

I did mean 'agreement'. What we can *know* for sure is just true by definition. Who was it that said something like "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be a profound truth" Niels Bohr, I think. Of course, we only say they're both true because we don't know either way. If we could see all sides of the apple at once, the profound truths could be identified as correct and false statements.

[paladinoflunaria]

Nah. I'm a Socrates fan. Better start building up my hemlock, etc. immunity...

[booyalab]

Nah. I'm a Socrates fan. Better start building up my hemlock, etc. immunity...

yeah Socrates was cool...to say the least

[Johnny]

Hello, Paladinoflunaria. :hello:

[Boozer]

Another reason I have for being agnostic is that I have trouble fathoming the idea of someone somehow having the "wrong" faith and despite being a good person manages to go to hell.

If I had to pick I find Taoism intriguing. But it's almost more philosophy than religion. At least as far as my limited knowledge goes.

[Arcael]

I believe all paths of spirituality lead to the same end :P but thats just me

[SensEye]

I believe all paths of spirituality lead to the same end :P but thats just me
Would that be the cold hard finality of death?

[cloakable]

I believe all paths of spirituality lead to the same end :P but thats just me
Would that be the cold hard finality of death?

:rofl: Nice answer :rofl:

[Johnny]

I was going to offer that too, but death has its own can of worms - stardust, spirit, essence, et al...

[jimkopelli]

And I think it's funny that you should mention worms. :mellow:
I'm a cremation type person, myself... that, or die in such a way that leaves no body... or a nice crater... :devil:

[Star Cannon]

*ahem* I believe your all forgetting I. _N_(<--- That right there.) T. P.

We are rationalists guided by intuition. Therefore: INTP's do not need religion to guide them because they have intuition, which more reliable than any religious dogma/doctrine.

Star Cannon

[booyalab]

*ahem* I believe your all forgetting I. _N_(<--- That right there.) T. P.

We are rationalists guided by intuition. Therefore: INTP's do not need religion to guide them because they have intuition, which more reliable than any religious dogma/doctrine.

Star Cannon

wow, actually INTPs don't follow intuition as closely as their NF counterparts. Most of us know that intuition as a guiding force isn't reliable if you dont have knowledge and logic to back it up. For example, intuition might tell me initially that Spain is way south of New England since the former has a warmer climate. But much of New England is either on the same line of latitude as Italy and the mediterranean, or farther south.

[Star Cannon]

*shrug* We've got it, why not use it?

Star Cannon

[booyalab]

*shrug* We've got it, why not use it?

Star Cannon

I thought I just demonstrated why we shouldn't just unquestioningly use it.

I recommend a book called "Intuition: It's Powers and Perils" by David G. Myers

[Claverhouse]

...intuition, which more reliable than any religious dogma/doctrine.


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Arioch]

*ahem* I believe your all forgetting I. _N_(<--- That right there.) T. P.

We are rationalists guided by intuition. Therefore: INTP's do not need religion to guide them because they have intuition, which more reliable than any religious dogma/doctrine.

Star Cannon

wow, actually INTPs don't follow intuition as closely as their NF counterparts. Most of us know that intuition as a guiding force isn't reliable if you dont have knowledge and logic to back it up. For example, intuition might tell me initially that Spain is way south of New England since the former has a warmer climate. But much of New England is either on the same line of latitude as Italy and the mediterranean, or farther south.

Hitler probably had N as well. This shows that N is hardly a perfect measure to lead one through life. While it might help one to greatness it does nothing for ones humanity.

Your also forgetting two other points. N has also had a roll in religion.
AND if someone follows a religion (especially if he does more then lipservice) it's more likely that he believes that there is a God. And if there is a God then Intuition will do you a whole lot of good if you end up with Gods disfavor.

[booyalab]

Hitler probably had N as well. This shows that N is hardly a perfect measure to lead one through life. While it might help one to greatness it does nothing for ones humanity.

Your also forgetting two other points. N has also had a roll in religion.
AND if someone follows a religion (especially if he does more then lipservice) it's more likely that he believes that there is a God. And if there is a God then Intuition will do you a whole lot of good if you end up with Gods disfavor.

Yeah N has a roll in religion (just like every complicated subject), but you can argue over whether it 'had' a roll in it's initiation. In fact, the assertion that religion was started by N is pretty intuitive in itself.

[Johnny]

...intuition, which more reliable than any religious dogma/doctrine.


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:



Claverhouse :ph34r:

:rofl:

Problem is, I don't know what kind of meaning Star Cannon is offering for the word "intuition". Can you shed more light on this, Star Cannon?

[cjs55]

Intuition for me is much more than simple axioms such as 'climate only relies on latitude'. It is a very complicated and essentially inexplicable web of experience and infered (sp?) concepts. Many things it is not sufficient to explain, and thats when I rely on my thinking ability. But, I have both intuited (haha) and plainly observered just where my intuition succeeds and can usually give a good percentage of the chance of me being correct based off of it. Thus, I can rely on it very successfully in certain circumstances and I seem to get better with it as I get older.

[INTrPosr]

I would say that my religious beliefs are somewhat between Mysticism and Agnostic. I always had questions that could not/would not be answered, which resulted in my skepticism for dogmatic religion growing. The Bible was edited too much for my comfort.

[SheepDog]

I think of Intuition as a gateway to a type of Knowledge that cannot be objectively measured, but can nonetheless be known. In the modern world of science and objectivity, emphasis is placed on things that can be counted, measured or otherwise quantified. Opinion is replaced with polling statistics, to use a timely example, but it doesn't tell you everything about the mental state of people. Objectification is only concerned with things that it can measure, and throws everything else away.

But those Intuitives in the crowd will pick up on the comments and the sentiment around them. They will 'know' when the attitudes of people around them aren't expressed in things like approval ratings. They will detect a change in views is coming, perhaps before the pollsters can think to ask the new questions.

Religion is an area where there are things that can be believed (or not), but there is much that cannot be known. If god could be known in an objective sense, there would be no need for a term like Faith.


As for INTP's and religion, I have always thought that one of the main reasons why religion needs to exist is that certain questions really bother some people, and not knowing the answer drives them nuts. Religion almost always has answers to the tough questions like "where did we come from?" and "what happens when we die?" If you are the type that needs answers, then religion is there for you.

But INTP's tend to be more comfortable with unanswered questions. If I don't have to have answers, then maybe I can think about it some more and come up with an answer later, if at all. Personally, I don't remember where I came from, and since I'm still alive, I don't know what will happen when I die. Maybe I'll find out then, but coming up with an answer just to have one isn't going to change the truth of the matter.

[songbird36]

Truth can't be different for different people.

Subjective truth is "belief"

Objective truth is "truth"

The tree will still make a sound falling in the woods, even if we're not there to hear it :-)

[Sackanaka]

One liner.


No no, that was rude. The next line will be more irritating... perhaps.


Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I think I mention it too much. If you read the part on "ghosts" though, you'll know what I mean.

[Aryan]

I disagree, my personal view is that all truths are subjective, not objective. Yes, I consider myself rational and logical, but logic can be used to prove anything, and what, precisley, is rationality? My personal view is that rationality is an integeral part of my worldview, which is formed by my own experiences, which are unique. Because my worldview is unique, while I will be rational, it will be a different rationality to yours, or PsiKik's, for example. Can you put forth your arguement for subjective truth, please? This discussion is facinating.

Well this reply is quite late, i guess, for some reason i missed going into this thread.

Argument:
How we perceive truth might be subjcective. For example i might not see the color yellow as you see it.(subjective) But we both agree it is yellow.(objective).
Hence ur quite radical view (i liked this view ^.^) that all truths are subjective is wrong. Infact if u define anything to be true u cannot call it subjective. The perception is subjective, but perception is not the truth.
Truth is something we agree upon.

[Danyal]

INTP: INTPs are always right, therefore they should skip right to atheism, with an option on immortality as a simulation in a computer of unimaginable complexity at the end of time as proven by the laws of physics.

^^ omg I pretty much said just that a couple of weeks ago!! *shivers*

Well ok I didn't use the techy stuff but I did say when I was old I wanted to be plugged into the matrix as my 20something self and learn kung-fu. Its the same though :)

[SheepDog]

http://www.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/notdead.html

The Emperor asked Master Gudo, "What happens to a man of enlightenment after death?"

"How should I know?" replied Gudo.

"Because you are a master," answered the Emperor.

"Yes sir," said Gudo, "but not a dead one."

[cuspuser]

Boozer - i always liked my re-worked Pascal's wager for the athiests side ... (not that i'm an atheist)

"if you believe God exists (and follow all the rules to obtain your spot in the afterlife) you are living for a life you may never have"
"if you don't believe god exists you are living for the life you know you have."



As for INTP's and religion, I have always thought that one of the main reasons why religion needs to exist is that certain questions really bother some people, and not knowing the answer drives them nuts. Religion almost always has answers to the tough questions like "where did we come from?" and "what happens when we die?" If you are the type that needs answers, then religion is there for you.

But INTP's tend to be more comfortable with unanswered questions. If I don't have to have answers, then maybe I can think about it some more and come up with an answer later, if at all. Personally, I don't remember where I came from, and since I'm still alive, I don't know what will happen when I die. Maybe I'll find out then, but coming up with an answer just to have one isn't going to change the truth of the matter.

Amen to that ;)

I also like what Aryan ended on in the last post, i've tried to explain that to others before, and i'm not sure if everyone here got it or not, but it was short and to the point - point being our objective truths are built on a subjective reality ... again dealing with the limits of our knowledge ... in this case the problem of other minds (i can't know if what you see for red is what i see for green) but despite this problem, objectively red is red to both of us - the subjective is a place holder for objective truth ... for example if i'm colour blind i only have one place holder for red and green and objectively can't tell the difference. See i just made it more complicated again :S i'd go on but i'm sure all of you are smart enough to know what i'm talking about ;D

[Johnny]

...our objective truths are built on a subjective reality...Perhaps...or perhaps not. When we talk about objective truths, the desire is that we discuss them in a way that allows them to exist independently of us. There's no doubt that we are safe to assume we impact the world in both our interactions and the lack thereof, but that doesn't then require us to give in to objectivity as public subjectivity...does it?

In other words, would there be no truth to the Moon's reflection of Sunlight towards the water were there no subjects (human or otherwise) to observe and deduce this phenomenon? Can the inability to speak of a reality that's independent of our current collective understanding negate a reality that's independent of our collective understanding? I don't think so, or else we wouldn't bother listening and observing.

I've argued here myself that our objective world is the world of experience, and there's really nothing else we can say. Our thoughts and speculation about it, and our virtual reality models, will always pale in comparison...and the world we fashion with our apple pies, our automobiles, our climate-controlled lap pools, our gene therapy, will always reveal a human odor (for good or ill). But some don't share this pessimism, and I don't think I'll ever be completely sure that they are wrong for refusing it...

[sbw]

Hehe, made me laugh, and looks like a genuine writing if you scan it. Good humor, though.



I dunno, that does sound quite accurate though. :D :devil:



yeah, I've seen that one before, it's REALLY funny.

Scott

[cuspuser]

Perhaps...or perhaps not. When we talk about objective truths, the desire is that we discuss them in a way that allows them to exist independently of us. There's no doubt that we are safe to assume we impact the world in both our interactions and the lack thereof, but that doesn't then require us to give in to objectivity as public subjectivity...does it?

In other words, would there be no truth to the Moon's reflection of Sunlight towards the water were there no subjects (human or otherwise) to observe and deduce this phenomenon? Can the inability to speak of a reality that's independent of our current collective understanding negate a reality that's independent of our collective understanding? I don't think so, or else we wouldn't bother listening and observing.

I'm not entirely sure how much sense it makes to talk of objective truths existing independently of us in this way, because of this very simple reason, if i don't exist then i don't have the ability to understand the notion of truth (or anything for that matter, i don't exist) everything that is, is filtered through our perspective and we can't really seperate the subjective from the objective without getting rid of the viewer which in the end i don't really see doing any work for us, even though it has been the goal for many generations.

in a world with, lets say no intelligent life, there is no one to observe and deduce the phenomenon you speak of, this doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, perhaps it does, it just means that its not an issue - it just is. I don't think this is stopping anyone from making a hypothesis that in a world without intelligent life if there was a moon, sun, and earth, that the physics would act in the same way - but we can only make that claim from a world that does have intelligent life. (do you believe that what you called "public subjectivity" leads us to that?)

or lets say there is a world with intelligent beings, but they don't perceive the way we do, their 'truths' would be much different from ours, perhaps they can't observe colour phenomena at all - even with the most advanced technology - they would have no need for words like 'red' or 'green' etc. which is why the subjective plays such a big part in truth, it helps us decide what parts of "reality" we need to carve up - they might even discover the bands of light that make up our colour spectrum - perhaps they call it by a lump name or something, much like x-rays or what not.

the point is, it doesn't really make sense to talk of the world without an intelligent viewer because thats what all our truths are based on. Now, my point was that there are objective truths, and these are what we agree upon with other humans, that is even if 'red' appears "blue" to me and "purple" to you, objective it will always be 'red' because we can't know these subjective differences - perhaps that would lead one to say that they are irrelevant or that we shouldn't speak in this way, which has been said any number of different ways in philosophy - rather i'd like to think of them as place-holders for the objective truth, for whether you experience 'red' as "blue" or "purple" it would still be wavelenght x, as determined by a human standard of measurement - in this way the objective truth is seperate from us - insofar as the same claim holds for everyone. The claim in this case being "'Red' is wavelength x" ... however, the subjective manifestation of 'Red' in order to perceive it in the first place might differ over the two people.

To explain it differently, the world would appear much differently to humans and an ant, but this isn't to say it is a different world, rather the subjective experience of it differs between the two species - this doesn't imply that if the ant got smart enough he could discover that water is H2O (no matter what clicking sound it labels it) ... just that the subjective appearence that leads the ant to the investigation is different (is water blue to an ant?)



I've argued here myself that our objective world is the world of experience, and there's really nothing else we can say. Our thoughts and speculation about it, and our virtual reality models, will always pale in comparison...and the world we fashion with our apple pies, our automobiles, our climate-controlled lap pools, our gene therapy, will always reveal a human odor (for good or ill). But some don't share this pessimism, and I don't think I'll ever be completely sure that they are wrong for refusing it...


and i believe i've argued here that our subjective world is the world of immediate experience (or perceptions/phenomena), and our objective world is built by rational agents on top of this subjective world based on language, custom, and intellect - the communicated or shared experience.(perhaps this is what you were going for as well, the difference is subtle) Which makes our objective world quite a bit more abstract - it never gets at Kant's noumena (the thing in itself) as we can only talk about the phenomena (subjective experience), which by the way you are talking seems to collapse these two domains into one. (for those who don't know Kant, sorry :) )

As i said in my last post the main thing i was getting at was the problem of other minds - we have limits to what we can know for sure, and we can make assumptions that others see the world in much the same way we do, but it isn't certain - we have to make these assumptions to get by in day to day life, so they are useful, but they also give us a false sense of hope about our relation to the Ultimate or Absolute reality of things(noumena), something that because of our nature we will never have access to - i'm fine with this, i think we have a plenty rich experience without being able to get there.


One of my favourite quotes of all time is from Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisypus "Rising, tram, four hours in the office or factory, meal, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the same rhythm - this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. Suddenly, the absurd person sees through this routine, and 'the chain of daily gestures is broken'. Now everything begins to seem pointless and comical: 'At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspect of their gestures, their meaningless pantomine make silly everything that surrounds them. A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him but you see his incomprehensible dumb-show: you wonder why he is alive."

it always led me to thinking about what the world would be like without the influence of intellect, and how impossible it is to think about it since its been carved up so many different ways since we have been able to think and talk about it - and how we can't really talk about how far or close we've come to getting it right because a world without humans doesn't care about these notions at all ... everything just is, there is no difference of the tree from the forest or the ground ... these are all things we've done to organize the world to make coping easier. The world in itself is blind, deaf, and dumb, it has no perspective, and the absolute truths we want must be able to conform to all perspectives - which is why our objective truths are built on all that we have - our own perspectives ... we are limited by it - but the number of truths it limits us to are far outstretched by the number of truths it gives us access to.



Sorry for the rant...i know sometimes my wording is a little confusing too(hopefully its not too bad)...but like many i see on this forum i have something due tomorrow and i much rather think about this than do it :)

Edit: Sorry this really doesn't have anything to do with being religious or not does it??

[Johnny]

The rant is no problem, and you may already know I'm a Kant fan too. Jung borrows heavily from Kant...sometimes I wonder how anyone can understand Jung clearly without studying Kant...

But anyway, it's easy to establish that we are both subjective, that even though the words in our posts here can be categorized as evidence for objectivity in the world. Then we recognize that our posts here are our creations, facsimilies of the world "out there" and out of our control...and then because we can't talk about that world "out there", the air conditioned internet world is suiting the both of us fine and we become phenomenologists, ignoring that other world alltogether.

But that's all been done already. I think there's a next step that hasn't been done yet, and that's the step that acknowledges the world in-itself. Maybe you and I don't see the same color for some reason or another, but that's a today problem, not a tomorrow problem. Tomorrow, we may unlock the mystery of the brain's inner workings, to observe what is going on in your physical body to apprehend a different color, and then tune your body so that you see the color out there exactly the same way I do. Why do I think this may be possible? Because we can now do what you have stated already - determine the frequency range of the colors that can be seen with the human eye. When we have the human body and its inner workings completely understood, we can then fashion instruments that allow us to adjust and calibrate for our physical differences, and then see what the other person is seeing without this pandering to subjectivity.

This is where Kant was trying to go with his philosophy, in my opinion. He was arguing for subjective consensus as objective knowledge, yes, but there's a conclusion to this notion - that every human being has these synthetic a priori within them to rule their experiences, make them intelligible...and with this "soul" recognized, the world in-itself can be apprehended...the world itself, God, soul, morality, free will, time, causation, experience, rationality all exist together in harmony...as a collective world, where the differences between us all can be accounted for and then eliminated.

Yeah, it's a fancy notion, and I could be completely off base...but that's where I'm at in my journey with Kant.

[songbird36]

This philosophical problem has (I think) already been discussed in the Ayn Rand discussion thread.

Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" is based on Descartes essential syllogism - "I think therefore I am". Anyone who denies the concept of objective reality merely has to go back to this axiom and recognise the logical impossibility of denying objective existence (If I did not exist, there would be no "me" with which to think/perceive/experience).

[cuspuser]

I must say Ayn Rand is someone i know absolutely nothing about, i haven't read one page of Rand as far as i know (i could've flipped when i was in a bookstore, but if i did it didn't leave a lasting impression) ... tho it would seem that the syllogism above would somehow have to depend on soceity as well as the person, along with language, does she incorporate that?



Well, i like phenomenology ... but i wouldn't really call myself a phenomenologist tho i may speak in that language at times ... i think its a necessary step before getting to a more concrete position, and my layered position has really seemed to confuse the hell out of even my smartest friends - leaving me to believe that i can't explain it well enough yet, without looking like a flip-flopper ;)

Kant i have a love - hate relationship with ... i love his metaphysics and hate his ethics ... its very weird, in one area he is my favourite philosopher and in the other one of my least favourites tho his work was definately an important and necessary contribution. (in both)


Maybe you and I don't see the same color for some reason or another, but that's a today problem, not a tomorrow problem.

i'd word this problem slightly differently ... it is very possible and highly probable (to me) that we see the same colour ... so i'd say the problem is "we can't know if we see the same colour or not" - i don't see this being just a today problem but a forever problem (of course i will allow for drastic changes like you suggest, i'm just not very hopeful of those prospects - in essence these changes would have to bring us beyond the current human perspective)

I mean we could even say that we develop technology where two people could be wired together and and supposed to experience what the other person is ... but you can't know if you're hooked up right, and it still has to go through your brain, there is no way of knowing for sure two peoples subjective reality match up.

of course i don't see this as a huge problem - and i should state as such - say i see fire as red and you see it as green (we both call it red - many will say this isn't possible - it is meaningless because we can't talk about the subjective, which is somewhat right, but i think we know what we're talking about so i'll keep going :) ) the red and green place holders will come to gain the meaning of the objective (social) red that our culture dictates to us, for example it is the colour of blood, the colour of fire (for the most part), the devil is red, its the colour of anger, purity for the japanese, and most importantly wavelength x creates it when we view it from objects. i'm really not sure what happens if you see red in dreams or internal imaging, thats a whole other bag of worms i don't want to get into - which in turn means the difference between our subjective experiences are pretty much superficial the important thing is what the place holders come to stand for - and this is very much a social construction - based on our needs and interests, wants and desires. Otherwise i couldn't even say this text is black and mean it, but i just did and i do ;) *Edit - LOL i changed the colour scheme and now its purple*

i think the greater problem occurs when we realize the problem of other minds ties in very much with the problem of the external world - the certain knowledge we want of this is unavailable due to our very nature. I have been very interested in the limits of human capabilities throughout my studies and more than anything else its always in my mind when i do metaphysics ...


This is where Kant was trying to go with his philosophy, in my opinion. He was arguing for subjective consensus as objective knowledge

I'd agree with this ... though an important part of this is the acknowledgement that there are limits to what we know (which is why i like Kant so much) and that all our truths will come from the appearence of reality, a reality which we may or may not be representing accurately with our theories or a reality which our perceptions may not accurately represent - and this is something we can't check (at least not against the noumena itself). So, i don't think even with synthetic a priori knowledge that Kant would say that we could apprehend noumena, but rather that we make our hypothesis about it and we hope we have it right.

Mind you though i've read alot of Kant there is also alot of Kant i haven't read, he is very prolific and hard to get into at times because of his writing style, tho his ideas are amazing.


Tomorrow, we may unlock the mystery of the brain's inner workings, to observe what is going on in your physical body to apprehend a different color, and then tune your body so that you see the color out there exactly the same way I do.

if you haven't already you should read the paper "Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of Brain States" by Paul M. Churchland he goes to the same place your heading which i think is too far ... he writes about Mary in his paper, and to me Mary would have to have a god-like perspective, which i'm not willing to grant ... if you decide to read it remember my objection when u're done reading the paper :)

[Johnny]

...an important part of this is the acknowledgement that there are limits to what we know (which is why i like Kant so much) and that all our truths will come from the appearence of reality, a reality which we may or may not be representing accurately with our theories or a reality which our perceptions may not accurately represent - and this is something we can't check (at least not against the noumena itself). So, i don't think even with synthetic a priori knowledge that Kant would say that we could apprehend noumena, but rather that we make our hypothesis about it and we hope we have it right...Perhaps this is where I'm a little confused. In my current understanding of Kant, the synthetic a priori that exist within us is exactly the reason for our inability to discuss the world in-itself intelligibly (though Kant does not then reject the world in-itself as that which we experience...he does at least go so far as to assert that it exists). It is entirely the culprit, the rationality, behind Kant's two-world model. It is our cage, our shackle, perhaps our soul (I say this is what Kant is really going for...he also argues for free will and morality to also exist within us to shape our experiences and make them intelligible...and as you say, that's where his biggest problems begin to spring forth).

With that said, I understand it as something of a middle man, a retailer between the distributor and the customer...and it raises the question - what is the need for a middle man? See, once we identify the nature of the synthetic a prior, determine its impact on us as human beings (in this case, make the noumenal world intelligible to us, or perhaps more pessimistically, manipulate the noumenal world so that we are not truly apprehending it any longer), then we can work out a system whereby we "extract" the phenomenal world from the synthetic a priori and then arrive at what our experiences are truly offering. It doesn't matter to me personally that we do not then find truth or some other rational prize. Raw experience is what Kant should be talking about, in my opinion, when he is talking about noumena. He shouldn't talk of noumena as a thing. This would clarify his position, in my opinion, much better and offer him what I myself am ultimately looking for.

Kant, for example, has major problems in his philosophy with free will and universal causation, to make these two things compatible within us. He says universal causation rules our phenomenal world without exception, which is fine. If he says free will must also be spoken of phenomenally, then he runs into the problem of morality. If by our internal defects...oops, I mean internal mechanisms...free will is truly an illusion, a warped vision, then how can we be fairly judged as moral or immoral by God? It's tantamount to saying that by having a soul, we apprehend the world as illusion (as the soul is necessary for human experience, it is a priori, so though the noumenal world exists, there's absolutely nothing else possible for discussion)...and we will be punished if by our souls (which we did not ask for) we do something immoral. That is not the concept of free will Kant is hoping to establish in his philosophy...one where we can rationally argue that we are not wholeheartedly capable of taking responsibility for our behavior and be punished for doing wrong.

See to me, calling out God or the world in-itself as some thing is perhaps the biggest problem for Kant. If Kant took a step back to say that we simply experience and said nothing more about it, and then continued with the phenomenal (intelligible) world, his problems would be far less difficult...but he had to get greedy and didn't like seeing his Church and his religious convictions hang on a question mark. Kant's smart enough to admit that his rationally-composed safe he builds for us to keep us from exterminating God and his religious convictions in the face of knowledge we derive from our experiences has weaknesses. He struggles with it in his writings and never really merges Hume's fork successfully in his philosophy.

I could go on and on and on with my own rants and ramblings...LOL Thanks for the reading suggestion. I'll check it out.

[Mysticforce]

cuspuser is right - the issue of objectivity is only generated because subjects (us) exist. That is, because we are essentially subjective beings we can ask about truth and such. If you think about it, we define truth in terms of everything that isn't false.

Falsity is a product of subjectivity and thus conceptually impossible without subjects. That said, I might say that it is possible for an objective reality to exist. I might also say that the world can better be made sense of using such a belief. However, it is a fallacy to say that collective subjectivity is a demonstration of objective reality (which would be like saying a that large collection of puzzle pieces is proof of a puzzle). Thus, I cannot say there is an objective reality, because to do so would be self-contradicting.

cuspuser eloquently posted the remaining points usually attached to this line of argument so I won't bother repeating them.

However, I'm going to take issue with the concept of a 'world out there'. This 'world' is nothing but an organising principle by which we make sense of our inner subjective perceptions. It doesn't exist as an entity in its own right. Each person's 'world' is unique to them, so one can really only speak of a 'world out there' in terms of personal identity, or the way we categorise ourselves.

I must also take issue with the idea of everyone seeing colour in the same way. This seems to me rather culturalist. When you realise that the subjective viewing of colour (call it pandering if you will) is really a function of meaning, trying to universalise human experience of colour is no different to colonialism.

Experiences are not intrinsically intelligible. It takes only a few minutes with a child to realise this.

Differences can never be accounted for and eliminated. Elimination is a function of identifying difference. The minute you eliminate something you mark a difference. Remember, there is no objective truth that you can claim is free of subjective interpretation. Differences are not gaps in knowledge.

Okay, Descartes. There is no point entering into a discussion of the mind-body problem here, so I'll be brief on existence. Thinking (from Descartes's doubting) is proof of conceptual possibility only. You cannot prove a subject through thinking by assuming it is a consequence of thinking. This is a circular argument. No subject, no objective existence.

cuspuser's reply to the whole colour issue (which I have just read now) covers a lot of what I wanted to get across so I'll just ignore causation for now and just leave it here.

[euterpenc]

I don't wanna intrude but I think I may have a different perspective on this but I relaly don't wanna read those pages worth of writing. Would anyone mind giving a short summary?

And as for what I've read I'll give a short maxim from Nietzsche:

There are no facts, only interpretations.

[Edmond Zedo]

Hitler probably had N as well. This shows that N is hardly a perfect measure to lead one through life. While it might help one to greatness it does nothing for ones humanity.

Whoa! Whoa! What's wrong with Hitler all of a sudden?!

[Phreon]

The question shouldn't be, "Are NT's less religious", it should ask, "are they less spiritual"?

Religion is a rigid order, a set of unthinking rules designed to placate the unwashed masses; is it any wonder NT's have such a strong distaste for it?

So are NTs less spiritual than other types? I don't think the answer is so clear.

Phreon

[Eileen]

My pastor from my youth in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod was an INTP. Quite conservative AND quite rational. In general, I'd consider Luther to be a fairly rational theologian. "Rational" is probably a relative concept, as it depends on what set of givens a person is working with.

My father is an INTP as well, and he is very religious, but he goes through cycles with it. He's on a religious bent these days. I consider him to be rational when it comes to that--though I have to say, historically he makes such bad decisions (in a bizarrely rational way) that I don't necessarily have faith in rationalism as much as I might... Again, I think that rationalism is much more variable and precarious than many rational people are willing to admit.

My boyfriend is an INTP. Not religious, but not an atheist. Rather spiritual.

I think that in general, INTPs are less likely than... probably any of the types, actually... to be religious. SJs are probably the most likely to be traditionally religious, and NFs are probably the most likely to be profoundly religious.

[Edmond Zedo]

Do you live in INTP land or something? I don't think I know any others irl. Not yet.

[jyakulis]

Do you live in INTP land or something? I don't think I know any others irl. Not yet.

Mebbe she's just so in love with us she wants to believe everyone she meets is one.

[Eileen]

No, I just exhausted my list of INTPs, actually. And while I do find INTPs quite charming, I am not in love with my former pastor or my dad. In fact, my father and I didn't get along for a rather long time...

INFPs, on the other hand, I'm tripping over. For the rarest type, they certainly are EVERYWHERE I GO. Maybe it's because I'm friends with a lot of religious leaders or religious leaders-in-training...

[jyakulis]

No, I just exhausted my list of INTPs, actually. And while I do find INTPs quite charming, I am not in love with my former pastor or my dad. In fact, my father and I didn't get along for a rather long time...

INFPs, on the other hand, I'm tripping over. For the rarest type, they certainly are EVERYWHERE I GO. Maybe it's because I'm friends with a lot of religious leaders or religious leaders-in-training...

Do you think charm is in the eye of the beholder or just more general? This is off topic isn't it.

[Eileen]

Do you think charm is in the eye of the beholder or just more general? This is off topic isn't it.

Yeah, it is. I think charm is always in the eye of the beholder. For me, INTPs are attractive because they often have a wonderful inventor energy about them and they get excited about fantastically dorky things. I value eccentricity and creativity, and INTPs tend to have these qualities in bulk.


But to guide the conversation back to the original topic (and this was an oldish topic so maybe it was already done), what one type is likely to be most religious (and how are they religious) and why? Discuss!

[Edmond Zedo]

No, I just exhausted my list of INTPs, actually. And while I do find INTPs quite charming, I am not in love with my former pastor or my dad. In fact, my father and I didn't get along for a rather long time...

INFPs, on the other hand, I'm tripping over. For the rarest type, they certainly are EVERYWHERE I GO. Maybe it's because I'm friends with a lot of religious leaders or religious leaders-in-training...
I've been good friends with at least four INFPs at one time or another.

[jyakulis]

Yeah, it is. I think charm is always in the eye of the beholder. For me, INTPs are attractive because they often have a wonderful inventor energy about them and they get excited about fantastically dorky things. I value eccentricity and creativity, and INTPs tend to have these qualities in bulk.


But to guide the conversation back to the original topic (and this was an oldish topic so maybe it was already done), what one type is likely to be most religious (and how are they religious) and why? Discuss!


Mmmmm that depends on what you mean by religious. If pure following a religion because it is the right thing to do but not really caring much more than that I would say esfj's and maybe isfj's. Following a religion because they want to make themselves a better person, well I think that would be sweet lil nf's. Which strangely I respect. But maybe I'm over generalizing :blink:

[Edmond Zedo]

There's something other than type that primarily decides the tendency of belief in magical fairies and gods and what not, and I intend to discover it. Hypothetically, I think it's the balance of some unknown neurotransmitter which encourages "faith."

[jyakulis]

There's something other than type that primarily decides the tendency of belief in magical fairies and gods and what not, and I intend to discover it.

mebbe enviornmental factors?

[Edmond Zedo]

mebbe enviornmental factors?
Eh, not primarily, but partially. I know one INTJ and one INFP who were raised Christian, later to shun religion entirely.

[Eileen]

There's something other than type that primarily decides the tendency of belief in magical fairies and gods and what not, and I intend to discover it. Hypothetically, I think it's the balance of some unknown neurotransmitter which encourages "faith."


Ahh... St. Augustine might have called that neurotransmitter (or the balance?) God. :)

[Edmond Zedo]

Ahh... St. Augustine might have called that neurotransmitter (or the balance?) God. :)
Hmm. I don't give a "good-god-damn" what Saint Whoever said, but Martin Gore said "Belief is the way...The way of the innocent. And when I say innocent...I should say naive."

[Sackanaka]

I just wrote this: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sackanaka (1/23/05)

[MasterMerk]

If I have noticed anything in regards to religious belief and personality type, it's been a slight tendency for the more unquestioning to be of SJ temperament (my parents, grandparents are examples). That seems to make sense. I've seen some INFPs on the same level, but they were more spiritual about it.

I'm non-theist. BTW.

[Eileen]

Hmm. I don't give a "good-god-damn" what Saint Whoever said, but Martin Gore said "Belief is the way...The way of the innocent. And when I say innocent...I should say naive."


You are a master at ending conversations! Your confidence in your correctness at all times is enviable.




If I have noticed anything in regards to religious belief and personality type, it's been a slight tendency for the more unquestioning to be of SJ temperament (my parents, grandparents are examples). That seems to make sense. I've seen some INFPs on the same level, but they were more spiritual about it.

I actually went on a campus ministry retreat a couple of years ago and our workshop was on the MBTI and spirituality. It was very interesting--and SJ types do seem to be the most likely to be "unquestioningly" religious (and value tradition the most). As far as INFPs go, I know three INFPs off hand who are clergy or clergy-in-training, but none of them are unquestioningly religious. They're the religious people I admire the most--the ones who have managed to harmonize doubt and faith in such a way that they can still practice religion and find meaning in it.

[Arioch]

I don't think we can come anywhere near to the right answer unless the question is changed. Since this board is almost completely western we have little to no input from INTP's that do not live in America, Europe or Australia.

I think that culture and also the specific religion has much more to do with whether a Type would be religious or not then solely Type.

[Eileen]

I don't think we can come anywhere near to the right answer unless the question is changed. Since this board is almost completely western we have little to no input from INTP's that do not live in America, Europe or Australia.

I think that culture and also the specific religion has much more to do with whether a Type would be religious or not then solely Type.

Good point.

[ohnoaninfp]

I know an intp who is Catholic and serious about it. In fact we all know him. Remember KentOhio?

[CreativeChaos]

Originally posted by MasterMerk:
If I have noticed anything in regards to religious belief and personality type, it's been a slight tendency for the more unquestioning to be of SJ temperament (my parents, grandparents are examples). That seems to make sense. I've seen some INFPs on the same level, but they were more spiritual about it.

I have known only two INTPs in my life. They were both atheist. I've heard that INFPs are more spritual. The only other INFP I've known is my father. He's a Methodist Minister. He has tons of theology books and can argue the abstract theology stuff till hell freezes over. He doesn't take religion lightly at all. And neither do I. I have tons of books on religion and can get very serious about it. But I'm Atheist.

My ex-husband is ISTJ. I have an INFJ friend married to an ISTJ. My ex always followed my lead on religion. When I became non-Christian, so did he. That's because he just really doesn't care to think about that kind of stuff. My INFJ friends wife is the same way. He's into "mystical spiritual stuff", psychic phenomon and so on that I think is crap. His wife will come up with "theories" involving really wierd reincarnation stuff. I have learned over the years, that it is my INFJ friend who feeds her this stuff and she just follows. So when she comes up with one of her theories, I just turn to my friend and say, "What kind of silliness are you teaching this women?", or something like that, and start discussing it with him. I stay away from arguing though. I tried that a little once (with astrology, which I believe is total crap, too, but he believes in it) and hurt his feelings, so I don't anymore. Also, he is VERY stubborn about his beliefs. It's that J operating.

[Geoff]

I borrowed a big book on MBTI from the people that 'typed' me at work. This had statistics for the various types.

INTP were the type with the highest percentage in 'least likely to believe in a higher being'.

Our drug abuse of choice is apparently alcohol, too!

-Geoff

[jimbowley]

Since most of the traits of INTP are true for me, I tend to assume that most of my traits will be true for INTPs. I was a little discomforted by the number of people here that that seem to be believers, so Geoff's fact has put me at ease. It makes sense to me that INTPs would not be religious.

Just as it makes sense why alcohol should be our choice of drug.

[javalady]

undefinedHello.

I became an agnostic at the age of nine. At age 25, I began to study religions to find out if any of them really made sense. When I read "Mere Chrisitanity" by C.S. Lewis, I became a Christian on the spot. It was all so logical. Five years later, at the age of thirty, I narrowed this general crhsitainity to one faith: Catholicism. Again, this was based on logic and reason.

I believe the reason why many INTP's are agnostic is that they simply *have not hear dthe logical arguments in favor of God's existence*. I am currently reading Peter Kreefts edition oif Pascal's "Pensees". Pascal is believed to have been an INTP like us; his explanations really make sense.

[Edmond Zedo]

You could have gotten a few nice posts in before you flushed your credibility. In my eyes if none others. And my eyes COUNT. :cool:

I wouldn't mind if you posted some of this logic behind Christianity, just so I could laugh myself into a state of Divine Bliss and pass out.

[Eileen]

undefinedHello.

I became an agnostic at the age of nine. At age 25, I began to study religions to find out if any of them really made sense. When I read "Mere Chrisitanity" by C.S. Lewis, I became a Christian on the spot. It was all so logical. Five years later, at the age of thirty, I narrowed this general crhsitainity to one faith: Catholicism. Again, this was based on logic and reason.

I believe the reason why many INTP's are agnostic is that they simply *have not hear dthe logical arguments in favor of God's existence*. I am currently reading Peter Kreefts edition oif Pascal's "Pensees". Pascal is believed to have been an INTP like us; his explanations really make sense.


Well, I'm not INTP, but your credibility has not been flushed with me, and to be fair, it's easy to ... not impress, I guess... Mr. Zedo, from what I can tell.

FeFeFe.

[javalady]

Well, I like to be upfront so people know where I'm coming from. Perhaps you noticed how much i like coffee also.

And at least you're honest in giving me your true assessment of me.

All right, I'll try to get back to you by the end of the week. Well, maybe not until the weekend... you know how we INTP's don't like to plan ahead. :)

I think it would be best to start with God in general, not specific faiths. But first, would you (or any other interested parties) mind telling me what it is that makes you object to the concept of God? Are you an atheist, or an agnostic? (I would expect INTP's to be agnostic.) Are there bad arguments you've already heard-- so I don;t waste time on them?

Until later..

Javalady

[javalady]

That last reply was for Mr. Zedo.

Thank you, Eileen, for the kind words.

[QrioCT]

i *have* done my homework on reseach but i *am* agnostic. can someone help me answer some questions if you are really confident in your logic and you are either an atheist or theist?

the atheist scientific claim is a bit too incredible. if you really believe a working complex DNA simply came out of the sea by chance, which is 1/(some thing like 270^10, if i remember right), you'll also have to basically believe that if you leave some metal out there, nature will turn that into a working clock for you. and by the way, a clock is still much simpler than DNA. i doubt atheism right now if this is the only explanation they have.

on the other hand, now can we really know if there is a god or something? insufficient evidence. here are some questions from an atheist site against christianity that i couldnt answer: if devil got into the church, how do you know he didnt get into the bible? also if we had souls that survive on beyond physical deaths, how come doing damage to the physical brain also damages the mind? and a billion more...

[mgb]

That last reply was for Mr. Zedo.

Thank you, Eileen, for the kind words.


I think what Zedo is getting at, and it keeps popping up here, is that religion, even agnosticism, is not logical. It can't be. The root of religion is faith not logic. You can try and hide your faith in logic but logic can never be the root of your faith.

I can't say that being religious or not is more or less INTP than any other type, or that we are more logical, but I can say that your belief in God and the Catholic Church isn't based on logical reasoning.

[CoHo]

religion, even agnosticism, is not logical.

Do you mean atheism or agnosticism?

Atheism is the belief there is no god

Agnosticism is the belief we don't know enough to make any decision in either direction

[mgb]

Do you mean atheism or agnosticism?

Atheism is the belief there is no god

Agnosticism is the belief we don't know enough to make any decision in either direction

I always thought it meant that you believe something is there, you just can't say what. Oh well. Either way, it still takes some faith to believe that "something" made the universe.

I find most atheists believe in some scientific root for the universe, which takes just as much faith to believe given science's ever changing reasoning about how the university works. So in a way, atheism takes just as much faith.

Since I think most agnostics are sitting on the fence between atheism and being religious (no offense to agnostics, just an observation) there is some faith in there somewhere.

[Warrior413]

That inspired me to change my signature... again.

[pintpi]

Personally I don't understand how an INTP could believe in the existence of a God, with a qualifier, the INTP has to have had time to ponder the question, as I didn't really start questioning the existence of a God until I was like 14, 15 years old and I really didn't have a good understanding of the arguments until I was 18, 19 years old. I think given the time to ponder the question any INTP will become an atheist. The reason I think this is because the more you think about it the more you realize the idea of a God doesn't actually answer the questions that it is supposed to.

For example, the main reason for a God is to solve the problem of creation, were did we and the universe come from? On first sight it looks like it might seem the existence of a God can answer that question but I believe in philosophy they have a term for this kind of answer it is called "begging the question". In other words you have answered the creation question but you also created another question that is just as hard to answer, were did God come from? Of course you end up with an infinite regression of questions. Theists have tried to do some magic hand waving to get around this but it seems to only work on those that already believe in God's existence.

Given enough time all INTPs will come to this conclusion just because at some point it become undeniable.

I tried not to be as blunt as Zedo but I certainly see his point.


I became an agnostic at the age of nine.
Um, how can a 9 year old be an agnostic. Is that what the kids are doing out on the play ground these days, debating the existence of God?

[Dunearhp]

Since I think most agnostics are sitting on the fence between atheism and being religious (no offense to agnostics, just an observation) there is some faith in there somewhere.

I prefer this definition of agnosticism. (http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/atheistdefine.html#agnostic) No fences are required.

[Dunearhp]

Um, how can a 9 year old be an agnostic. Is that what the kids are doing out on the play ground these days, debating the existence of God?

I started debating the existance of God (with myself) when I was five or six. It was probably the best time since my logic was still fresh.

A lot of effort is expended in teaching young children to believe mutually contradictory things. Why do we then expect them to be able to cope with math and logic in high school.

I didn't work out my exact stance until I was 18. It takes a long time to defeat the fuzzed up neurons.

I think that most kids are more concerned with debating Santa Claus. He is probably the worlds biggest red herring. Quite literally red, it would seem.

[Eileen]

I think given the time to ponder the question any INTP will become an atheist.

Given enough time all INTPs will come to this conclusion just because at some point it become undeniable.


I think this is just as silly as saying that given any time and the right book/information, any INTP will become a Christian or any other sort of believer. Of course there will be Christian INTPs and atheist INTPs, but athiesm seems to me to be no more logical a conclusion than theism. The only logical conclusion is, after asking the question, acknowledging that you cannot know.


Someone just see the damn discrimination against Christians thread; this whole discussion has already happened in the past week.

I think I'm becoming more and more impatient with the insistence that one must find the answer to this question when it is clearly impossible to arrive at any conclusion without faith. I will concur with the new poster that Catholicism itself works on logic--that is what theology is--but it works on logic based on the postulate that God exists, which is a statement that you must have faith in. Atheism, too, works on logic based on a postulate that the atheist must have faith in--that there is no such thing as God-matter. After that decision, he comes to a number of logical conclusions, perhaps using the stories of science to give meaning to existence.

People get really caught up in this question, and it's only meaningful to a point. Debating the existence of God is boring to me; I'm interested in what people find meaning in--especially if they're agnostic or atheist, but also if they're theist (it's just that various theisms are already pretty spelled out).

I contend that we all live in a world constructed by myths, and we all perform rituals that perpetuate these myths. I do not think this is bad; I think this is beautiful and fascinating. It's easy to tear down someone else's beliefs if you claim to have none... but what postulates do you stand on? What are YOUR givens?

[pintpi]

I think this is just as silly as saying that given any time and the right book/information, any INTP will become a Christian or any other sort of believer. Of course there will be Christian INTPs and atheist INTPs, but athiesm seems to me to be no more logical a conclusion than theism. The only logical conclusion is, after asking the question, acknowledging that you cannot know.
The first thing that must be understood is what it means to know something. Once you realize that absolute objective knowledge isn't possible on any topic, you will see that we can know if there is a God or not. Just because we can not know things with absolute certainty doesn't mean we can't know anything. I know there are no Invisible Pink Unicorns. That doesn't mean I am guaranteeing we will never find evidence of IPUs but I am saying at this time with the current evidence there is no reason to suggest there are IPUs. So when I say there is no God, I am saying that having analysed all of the relevant evidence and arguments, the existence of a God isn't a logically drawn conclusion.

I don't often read or post in these religion threads because I has seen all the arguments many times over and it is quite annoying to see people bring arguments up that have been refuted over and over again may times, but I figured I would post since I am new here.

I looked around at some other religion threads to see if I could find any INTPs claiming to be religious but couldn't find any. Are there any INTPs that are say in their 20s willing to admit to being religious (actually believing in a God) that would like to discuss how it is they actually came to their beliefs? I would be quite interested in how an INTP could have a "belief", seeing as it is so contrary to what I know of my own INTPness and it would seem in direct conflict with introverted thinking.

[Eileen]

I looked around at some other religion threads to see if I could find any INTPs claiming to be religious but couldn't find any. Are there any INTPs that are say in their 20s willing to admit to being religious (actually believing in a God) that would like to discuss how it is they actually came to their beliefs? I would be quite interested in how an INTP could have a "belief", seeing as it is so contrary to what I know of my own INTPness and it would seem in direct conflict with introverted thinking.


My father is a 47 year old INTP with religious faith. It comes and goes, but he is a believer these days.

He's not here to speak on the matter, and I won't be so presumptuous as to make any statements about why he believes. But he does believe, and he is INTP.

[Eileen]

Also, my boyfriend is an INTP who is not religious at all, but who has profound belief in a "higher power." He doesn't talk about it much, but he has shared with me that he does believe.

[Arioch]

I looked around at some other religion threads to see if I could find any INTPs claiming to be religious but couldn't find any. Are there any INTPs that are say in their 20s willing to admit to being religious (actually believing in a God) that would like to discuss how it is they actually came to their beliefs? I would be quite interested in how an INTP could have a "belief", seeing as it is so contrary to what I know of my own INTPness and it would seem in direct conflict with introverted thinking.

Actually

A: I know 99.99% sure that religious INTP's exist. Yes, even in their 20's.

But more importantly

B: I don't see anything in introvert thinking as a function that would preclude being religious. Nothing at all.

[pintpi]

A: I know 99.99% sure that religious INTP's exist. Yes, even in their 20's.
Well not to be mean but I am INTP so I don't really attach much weight to anecdotes.


B: I don't see anything in introvert thinking as a function that would preclude being religious. Nothing at all.
The reason that it seems to be in direct conflict with introverted thinking, is because there are so many simple logical statements that refute the existence of a God and so few to confirm. Someone with introverted thinking as their primary function will have a hard time denying this, as that is the only thing we care about. We can't just want to believe things that are in direct conflict the logical arguments, we will pick the logical arguments everytime or who knows maybe that is just me but that is why I am here and asking if there are INTPs here that have found some way to get around these simple logical arguments.

[Edmond Zedo]

Well, I like to be upfront so people know where I'm coming from. Perhaps you noticed how much i like coffee also.

And at least you're honest in giving me your true assessment of me.

All right, I'll try to get back to you by the end of the week. Well, maybe not until the weekend... you know how we INTP's don't like to plan ahead. :)

I think it would be best to start with God in general, not specific faiths. But first, would you (or any other interested parties) mind telling me what it is that makes you object to the concept of God? Are you an atheist, or an agnostic? (I would expect INTP's to be agnostic.) Are there bad arguments you've already heard-- so I don;t waste time on them?

Until later..

Javalady
I think I've heard them all, which is why I know I'll laugh. I have never seen any evidence to support supernatural belief. There is plenty of evidence to disprove specific faiths (The fossil record disproves the Bible), but none to disprove theism itself. I call myself an atheist because faith is Wrong. There could be a god or gods, but we can't know if there are, and can't know anything about them. If your faith comes from emotion, and not analysis, then idiocy is not a required cause of it, and you can't be dissuaded, so be you.

[Nyairj]

They did an MBTI poll at the Internet Infidels (a large atheist/agnostic message board) a couple months ago. Here's (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=108764) the results for the introverts, and here's (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=108762&highlight=myers-briggs) the results for the extroverts. The poll was divided in two due to technical contraints.

Introverts:

INTP 45 35.43%
INTJ 46 36.22%
INFP 15 11.81%
INFJ 10 7.87%
ISTP 4 3.15%
ISTJ 5 3.94%
ISFP 1 0.79%
ISFJ 1 0.79%

Extroverts:

ENTP 7 43.75%
ENTJ 6 37.50%
ENFP 1 6.25%
ENFJ 2 12.50%
ESTP 0 0%
ESTJ 0 0%
ESFP 0 0%
ESFJ 0 0%

Mostly NTs with a fair sized minority of NFs. Not many extroverts, and even fewer SJs and SPs. INTPs and INTJs dominate.

[pintpi]

Thanks, I missed that one, I don't generally hang out in the Secular Community Forum, mostly stick to Philosophy and S&S. Certainly seems to be a propensity for INTPs to hang out on that forum anyways.

[Eileen]

I call myself an atheist because faith is Wrong.

What does that mean?

[mgb]

I was thinking about history (in my art history class) and I find it pretty interesting that over time, many of the people we have come to accept as being INTP were Christian, or at least Catholic.

St. Jerome was I think.

They tried to apply the Aristocratic method to logic on religion, and still managed to maintain their faith. Quite interesting really, I mean you can't call them stupid, so why did they bother?

[Edmond Zedo]

What does that mean?
It means it's not correct.

[cuspuser]

I call myself an atheist because faith is Wrong. There could be a god or gods, but we can't know if there are, and can't know anything about them. If your faith comes from emotion, and not analysis, then idiocy is not a required cause of it, and you can't be dissuaded, so be you.

if faith is wrong then i believe it makes more sense to be an agnostic than an athiest.

faith (in terms of the athiest, agnostic, thiest question) to me is the act in believing something that you cannot prove because it would take information that you CANNOT have access to, this is quite different from not having information that you DON'T have access to.

there are of course other uses for faith, but those aren't the ones i'm concerned with here.

as you accurately put it you cannot know if there is a god (or gods) or not, you don't have the proper access to this type of information, because if a god or gods did exist they would be what caused the world to be exactly as it is. thus to believe in a god requires faith.

but also, if you determine that there is no god, you are also doing so based on faith, as the perspective that would be required to rule out the possibility is one that you cannot obtain, to say there is no god your making the same claim as the theist but just the opposite claim ... in this case 'not g' instead of 'g'.

for me the most logical thing to do when you are in a situation where you cannot amass evidence for or against a position, would be to leave the question open and take a position where you suspend your belief, in essence, don't act out of faith, admit that you don't know.

of course i don't expect everyone to be logical, nor do i expect everyone to hold logical proofs to be of the utmost importance - perhaps their not - but if you want to be logically consistant that would seem to me to be the position to take.


when I say there is no God, I am saying that having analysed all of the relevant evidence and arguments, the existence of a God isn't a logically drawn conclusion.

Thing is i don't think any theist will tell you that the existence of God is supposed to be a logically drawn conclusion (with perhaps the exception of Descartes) generally all religions have as a cornerstone the idea of faith, belief where there cannot be evidence. which i think is best expressed by kierkegaard's notion of a leap of faith.

what i'm claiming is that the atheist position requires just as much faith - some of my athiest friends accept this, others of course don't see this to be the case at all because they start from an empirical assumption and move forward based on this assumption. while myself i have found it impossible to prove any particular all incompassing world view in terms of the empiricist vs. rationalist vs. dualist, etc debate, because there are no proofs here, at least that i can see.

thus, the logical opinion is to know that you cannot know, and not to make an assertion.

as for pintpi's invisible pink unicorns ... well first off invisible or pink choose one :) second, if there were invisible unicorns we would still be able to amass evidence to support or deny their existence - one could assume quite accurately that if there were invisible unicorns one would have accidently got splattered with paint, or berries or something by now and would've been found out ...

this is the same as the loch ness monster is analogous to God ... that being, just because we haven't been able to find it doesn't mean its not there, and if X admits that they don't believe in the loch ness monster it in turn means that they shouldn't believe in God ... however, the fact of the matter is that if there is a loch ness monster it should've been found by now because of all the people looking for it and all the studies done ... people have been attempting to amass empirical evidence, which is possible in such a case yet they haven't been able to do so, so then the assumption that there is no loch ness monster is a relatively good one.

with the God example however, we are unable to amass proof for or against God empirically because it would be the cause of the empirical reality and thus not contained within it - so such problems are not analogous ...

anyways - thats my take again ... earlier in this thread is a good place to look for most of the positions being taken here, as is the thread "the Agnostic's God" which is pretty far back there now ...

[Edmond Zedo]

Believing in god is more illogical than believing there is no god. The only truly logical stance is mine, which I've stated.

People don't get down to the heart of the matter enough. Take your mind back to when comparatively nothing was understood about the universe. Religion became a way to explain everything away. We don't need that anymore. The only reason to believe is desire, and if you are capable of supressing that desire for the sake of being correct, every religion past and present means absolutely nothing. Don't be stupid. The world will be better for it.

[mgb]

Believing in god is more illogical than believing there is no god. The only truly logical stance is mine, which I've stated.

People don't get down to the heart of the matter enough. Take your mind back to when comparatively nothing was understood about the universe. Religion became a way to explain everything away. We don't need that anymore. The only reason to believe is desire, and if you are capable of supressing that desire for the sake of being correct, every religion past and present means absolutely nothing. Don't be stupid. The world will be better for it.

Since religion is no longer the way to explain the universe, what is now?

Science has proven over the centuries that it requires just as much faith as religion does.

[Sackanaka]

Alas, logic and faith are tools which humans use to tackle Reality, but few are ambidextrous enough to wield both and interchangeably. Meh, the other hand could be used as a shield though, as often is the case.

[pintpi]

Since religion is no longer the way to explain the universe, what is now?

Science has proven over the centuries that it requires just as much faith as religion does.
The problem is science isn't something you believe in. It is a tool that can be used to understand the world we live in. It doesn't require faith to do a scientific analysis. It sounds like you are implying that atheists are claiming to have some absolute objective knowledge, which I don't think you will find many atheists that claim that. Like I said in another post even without absolute knowledge we can still know things.

[mgb]

The problem is science isn't something you believe in. It is a tool that can be used to understand the world we live in. It doesn't require faith to do a scientific analysis. It sounds like you are implying that atheists are claiming to have some absolute objective knowledge, which I don't think you will find many atheists that claim that. Like I said in another post even without absolute knowledge we can still know things.

The Bible proves everything too. It gives you all the rules to believe and a backdrop to understand all the rules, just like science.

Remember when the Earth was the Center of the Universe? Or the Sun was? Or how about how atoms were a pudding of positive and negative charges?

The only way you can prove science is right is with more science. It creates a system to analyze the universe in and of itself. Which is pretty similar to what the Bible does.

[pintpi]

Thing is i don't think any theist will tell you that the existence of God is supposed to be a logically drawn conclusion (with perhaps the exception of Descartes) generally all religions have as a cornerstone the idea of faith, belief where there cannot be evidence. which i think is best expressed by kierkegaard's notion of a leap of faith.
I never suggested that a theist would say that i was clearifying my stance on the issue.


what i'm claiming is that the atheist position requires just as much faith - some of my athiest friends accept this, others of course don't see this to be the case at all because they start from an empirical assumption and move forward based on this assumption. while myself i have found it impossible to prove any particular all incompassing world view in terms of the empiricist vs. rationalist vs. dualist, etc debate, because there are no proofs here, at least that i can see.
It doesn't require faith to believe something does not exist. Faith is the believe in something without adequate evidence.


as for pintpi's invisible pink unicorns ... well first off invisible or pink choose one :) second, if there were invisible unicorns we would still be able to amass evidence to support or deny their existence - one could assume quite accurately that if there were invisible unicorns one would have accidently got splattered with paint, or berries or something by now and would've been found out ...


I think you missed the point of the IPU. The point is to ask yourself if you believe in the IPU? Currently you obviously have no evidence that the IPU exists but you also have no evidence the IPU doesn't exist. Does this mean you are forced to be unsure if the IPU exists? Or are you a rational person and claim the IPU doesn't exist (i.e. you have no belief in the existence of the IPU).

[pintpi]

The Bible proves everything too. It gives you all the rules to believe and a backdrop to understand all the rules, just like science.

Remember when the Earth was the Center of the Universe? Or the Sun was? Or how about how atoms were a pudding of positive and negative charges?

The only way you can prove science is right is with more science. It creates a system to analyze the universe in and of itself. Which is pretty similar to what the Bible does.
I think that is a pretty big stretch to view the Bible as an equivalent analytical system, that can be used to analyse the universe. That is really stretching the definition of analyse. I would say at best it can provide answers to some of the same questions that science can, then the question becomes, which system fits the empirical evidence better?

[Nyairj]

Science and religion are very different things. Science doesn't claim to have the absolute Truth, while religion does. Science is open to questioning; faith is not. The scientific method can give us useful information about the world; faith is unquestioning and stagnant.

Scientific hypotheses, theories, laws -- everything -- is questioned. Again and again and again. These things are falsifiable; you can theoretically prove anything in science wrong. If evidence shows up later that disproves an earlier theory, the theory is toast. Doesn't matter if we like it or not. And we move on.

Faith isn't falsifiable. How could anyone disprove God, even theoretically? You can't. You just believe. You start with your conclusion, and you end with your conclusion. You can look for evidence to support your belief, but that's entirely optional.

The scientific method cannot prove anything, and that isn't its purpose. It is used to disprove hypotheses. Whatever's left standing after extensive testing is one step closer to tentative "fact". Science isn't about absolute Truth, and few scientists make any such claim.

Faith... just is. No questions, because you have all your answers right there. God did it, and that's all you need to know. There's no reliable method for finding out more about the natural world, and there would be no purpose. It would be superfluous.

[mgb]

But in a way, religion is much more complete because it's understanding is finite. The problem with science is that it is continuously proven wrong, in essence, there are no scientific facts, just faith that the underlying principles that are the foundation of science are correct.

Say you are an atheist and follow the scientific method to it's extremes. What if one day, science proves the existance of God, then what?

[Nyairj]

But in a way, religion is much more complete because it's understanding is finite.

I'm not sure what you mean. Why is this desirable?


The problem with science is that it is continuously proven wrong, in essence, there are no scientific facts, just faith that the underlying principles that are the foundation of science are correct.

Just because we can't be absolutely sure of something doesn't discredit science in any way. It is its strength.

I don't think having "faith" in the underlying principles of science is the same as having faith in God. I have a reason to accept these principles: they do a very good job of explaining the natural world. There aren't any good reasons to believe in God. It isn't about reason at all. You just believe.

Someone with more knowledge about the philosophy of science could give much better answers to this than I can.


Say you are an atheist and follow the scientific method to it's extremes. What if one day, science proves the existance of God, then what?

If we could be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that God existed and the scientific method was used to reach that conclusion, we'd accept it.

[mgb]

I'm not sure what you mean. Why is this desirable?



I don't think having "faith" in the underlying principles of science is the same as having faith in God. I have a reason to accept these principles: they do a very good job of explaining the natural world. There aren't any good reasons to believe in God. It isn't about reason at all. You just believe.

Someone with more knowledge about the philosophy of science could give much better answers to this than I can.



Someone who is religious would say that the Bible is absolute proof that God exists. They would say the Bible does a pretty good job (since that's the criteria) of explaining the world.

You do have faith in science. You have to. It's the same faith that someone who is religious has.


Just because we can't be absolutely sure of something doesn't discredit science in any way. It is its strength.

But the argument against religion is that it isn't absolute and can't be proven. Science hasn't proven anything yet (with regards to why we exist and how the universe got here) and it may never be able to. Religion actually provides the only tangible solution.

[Nyairj]

Someone who is religious would say that the Bible is absolute proof that God exists.

How so? What gives the Bible so much credibility?


They would say the Bible does a pretty good job (since that's the criteria) of explaining the world.

Many other books do a better job. The Bible has no answer to the scientific method. No method exclusive to the Bible has yielded the vast amount of knowledge science has accumulated.


You do have faith in science. You have to. It's the same faith that someone who is religious has.

In the context of religion, I use the word "faith" to mean "belief without or in spite of the evidence". Faith is unrelated to reason. There are good reasons, however, to accept the underlying principles of science. That's the big difference. The scientific method has brought us vast knowledge of the natural world, numerous cures to deadly diseases, and highly advanced technology. These things are a testament to its investigative power.


But the argument against religion is that it isn't absolute

I don't know anything about this.


and can't be proven.

My problem with it is that it is neither provable nor disprovable.


Science hasn't proven anything yet (with regards to why we exist and how the universe got here) and it may never be able to. Religion actually provides the only tangible solution.

We don't have all the answers yet, and we may never know them, but that doesn't mean that religion is correct.

[Sackanaka]

Of course, the definition of "faith" must first be agreed upon. It's taken on the characteristics of:
being true for the sake of being true
true because there is sufficient evidence for being true

I think what was implied by mgbradsh is that the "sufficient evidence" necessary for the faith to be as true as need be varies amongst individuals (correlated to personality type probably). Empiricism is of course logical, but logic itself isn't as reasonable a medium toward understanding truth for others (Fs perhaps?) as it is for us.

[mgb]

How so? What gives the Bible so much credibility?



Many other books do a better job. The Bible has no answer to the scientific method. No method exclusive to the Bible has yielded the vast amount of knowledge science has accumulated.



In the context of religion, I use the word "faith" to mean "belief without or in spite of the evidence". Faith is unrelated to reason. There are good reasons, however, to accept the underlying principles of science. That's the big difference. The scientific method has brought us vast knowledge of the natural world, numerous cures to deadly diseases, and highly advanced technology. These things are a testament to its investigative power.



I don't know anything about this.



My problem with it is that it is neither provable nor disprovable.



We don't have all the answers yet, and we may never know them, but that doesn't mean that religion is correct.


I am going to pick a science textbook. It has all of science in one book (I know it doesn't exist but bear with me). It gives a complete framework to give you an understanding of how things work. Then it gives you a list of all things known and explains them using the framework previously described.

The Bible does the same thing in one book. Now I realize that science actually does that in many books and articles and so on, but it does the same thing. You are essentially pitting framework against framework and saying one is more right than the other. In truth, neither framework can be proven without a reasonable doubt.

Without religions framework, the Bible, Christianity has no reason to exist. Even Christians can't prove anything without the Bible. If you take away the Scientific Method, you can't prove anything with science. So you put a lot of faith in the scientific method. Without it, you are just as lost as the Christians.

I know how simple the scientific method looks, but at it's roots, Christian dogma is just as simple.

I guess my overall point is, neither religion nor science has been able to prove with or without a doubt, how we got here. They both try and neither has been successful so far. You can say your method is better than theirs, but don't deny that it takes just as much faith to follow the dogma of science, because when it comes down to it, science can no more prove its tenents than religion can.

[PsiKik]

mgbradsh
I guess my overall point is, neither religion nor science has been able to prove with or without a doubt, how we got here. They both try and neither has been successful so far. You can say your method is better than theirs, but don't deny that it takes just as much faith to follow the dogma of science, because when it comes down to it, science can no more prove its tenents than religion can.

I disagree.
Science gets concrete results. Science can present many different theories about the many different aspects to the structure of the Universe that are demonstratable and are repeatable. Science can prove much of it's 'dogma' or tenents.
My intuition tells me that religion is ultimately just myth and superstition.
No matter how hard you pray, not gonna make it real.

[cuspuser]

It doesn't require faith to believe something does not exist. Faith is the believe in something without adequate evidence.

i'm not sure that you'd really want to assert that it doesn't require faith to believe something does not exist, as i'm sitting in front of my computer now, how much faith would you said it would take for me to believe that it isn't there? despite all the evidence to the contrary. however, based on context people have been able to make others question such knowledge - in fact question all sensory knowledge.



I think you missed the point of the IPU. The point is to ask yourself if you believe in the IPU? Currently you obviously have no evidence that the IPU exists but you also have no evidence the IPU doesn't exist. Does this mean you are forced to be unsure if the IPU exists? Or are you a rational person and claim the IPU doesn't exist (i.e. you have no belief in the existence of the IPU).

ah, i think i put in a doesn't where i shouldn't have, but i don't believe i missed the point at all ... this is from the other POV from what you are saying, but it is essentially the same thing.

this is the same as the argument that the loch ness monster is analogous to God ... that because we haven't been able to find it means its not there, and if X admits that they don't believe in the loch ness monster it in turn means that they shouldn't believe in God ...

now from the POV you're taking: i'd say that you could claim that invisible unicorns don't exist, but you know that could be wrong ... of course i make another assumption here and that is that we would've found evidence up to this point in our history (contrary to what you believe), so it makes it more unlikely. this evidence is just the fact that we haven't found any evidence up to this point that invisible unicorns don't exist, imho - the fact of the matter is that we should have because they would be creatures which would have bodies, and as such someone most likely would've run over one by now or got a horn stuck in their ass or something. just as i believe that the fact that there has been no trace of the loch ness monster despite all our best efforts to find it indicates proof that there is no loch ness monster. but these are not analogous cases to God, and yet there is still a probability that i'm wrong.

as i stated before the problem with this line is that you are asking about something (invisible unicorns) which can be investigated empirically, that is the key here, if you wanted to you could exhaust all efforts and figure it out, furthermore it is likely that there would've been evidence had it existed.

now, lets take a more concrete example, for years scientists wondered if giant squids existed, much of the community was split on this, but recently they found out that they did indeed exist ... you could've went along thinking that there were no giant squids and dismissed the existence of giant squids altogether but then when the evidence appeared you would've changed your mind. so even if i say it didn't take faith to not believe in giant squids (tho it would seem to) the person who didn't believe in them is still wrong - and to be completely logical should've suspended judgement - at the very least realized that they could've been mistaken (which i think would have been a popular position amoung the scientists)

another example was the belief that the world is flat ... people thought this because they couldn't amass evidence to solve the problem adequately. at the time then, did it makes sense to assert one way or another that the world is flat or round? (the majority - perhaps all at one point - they were wrong too) i'd say no, this was a question best left to the position "i don't know" (at the time) - this is essentially the agnostic position on God, because we do not have the ability/evidence to assert the fact of the matter one way or another. i personally don't care if people do go around saying one thing or another without evidence, like i said before, logic isn't the be all and end all to everyone, but i would like them to at least acknowledge that they don't know and they are asserting their opinion out of faith - in this case faith that the evidence will eventually play out in their favour.

the question i guess is what is adequate to you? for centuries the evidence for the belief that the earth was flat was enough to convince the majority, eventually as evidence grew to the contrary because of advances in technology, such as telescopes and what not - our perspective grew and we got a more accurate picture. the point is there are times when we should state that we are ignorant, because we are about somethings ... worse than being ignorant however, is being ignorant of our ignorance.

now the situation the case of God, in my opinion, is that there will never be able to be evidence to provide a scientific/definitive answer, from the perspective that we currently hold - so you could be right or you could be wrong - but the fact is you won't know until you have a fundamental change in perspective (whether that is possible or not is another question altogether)

i'd also like to note, that atheism does not equal science, tho some like to think that. science wouldn't change depending on if there is or isn't a god.

[cuspuser]

Believing in god is more illogical than believing there is no god. The only truly logical stance is mine, which I've stated.

one stance being more illogical doesn't imply the other option is logical, and even more logical is to suspend belief on things that you don't have evidence to support, and both seem somewhat illogical. and i thought i was bad going for most logical, now we have EZ going for only truly logical stance, wow :)

btw, this is what i was using for Logical: based on known statements or events or conditions.



People don't get down to the heart of the matter enough. Take your mind back to when comparatively nothing was understood about the universe.

oh man, we're still there, granted we know more ...


Religion became a way to explain everything away. We don't need that anymore. The only reason to believe is desire, and if you are capable of supressing that desire for the sake of being correct, every religion past and present means absolutely nothing. Don't be stupid. The world will be better for it.

I've never looked for a way to explain everything away, yet i consider myself agnostic and not atheist.

alright, i don't have any desire to believe in what i cannot know. now, correct, yes, thats what i'm looking for, which is why i hold the position that i do.

i also agree on the stupid thing.

as for the means absolutely nothing part, just because you may not understand it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean anything.

[Johnny]

The only reason to believe is desire, and if you are capable of supressing that desire for the sake of being correct, every religion past and present means absolutely nothing. Don't be stupid. The world will be better for it.Wrong. The only reason to believe is to get moving. Worrying over knowing or not knowing is just stalling, EZ.

Belief continues to beat the hell out of non-belief in the war of human psychological evolution. To argue for non-belief is as to argue that one-legged humans have a greater chance of survival in the world than two-legged humans.

Dang, I'd take 3 if they gave me a choice...LOL

:sombrero:

[booyalab]

I try to not comment on these threads because people are mostly incapable of arguing on the same level, but I just can't take it anymore.


Believing in god is more illogical than believing there is no god. The only truly logical stance is mine, which I've stated.
You like to throw around 'logical' and 'illogical' like they are self evident descriptions of whatever you believe (self evident because you dont think you need to show your actual reasoning) when in fact, it's obvious you know little about logic.


Take your mind back to when comparatively nothing was understood about the universe. Religion became a way to explain everything away. We don't need that anymore.
Why your 'logic' is wrong.
1. Assumption about the origin of religion
2. Begging the question. (a logical fallacy, but I wouldn't expect you to know that so I'll explain.) You're assuming the truth of the conclusion on the basis of your premise.....which is the assumption about the origin of religion.
3. Logic is just as contrived as you claim religion to be, and moreso since we know where exactly it comes from. Using the reasoning from point #2, we can safely assume that logic either a. has no use anymore, or b. will have no more use at some point.
The only reason to believe is desire, and if you are capable of supressing that desire for the sake of being correct, every religion past and present means absolutely nothing. Don't be stupid. The world will be better for it.
more begging the question.

[Phenylethylene]

I also think that it takes as much faith to believe or disbelieve in God. Pintpi, it seems like you are avoiding the use of the word "faith" while latching on to its concepts to arrive at the conclusion that there is no God. Call it what you will, but it reads as "faith" to me.

I think that we -- I, at least -- tend to consciously or subconsciously look for the simplest explanation when there exists no evidence to guide the decision process. In the God vs. No God scenario, however, neither case (in my mind) reduces the construct into something more elegant or understandable. I tend to think that the question of origin for both the universe and God are more or less the same problem, or at least of the same complexity. (Perhaps something like big O notation in relation to complexity, for fellow computer science people.)

With the IPUs, we have no evidence to support their existence. One may think that we leap directly to disbelief. I would propose that we run the IPU notion through another filter before that conclusion -- the reducibility concept I mentioned above. A Belief in IPUs creates more questions than answers and in no way explains existing phenomena. If either of these were to change, I think it would be reasonable to further explore the possibility of their existence -- but it would likely be near the end of that exploration that we determined they were invisible, pink, and unicorns.

As an agnostic, I tend to discount most God-origin stories and God-notions as social construct, this is a more simple and elegant explanation for me. However, as I stated above, ridding ourselves of the notion of God altogether does not achieve this goal. If I were to believe in God with certainty, it would probably be similar to the Deist model.

Furthermore, I think our INTP nature may play into atheistic tendencies. As has probably been mentioned already, we usually have an aversion to authority and a desire for independent thought. I believe that once we get into our twenties, we are unlikely to change our God concept significantly because we have probably taken in and assimilated quite a bit of knowledge and it would be an expensive exertion of time and energy to redefine our universal model.

[booyalab]

They did an MBTI poll at the Internet Infidels (a large atheist/agnostic message board) a couple months ago. Here's (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=108764) the results for the introverts, and here's (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=108762&highlight=myers-briggs) the results for the extroverts. The poll was divided in two due to technical contraints.

Introverts:

INTP 45 35.43%
INTJ 46 36.22%
INFP 15 11.81%
INFJ 10 7.87%
ISTP 4 3.15%
ISTJ 5 3.94%
ISFP 1 0.79%
ISFJ 1 0.79%

Extroverts:

ENTP 7 43.75%
ENTJ 6 37.50%
ENFP 1 6.25%
ENFJ 2 12.50%
ESTP 0 0%
ESTJ 0 0%
ESFP 0 0%
ESFJ 0 0%

Mostly NTs with a fair sized minority of NFs. Not many extroverts, and even fewer SJs and SPs. INTPs and INTJs dominate.

Gee, and you know there's nothing skewed about the representation of types since there are SO MANY ISFPs and ESFJs crawling all over the internet!

[mgb]

I disagree.
Science gets concrete results. Science can present many different theories about the many different aspects to the structure of the Universe that are demonstratable and are repeatable. Science can prove much of it's 'dogma' or tenents.
My intuition tells me that religion is ultimately just myth and superstition.
No matter how hard you pray, not gonna make it real.

Ok, lets do it this way. Science can prove anything within it's framework and can disprove the Bible using its framework. Christianity can prove anything and disprove science using its framework.

You are missing my point. Just like Science can prove its dogma and tenents, so can religion using its framework.. So which one is right? When you hold religion to the scientific method it fails. But when you do that you have to hold science to the religious method and it fails.

To the faithful, religion gets concrete results. They can look to their Bible and see that their results are tangible.

[booyalab]

Ok, lets do it this way. Science can prove anything within it's framework and can disprove the Bible using its framework. Christianity can prove anything and disprove science using its framework.

You are missing my point. Just like Science can prove its dogma and tenents, so can religion using its framework.. So which one is right? When you hold religion to the scientific method it fails. But when you do that you have to hold science to the religious method and it fails.

To the faithful, religion gets concrete results. They can look to their Bible and see that their results are tangible.

I forgive you for your feminism post :P

On the last point, I have some examples of 'concrete results' from the religious framework that couldn't be (satisfactorily) explained with the scientific framework. I have witnessed: speaking in tongues, baptism of the holy spirit, miracles, and an exorcism.

[songbird36]

I've also been reading this thread with considerable incredulity (and outright mirth at times).

At the risk of "ruining my credibility" (in the wise words of EZ) I am a believer in God. As I've said in another thread religious belief and "truth" (if I can dare use that word) is largely *experiential*. It is not (and does not need to be) proven "logically" or "scientifically" in the way people on this thread seem to be arguing.

The existence of God and the presence of Him in a person's life becomes apparent once the person accepts his existence and begins to lead a life of prayer, meditation and group worship. Desires begin to be fulfilled, prayers answered, decisions able to be made more easily. There is a sense of internal peace and serenity which is hard to explain in any other way.

If the idea of logic and reasoning *must* enter this debate, the existence of God is proven inductively (through peoples' collective experience of Him), not through the search for external evidence (although I'm sure there is plenty of that too).

I would also prefer that people on this forum who do not have a religious belief would not trash others who do, or call them idiots. I think a little more care needs to be taken in this arena.

[mgb]

I forgive you for your feminism post :P

On the last point, I have some examples of 'concrete results' from the religious framework that couldn't be (satisfactorily) explained with the scientific framework. I have witnessed: speaking in tongues, baptism of the holy spirit, miracles, and an exorcism.

Hope youy forgive me for the new one :P

Those can be explained using psychology. People just wanting to fit into the group. Eventually it can all be explained. Just as all things scientific can be explained by the Bible.

And when did you witness an exorcism. Sounds like a good story.

[booyalab]

Those can be explained using psychology. People just wanting to fit into the group. Eventually it can all be explained. Just as all things scientific can be explained by the Bible.
And when did you witness an exorcism. Sounds like a good story.

1. Not if I witnessed them in intimate and/or isolated settings.
2.Religion gives the "why", science gives the "how". Religion isn't a theory, therefore it doesn't claim to explain how physical reality works. Just like you can't ask, in science, "why is it this way and not that other way?"
3. 1 in the morning, in Mexico, in a Garden, with 3 other people.

[mgb]

1. Not if I witnessed them in intimate and/or isolated settings.
2.Religion gives the "why", science gives the "how". Religion isn't a theory, therefore it doesn't claim to explain how physical reality works. Just like you can't ask, in science, "why is it this way and not that other way?"
3. 1 in the morning, in Mexico, in a Garden, with 3 other people.

It could aslo be some sort of brain disorder (like your MPD). I don't know, I just think that science could eventually find an answer to some of the things you mentioned. Talking in tongues is definetly to get the attention of the group though. And it is scary.

I think science has gotten a little too big for it's britches and is now working on the "why". Which is Zedo's whole point. It has rendered religion useless. So I wouldn't put the two ideas in the same ball park.

You can ask science that, it's evolution. Science would say that all ways are explored and that is the way that worked the best.

[songbird36]

Science has not rendered religion useless - EZ is quite wrong about this (if indeed he is asserting it). The two things operate in completely different spheres and have different purposes, and there is no reason why one has to encroach on the other.

I have never thought that Christian theologians should try to justify their faith on scientific grounds - it doesn't work, and attracts a lot of the sort of criticism and disagreement I've been reading on this thread.

[mgb]

Science has not rendered religion useless - EZ is quite wrong about this (if indeed he is asserting it). The two things operate in completely different spheres and have different purposes, and there is no reason why one has to encroach on the other.

I have never thought that Christian theologians should try to justify their faith on scientific grounds - it doesn't work, and attracts a lot of the sort of criticism and disagreement I've been reading on this thread.

Science does render religion useless if you apply the scientific method to the Bible. It just doesn't stand up. It can't, it wasn't meant to be held up to those criteria.

In the same vein, science doesn't hold up to the religious method.

Personally, I believe both are wrong and have given up any sort of search for the meaning of why we are here.

[floid]

Science has not rendered religion useless - EZ is quite wrong about this (if indeed he is asserting it).

Assert that science has rendered socionics useless if you'd like to awaken EZ's religious zeal.

[booyalab]

People who try to interpret all data within a scientific mindset don't have the monopoly on truth. Naturalism is (while not exactly a religion) a philosophy in and of itself (and therefore not as objective as it's followers claim).

[booyalab]

Talking in tongues is definetly to get the attention of the group though. And it is scary.

I'm sorry you're ignorant. My dad prays in his office in the basement, adjacent to my room...and I'm subject to 15-minute tongue-speaking sessions every night between 10pm and 11pm. He's obviously not trying to prove himself to anyone, and he actually doesn't speak in tongues at church or in public hardly at all.

[pintpi]

At the risk of "ruining my credibility" (in the wise words of EZ) I am a believer in God. As I've said in another thread religious belief and "truth" (if I can dare use that word) is largely *experiential*. It is not (and does not need to be) proven "logically" or "scientifically" in the way people on this thread seem to be arguing.
Jung/MBTI isn't useful because it gives us the ability to understand ourselves, it is mostly because it gives us the ability to understand other people of different types. Meaning it is quite apparent why you believe "truth" is largely experiential because you are INTJ (your primary function is precieving, you give the most weight to things you precieve/experience) but since this is a thread about INTPs it should be pointed out that our primary function is thinking (we give most weight to logical arguments, for the most part we can completely discount experiential things). So when you say "truth is largely experiential" that is true for INTJs and for other types that have a primary percieving function but for the rest of us, we could not care less.

[mgb]

Assert that science has rendered socionics useless if you'd like to awaken EZ's religious zeal.

LOL floid is a cheeky little monkey.

[Geoff]

Science has not rendered religion useless - EZ is quite wrong about this (if indeed he is asserting it). The two things operate in completely different spheres and have different purposes, and there is no reason why one has to encroach on the other.

I have never thought that Christian theologians should try to justify their faith on scientific grounds - it doesn't work, and attracts a lot of the sort of criticism and disagreement I've been reading on this thread.

Surely the problem with suggesting that they operate in different spheres are the occasions that science seeks to (or perhaps succeeds in doing) disprove something within, say, the bible. If you remove the foundation for part of the faith pattern then you are within the same sphere.

-Geoff

[mgb]

I'm sorry you're ignorant. My dad prays in his office in the basement, adjacent to my room...and I'm subject to 15-minute tongue-speaking sessions every night between 10pm and 11pm. He's obviously not trying to prove himself to anyone, and he actually doesn't speak in tongues at church or in public hardly at all.

I'm sorry you are such a tit.

Everyone has told me that language spoken in tongues has to be translated by someone otherwise it is the work of the devil (this comes from some pretty evangelical churches). So that makes it a much more social function since there has to be at least two people in the room. Maybe your dad worships Satan?

[Geoff]

I'm sorry you are such a tit.

Everyone has told me that language spoken in tongues has to be translated by someone otherwise it is the work of the devil (this comes from some pretty evangelical churches). So that makes it a much more social function since there has to be at least two people in the room. Maybe your dad worships Satan?

Is there a good website with some background in the subject? I would be interested in learning some more on this. I found the use of it in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson quite interesting...

-Geoff

[mgb]

Surely the problem with suggesting that they operate in different spheres are the occasions that science seeks to (or perhaps succeeds in doing) disprove something within, say, the bible. If you remove the foundation for part of the faith pattern then you are within the same sphere.

-Geoff

But science has no place to seek to disprove something in the Bible. No more than the Bible has a place seeking to disprove something in science.

[booyalab]

Everyone has told me that language spoken in tongues has to be translated by someone otherwise it is the work of the devil (this comes from some pretty evangelical churches). So that makes it a much more social function since there has to be at least two people in the room. Maybe your dad worships Satan?

That's a demoninational disparity. I may be a tit but you're still ignorant.

[mgb]

That's a demoninational disparity. I may be a tit but you're still ignorant.

But I can learn my way out of ignorance, you will always be a tit.

[Johnny]

But I can learn my way out of ignorance, you will always be a tit.I'll take my chances on the tit.

[booyalab]

I'll take my chances on the tit.
:hug:

[mgb]

I'll take my chances on the tit.

I bet you will.

[songbird36]

Jung/MBTI isn't useful because it gives us the ability to understand ourselves, it is mostly because it gives us the ability to understand other people of different types. Meaning it is quite apparent why you believe "truth" is largely experiential because you are INTJ (your primary function is precieving, you give the most weight to things you precieve/experience) but since this is a thread about INTPs it should be pointed out that our primary function is thinking (we give most weight to logical arguments, for the most part we can completely discount experiential things). So when you say "truth is largely experiential" that is true for INTJs and for other types that have a primary percieving function but for the rest of us, we could not care less.

If that is indeed the case then you are cutting yourself off unnecessarily from a vast world of "experience" that exists out there, in favour of only those things which are suscepible to dry abstract syllogic forms of reasoning. There is nothing illogical about experiencing a phenomenon such as religious transformation. However you do have to be open to allowing it to happen, or as sure as eggs, it won't.

By the way I work in a profession that requires me to be logical and analytical almost 100% of the time. I am very good at what I do. I also have leisure pursuits such as Bridge that require this. Where I differ from you is that I do not discount phenomena and forms of experience that fall outside a "rational" framework. I see people who do this as rather limited and immature.

[pintpi]

cuspuser,

You are a little to long winded for me and I'm not terribly interested in this subject any more, as I stated previously but if you are really interested in discussing the illogicalness of atheism you might want to go over to IIDB (http://www.iidb.org/) and jump in the EoG forum. I am sure they can straighten you out (probably not, most of those discussions just end up in bickering and ad hominems but give it a try if you are interested).

I would point out you are still missing the point of the IPU thought. The IPU doesn't exist it is nothing but three words stuck together, it isn't even anything that can be imagined as being invisible and pink is a contradiction, still we don't have any evidence for or against it's existence. By your logic we are forced to be unsure if it exists, I don't know about you but that is not the universe I live in. I my universe we can know if things exist or not (of course still not in an absolute sense).

If I get more interested in this subject, for some strange reason I may respond to the rest but anyone else is free to critique it they like.

[pintpi]

If that is indeed the case then you are cutting yourself off unnecessarily from a vast world of "experience" that exists out there, in favour of only those things which are suscepible to dry abstract syllogic forms of reasoning. There is nothing illogical about experiencing a phenomenon such as religious transformation. However you do have to be open to allowing it to happen, or as sure as eggs, it won't.
You can claim I am cutting myself off from a vast world of experience, but I will counter and claim that you are cutting yourself off from a vast logical world.


By the way I work in a profession that requires me to be logical and analytical almost 100% of the time. I am very good at what I do. I also have leisure pursuits such as Bridge that require this. Where I differ from you is that I do not discount phenomena and forms of experience that fall outside a "rational" framework. I see people who do this as rather limited and immature.
I was not saying you are unintelligent, illogical or not analytical. What I said was you give more weight to experiental things. For example, if you experience God (I don't know how people can do that but whatever) but you also know that logically God can't exist, you will see these two things are in conflict. An INTJ will say there has to be something wrong with the logical argument and place more importance on the experience and will claim God does exist regardless of the logical argument. An INTP in the same situation will say there is something wrong with the experience and place more importance on the logical argument and will claim God doesn't exist regardless of the experience.

We are basically on equal footing but largly live in different world or at least see the world in very different ways.

To be clear I am not saying you have experienced God or that you know the existence of God is illogical, just using a theoretical example.

[songbird36]

To clrify, I am saying that the existence or otherwise of God is not a matter that can be "proven" or "disproven" using the tool of logical analysis. To suggest that it can be, completely misunderstands the nature of God. God is a phenomenon, in the same way that sunsets are, for example, or the northern lights. We establish the existence of these things by perceiving or experiencing them, not by arguing "logically" for their existence.

The only way to establish the existence of God is in an experiential way (by experiencing his power, works and presence in an individual's life).

I regret that you apparently cannot see this point.

[Geoff]

But science has no place to seek to disprove something in the Bible. No more than the Bible has a place seeking to disprove something in science.

I wasnt talking about what the Bible or Science has a place doing, I am talking about what they actually are doing.

-Geoff

[CreativeChaos]

Originally posted by Geoff:

Quote:

Originally Posted by mgbradsh
I'm sorry you are such a tit.

Everyone has told me that language spoken in tongues has to be translated by someone otherwise it is the work of the devil (this comes from some pretty evangelical churches). So that makes it a much more social function since there has to be at least two people in the room. Maybe your dad worships Satan?


Is there a good website with some background in the subject? I would be interested in learning some more on this. I found the use of it in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson quite interesting...

Frankly, I want to stay out of this. I'm sick of religous discussions. However, I would like to say that I WAS one of these spirit-filled, speaking in tongues Christians. I have spoken in tongues. I used to get a high when I did it. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it has to do with emptying your mind of worries. Getting into a trance or something. It really has an effect on your emotions. Like dancing to a great rythimic beat or something. There is a psychological basis for speaking in toungues. I'm not the only one who got "high" doing this. Most people explained it as being filled with the Holy Spirit, but however you want to explain it, people get "high" with this.

[mgb]

I wasnt talking about what the Bible or Science has a place doing, I am talking about what they actually are doing.

-Geoff

Well, that's the problem isn't it. Maybe Science shouldn't be looking at religion. Which is probably the stumbling block of a lot of logical INTPs.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Geoff:


Frankly, I want to stay out of this. I'm sick of religous discussions. However, I would like to say that I WAS one of these spirit-filled, speaking in tongues Christians. I have spoken in tongues. I used to get a high when I did it. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it has to do with emptying your mind of worries. Getting into a trance or something. It really has an effect on your emotions. Like dancing to a great rythimic beat or something. There is a psychological basis for speaking in toungues. I'm not the only one who got "high" doing this. Most people explained it as being filled with the Holy Spirit, but however you want to explain it, people get "high" with this.

Thank you, that's quite helpful to hear your take on it. I was merely interested in the physiological/psychological background, not whether religion actually is a cause, symptom or result of speaking in tongues.

-Geoff

[pintpi]

To clrify, I am saying that the existence or otherwise of God is not a matter that can be "proven" or "disproven" using the tool of logical analysis. To suggest that it can be, completely misunderstands the nature of God. God is a phenomenon, in the same way that sunsets are, for example, or the northern lights. We establish the existence of these things by perceiving or experiencing them, not by arguing "logically" for their existence.
Not to be mean but Js have this problem of not being able to see other personality types point of views. They are stuck with the impression that the way they view the world is the correct and best way. Of course you have 15 other personallity types that will disagree with you, I think you are a bit out numbered but apparently that doesn't matter to Js.

If you really wish to understand Jung/MBTI you have to understand there are true differences in how we view and experience the world, none is the correct and none is better than the other. You must understand that you establish the existence of things by perceiving and experiencing them, this is a phenomina that is specific to types with a primary perceiving function, and is completely foreign to other personality types.


The only way to establish the existence of God is in an experiential way (by experiencing his power, works and presence in an individual's life).

I regret that you apparently cannot see this point.
Actually I can see this point perfectly well but I see that it doesn't apply to me it applies only to certain personality types (yours happens to be one of them).

[songbird36]

Not to be mean but Js have this problem of not being able to see other personality types point of views. They are stuck with the impression that the way they view the world is the correct and best way. Of course you have 15 other personallity types that will disagree with you, I think you are a bit out numbered but apparently that doesn't matter to Js.

If you really wish to understand Jung/MBTI you have to understand there are true differences in how we view and experience the world, none is the correct and none is better than the other. You must understand that you establish the existence of things by perceiving and experiencing them, this is a phenomina that is specific to types with a primary perceiving function, and is completely foreign to other personality types.


Actually I can see this point perfectly well but I see that it doesn't apply to me it applies only to certain personality types (yours happens to be one of them).

I don't think you do understand. I'm going to make the point in a slightly different way one more time, and then I give up.

Establishing the existence (or otherwise) of God is not a matter that varies according to which personality type you happen to be, such as whether P or J.

It comes down to whether the matter itself (or the phenomenon if you prefer to call it that) is one which, by its very nature, is susceptible to being proved or disproved with rational argument. I am quite happy to engage with you or anyone else in a logical discussion on a matter which lends itself to logical analysis (such as the truth of a particular philosophical principle).

However this particular thing (God) is not an abstract idea, it is a *phenomenon*. Phenomena of any description (take lust for example) must be experienced with our senses, and therefore the existence or otherwise of them is established through the senses. Any arguments around the existence or non-existence of God must proceed on the basis of experience.

[pintpi]

Establishing the existence (or otherwise) of God is not a matter that varies according to which personality type you happen to be, such as whether P or J.
You are correct it doesn't vary according to personality type but personality is involved. For Js the existence of God is established by their experiences, some INTJs have experienced God and other INTJs haven't experienced God. This is basically the soul reason why some INTJ believe in God and some don't. So for INTJs the establishment of the existence of God has to do with their personality type combined with their personal life experiences.


It comes down to whether the matter itself (or the phenomenon if you prefer to call it that) is one which, by its very nature, is susceptible to being proved or disproved with rational argument. I am quite happy to engage with you or anyone else in a logical discussion on a matter which lends itself to logical analysis (such as the truth of a particular philosophical principle).

However this particular thing (God) is not an abstract idea, it is a *phenomenon*. Phenomena of any description (take lust for example) must be experienced with our senses, and therefore the existence or otherwise of them is established through the senses. Any arguments around the existence or non-existence of God must proceed on the basis of experience.
If you would look at what you are saying you will see you are defining God as a phenomenon and discounting the definition of God being an abstract idea. You must understand that you have done this because your personality type places more importance on phenomenon than abstract ideas. You do this not for any kind of logical reasons but because it is how you see the world (your point of view). Maybe someday you will be able to understand that INTPs place more importance on abstact ideas than phenomenon and hence define God more as an abstract idea. You are trying to force me to believe in the correctness of the way INTJs view the world, I can tell you, that ain't going to happen. You are basically telling me INTJs are better than INTPs I don't think that is going to go over to well on this forum.

[songbird36]

OK I officially give up.

You're right I do believe that God is a phenomenon able to be experienced, not an abstract idea. If God were an abstract idea, there is no way people would be able to have a relationship with Him and perceive Him working in their everyday lives to change things.

And actually, you are completely wrong about my preferred mode of analysis. I am an NT, not an ST, and accordingly abstract reasoning is my preferred mode rather than use of my senses as a way of ordering the world. However that does not mean that I cannot and do not use my senses to understand things that are only capable of being understood with the senses.

Enough said.

[Eileen]

You are basically telling me INTJs are better than INTPs I don't think that is going to go over to well on this forum.

I personally perceived a lambasting of personality types ending with the letter J.


Also, everybody uses all eight cognitive processes to varying degrees depending on type, RAAARRRR! Ns can sense! Ss can intuit! Fs can think (damn it) and Ts CAN INDEED FEEL!


and now it's time to grade papers and eat curry.

(PS. Songbird, I think that I probably use my intuition more than sensing to experience God, though I most certainly have had sensual God experiences. But maybe we can talk about that in a PM sometime. Your thoughts on this matter are very interesting to me!)

[pintpi]

I also think that it takes as much faith to believe or disbelieve in God. Pintpi, it seems like you are avoiding the use of the word "faith" while latching on to its concepts to arrive at the conclusion that there is no God. Call it what you will, but it reads as "faith" to me.

I think that we -- I, at least -- tend to consciously or subconsciously look for the simplest explanation when there exists no evidence to guide the decision process. In the God vs. No God scenario, however, neither case (in my mind) reduces the construct into something more elegant or understandable. I tend to think that the question of origin for both the universe and God are more or less the same problem, or at least of the same complexity. (Perhaps something like big O notation in relation to complexity, for fellow computer science people.)

With the IPUs, we have no evidence to support their existence. One may think that we leap directly to disbelief. I would propose that we run the IPU notion through another filter before that conclusion -- the reducibility concept I mentioned above. A Belief in IPUs creates more questions than answers and in no way explains existing phenomena. If either of these were to change, I think it would be reasonable to further explore the possibility of their existence -- but it would likely be near the end of that exploration that we determined they were invisible, pink, and unicorns.

As an agnostic, I tend to discount most God-origin stories and God-notions as social construct, this is a more simple and elegant explanation for me. However, as I stated above, ridding ourselves of the notion of God altogether does not achieve this goal. If I were to believe in God with certainty, it would probably be similar to the Deist model.

Furthermore, I think our INTP nature may play into atheistic tendencies. As has probably been mentioned already, we usually have an aversion to authority and a desire for independent thought. I believe that once we get into our twenties, we are unlikely to change our God concept significantly because we have probably taken in and assimilated quite a bit of knowledge and it would be an expensive exertion of time and energy to redefine our universal model.
Sorry, I almost missed you post in there.

Since I quite easily get board with the arguments over the existence of God I have to be brief and apologize for not responding to most of your arguments. Nothing personal and I am not discounting your argument. It is just that I have already hashed over this issue many times and my eyes start to blur over.

About the IPU there is no evidence for or against it and there never will be it has no observable effect. The exercise is really about what we mean when we say something doesn't exist. Like I said before when we say that, it isn't a guarentee that it can't exist and to say something exists you have to have a reason to believe that it exists (basically Occam's Razor). If we don't view the world like this we can't know anything because we can just add in all kinds of imaginary beings to explain things. I say the IPU did it, someone else says goddidit, someone else says it was caused by a quatum fluctuation. Under that kind of thinking we can't know which one is right. Of course the question then becomes what do we mean by right? In the scientific sense right just means fits the data best, realizing that it doesn't tell us anything about the true objective nature of the universe (check out solipsism) but it does give us "knowledge" of the universe. There is nothing from any religions or any other fictional books (novels, etc...) that can give you "knowledge" about the universe which is where faith comes in. Knowledge and faith are directly opposed to each other, you can't have faith in knowledge and you can't have knowledge in faith.

I think I am starting to talk out of my ass at this point and I wasn't as brief as I had hoped but maybe someone can make some sense out of those rambling thoughts.

[pintpi]

You're right I do believe that God is a phenomenon able to be experienced, not an abstract idea. If God were an abstract idea, there is no way people would be able to have a relationship with Him and perceive Him working in their everyday lives to change things.
So you have declared that people can't interact with abstract ideas. Abstract ideas can't have affects on our everyday live, I think most INTPs will disagree.

Do you think our disagreement on this issue is pure coincidence. Can you see that, me having Introverted Thinking as a primary function, you having Introverted Intuition as a primary function and that you trust your experiences and I trust my logic may not be a coincidence?


And actually, you are completely wrong about my preferred mode of analysis. I am an NT, not an ST, and accordingly abstract reasoning is my preferred mode rather than use of my senses as a way of ordering the world. However that does not mean that I cannot and do not use my senses to understand things that are only capable of being understood with the senses.
I never suggested you had ST, your preferred mode of analysis is Introverted Intuition with Extraverted Thinking and neither of those imply abstact reasoning. Introverted Intuition is a percieving function, which is what you give most weight to and Extraverted Thinking is a judgement function, which is how you analyse the world. This does not imply abstract thought. Extraverted Thinking is very much concrete thought, which is quite different than abstract thought. You think in absolutes, this is way you have a hard time seeing other people's points of view because your's is absolute and correct, that is not something INTPs do very often seeing as Extraverted Thinking is our last function according to some schools of thought.

[songbird36]

Your so called abstract thinking (or whatever you like to call your argument against the existence of God) is logically unconvincing. It is quite clear that like most people who have not experienced God, you are not capable of understanding why anybody *else* is sure that God exists. It is precisely because you wrongly think that God is an abstract idea, you are unable to open yourself up to the possibility of experiencing Him in reality.

And you're wrong about me and my preferred ways of thinking and understanding the world. I don't think in absolutes at all, and am happy quite happy to be persuaded to another person's point of view if it is more convincing than mine. You just haven't managed to persuade me.

You've also completely ignored my argument about rational vs non-rational phenomena, and have failed to adequately address any of the points I made, so at this point I am unimpressed by your reasoning skills.

[Edmond Zedo]

I'm sorry you're ignorant. My dad prays in his office in the basement, adjacent to my room...and I'm subject to 15-minute tongue-speaking sessions every night between 10pm and 11pm. He's obviously not trying to prove himself to anyone, and he actually doesn't speak in tongues at church or in public hardly at all.
Practice. Good hokum always takes practice.

[pintpi]

Your so called abstract thinking (or whatever you like to call your argument against the existence of God) is logically unconvincing. It is quite clear that like most people who have not experienced God, you are not capable of understanding why anybody *else* is sure that God exists. It is precisely because you wrongly think that God is an abstract idea, you are unable to open yourself up to the possibility of experiencing Him in reality.
I am not sure how you got the idea that I a trying to convince anyone of the none existence of God. I have not done that anywhere. I was just trying to show the INTP point of view on the issue.

I do understand why some people believe God exists because they have experienced him as you have stated. I have not disagreed with your statement at all. All I was saying is that INTPs can not come to believing in the existence of God for the same reasons you have (by experience).


And you're wrong about me and my preferred ways of thinking and understanding the world. I don't think in absolutes at all, and am happy quite happy to be persuaded to another person's point of view if it is more convincing than mine. You just haven't managed to persuade me.

You've also completely ignored my argument about rational vs non-rational phenomena, and have failed to adequately address any of the points I made, so at this point I am unimpressed by your reasoning skills.
Again I am not trying to pursuade you or anyone else. This is a forum about INTPs so generally I would think most people here are interested in how INTPs think and how they are different than all the other types. I was just trying to help you to understand the way of the INTP. If you are not interested in the peculiarities of INTPs you might want to question why you are here.

I don't know how you got the idea that I am opposed to you but as you may have seen on this forum is can be quite easy for people to misunderstand INTPs. So be careful in assuming you understand our intent.

[cjs55]

Every bit of experience I have ever had leads me to the intuitive conclusion that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist. I am as certain of this as I am that the world is round: Something I have never personally seen, but with enough evidence to back it up to make it insane to lay belief in any other direction. No experience has ever given the slightest credence to thought of any active participation of any God.

However, it sounds like you are actually going on a direct experiencial basis here Songbird, not an intuitive conclusion based on overall experience. So, in this case, I suppose your God is very partial to who he/she/it decides to interact with? I am very certain I have never had any direct experience of a God.

[booyalab]

Practice. Good hokum always takes practice.

So that's how you do it.....

[cjs55]

We establish the existence of these things by perceiving or experiencing them, not by arguing "logically" for their existence

However, such things are explained by our overall understanding of the systems that govern the world around us (explained by humanity as science) as well as experience. They are backed up in a somewhat logical, somewhat intuitive arena, as it were. Indeed, the same goes for your example of 'lust', which is nothing more than chemicals and hormones inside the body.

This explanation is much more reliable, since human perception is so easily altered and thus not an acceptable way alone to reach a conclusion. If it doesn't make sense in a grand theoretical scale as well, it is unreliable data.

[Edmond Zedo]

You like to throw around 'logical' and 'illogical' like they are self evident descriptions of whatever you believe (self evident because you dont think you need to show your actual reasoning) when in fact, it's obvious you know little about logic.
The logical stance I referred to I didn't state in that post. It is that we can't know if there is a god or are gods or not at this point in time. In other words, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."



Why your 'logic' is wrong.
1. Assumption about the origin of religion
2. Begging the question. (a logical fallacy, but I wouldn't expect you to know that so I'll explain.) You're assuming the truth of the conclusion on the basis of your premise.....which is the assumption about the origin of religion.
Am I held to making statements consistently following hard logic? I'm flattered, but I don't. My statement about the origin of religion was not. It's based on knowledge and intuition. See above for a statement using hard logic.


3. Logic is just as contrived as you claim religion to be, and moreso since we know where exactly it comes from.
I wonder exactly where this statement comes from. Certainly not reason.


Using the reasoning from point #2, we can safely assume that logic either a. has no use anymore, or b. will have no more use at some point.
more begging the question.
Banter! Using wordplay as a red herring in the context of topical discussion won't impress some of us.

[Edmond Zedo]

I forgive you for your feminism post :P

On the last point, I have some examples of 'concrete results' from the religious framework that couldn't be (satisfactorily) explained with the scientific framework. I have witnessed: speaking in tongues, baptism of the holy spirit, miracles, and an exorcism.
Asimov, paraphrased "When we see something that appears irrational, we must assume there is a rational explanation."

I've witnessed people deluding themselves, seeing more than really is, and I've seen all they claim unable to be proven. This kind of thing, combined with hearsay and good storytelling is what myths (including every major religion) are made of.

[mgb]

I am not sure how you got the idea that I a trying to convince anyone of the none existence of God. I have not done that anywhere. I was just trying to show the INTP point of view on the issue.

I do understand why some people believe God exists because they have experienced him as you have stated. I have not disagreed with your statement at all. All I was saying is that INTPs can not come to believing in the existence of God for the same reasons you have (by experience).


Again I am not trying to pursuade you or anyone else. This is a forum about INTPs so generally I would think most people here are interested in how INTPs think and how they are different than all the other types. I was just trying to help you to understand the way of the INTP. If you are not interested in the peculiarities of INTPs you might want to question why you are here.

I don't know how you got the idea that I am opposed to you but as you may have seen on this forum is can be quite easy for people to misunderstand INTPs. So be careful in assuming you understand our intent.


I suppose this thread is about INTPs being less likely to be religious and not other types. :whistle:

[Edmond Zedo]

The problem is science isn't something you believe in. It is a tool that can be used to understand the world we live in. It doesn't require faith to do a scientific analysis. It sounds like you are implying that atheists are claiming to have some absolute objective knowledge, which I don't think you will find many atheists that claim that. Like I said in another post even without absolute knowledge we can still know things.
Exactly. Scientific atheists who happen to be like me claim NOT to know key things. The same key things religionnaires claim to know. Yet we do know, in great confidence, some things such as the center of the universe is not the Earth, or the Sun, things which the all-knowing churches of old disagreed with.

[Edmond Zedo]

If the idea of logic and reasoning *must* enter this debate, the existence of God is proven inductively (through peoples' collective experience of Him), not through the search for external evidence (although I'm sure there is plenty of that too).
Well, anyone can tell you I don't know anything about reason, but please refer to the Asimov quote a few posts up. Why, oh why, must seemingly rather intelligent people think that an emotion they feel is more likely due to the invisible man in the sky than some inborn neurological tendency to feel more important than is physically obvious? It could be a selector, after all.

[Edmond Zedo]

For those who meagerly claim science and religion are "separate but equal" in so many words...Does it not strike you as humorously fucked up that there are hundreds of intricate yet mutually exclusive religions throughout this world and its history, yet only one catalogue of scientific knowledge which spans the world, and history?

[Phenylethylene]

Sorry, I almost missed you post in there.

Since I quite easily get board with the arguments over the existence of God I have to be brief and apologize for not responding to most of your arguments. Nothing personal and I am not discounting your argument. It is just that I have already hashed over this issue many times and my eyes start to blur over.

No worries, I often get bored with these dicussions too -- I can't remember the last time I have heard a novel idea on the subject. I think you said in a previous post something to the effect of INTPs being destined to become atheists, should they give the issue enough thought. I just wanted to explain a point of view of an agnostic INTP who is not likely to become either a theist or an atheist.



About the IPU there is no evidence for or against it and there never will be it has no observable effect. The exercise is really about what we mean when we say something doesn't exist. Like I said before when we say that, it isn't a guarentee that it can't exist and to say something exists you have to have a reason to believe that it exists (basically Occam's Razor). If we don't view the world like this we can't know anything because we can just add in all kinds of imaginary beings to explain things. I say the IPU did it, someone else says goddidit, someone else says it was caused by a quatum fluctuation. Under that kind of thinking we can't know which one is right. Of course the question then becomes what do we mean by right? In the scientific sense right just means fits the data best, realizing that it doesn't tell us anything about the true objective nature of the universe (check out solipsism) but it does give us "knowledge" of the universe. There is nothing from any religions or any other fictional books (novels, etc...) that can give you "knowledge" about the universe which is where faith comes in. Knowledge and faith are directly opposed to each other, you can't have faith in knowledge and you can't have knowledge in faith.

I think I am starting to talk out of my ass at this point and I wasn't as brief as I had hoped but maybe someone can make some sense out of those rambling thoughts.

I understand what you say and would agree that knowledge and faith are opposed. I simply think that I cannot know that God does or does not exist. I am aware that there is no "proof" for God, but there is no "proof" against God either, which leaves possibility for both. Since niether explanation for the origin of being simplifies the problem, I have set up camp in agnostic land. (This is where the IPUs come back to the discussion, for which I tried to explain the difference in the two notions in my last post.) I apologize for essentially repeating myself and am certain we could talk circles around each other for some time. I am positive that we will have to agree to disagree and would have been thoroughly suprised if the outcome was any different. As I said, I was just trying to illustrate how one could come to another conclusion, not convince you that mine is the correct conclusion.

[Edmond Zedo]

Your so called abstract thinking (or whatever you like to call your argument against the existence of God) is logically unconvincing. It is quite clear that like most people who have not experienced God, you are not capable of understanding why anybody *else* is sure that God exists. It is precisely because you wrongly think that God is an abstract idea, you are unable to open yourself up to the possibility of experiencing Him in reality.

And you're wrong about me and my preferred ways of thinking and understanding the world. I don't think in absolutes at all, and am happy quite happy to be persuaded to another person's point of view if it is more convincing than mine. You just haven't managed to persuade me.

You've also completely ignored my argument about rational vs non-rational phenomena, and have failed to adequately address any of the points I made, so at this point I am unimpressed by your reasoning skills.
I have an idea of how your mind works, just like so many peoples' minds. Your instinctual drive toward a higher power, like a gut feeling, is simply stronger than your intellectual ability to supress it. I wish there was a god, but I don't want to be an idiot about it.

[songbird36]

I am not sure how you got the idea that I a trying to convince anyone of the none existence of God. I have not done that anywhere. I was just trying to show the INTP point of view on the issue.

I do understand why some people believe God exists because they have experienced him as you have stated. I have not disagreed with your statement at all. All I was saying is that INTPs can not come to believing in the existence of God for the same reasons you have (by experience).


Again I am not trying to pursuade you or anyone else. This is a forum about INTPs so generally I would think most people here are interested in how INTPs think and how they are different than all the other types. I was just trying to help you to understand the way of the INTP. If you are not interested in the peculiarities of INTPs you might want to question why you are here.

I don't know how you got the idea that I am opposed to you but as you may have seen on this forum is can be quite easy for people to misunderstand INTPs. So be careful in assuming you understand our intent.

I'm am getting extremely bored and frustrated trying to explain what I thought was a fairly obvious distinction (between things which are susceptible to proof by logical analysis, and things which rely for their proof on perception or experience). You seem either unwilling or unable to apprehend that distinction despite me having offered you examples of phenomena exist but which are not capable of logical analysis, such as love, lust, anger, peace, and suchlike. Who would deny that these are real? We have all experienced them.

Just because a person is an INTP (or an INTJ such as myself) does not meet that they are incapable of grasping the reality of *some* phenomena through experience, as opposed to abstract reasoning. If you do the things that the Christian church advocates (in particular, prayer and group worship) you may find that you will in time have an experience of communicating with God and then you will know the truth of it. Of course if you won't open your mind to this possibility, then it most certainly will not happen. It does take time and effort, I can vouch for that.

[songbird36]

I have an idea of how your mind works, just like so many peoples' minds. Your instinctual drive toward a higher power, like a gut feeling, is simply stronger than your intellectual ability to supress it. I wish there was a god, but I don't want to be an idiot about it.

You seem to suffer from the same problem as pintpi - you apparently have blinkers on and are unable to open yourself up to the possibility that you might experience something (such as God) in a non-rational way, or using a non-rational part of yourself. I use the term "non-rational" here as distinct from "irrational" for a reason - some things operate independently of rationality but are not necessarily opposed to it (just different).

I say the same thing to you - by doing this you close yourself off to a whole world of possible experience; essentially what I would call your spiritual dimension.

[Edmond Zedo]

You seem to suffer from the same problem as pintpi - you apparently have blinkers on and are unable to open yourself up to the possibility that you might experience something (such as God) in a non-rational way, or using a non-rational part of yourself. I use the term "non-rational" here as distinct from "irrational" for a reason - some things operate independently of rationality but are not necessarily opposed to it (just different).

I say the same thing to you - by doing this you close yourself off to a whole world of possible experience; essentially what I would call your spiritual dimension.
I've had countless experiences which I could call fate, miracles, divine intervention, or whatever you like. But I don't. I call them coincidences, luck, mysteries, and whatever I like.

I know enough about the mind to know that if I halved my IQ, I'd most likely be a true believer just...like...you.

[pintpi]

Edmond Zedo -> INTP -> Atheist - Don't give crap about experiecning God
pintpi -> INTP -> Atheist - Don't give a crap about experiencing God

We have never met one another yet we have this in common, coincidence? I say no, we are INTP.

songbird34 -> INTJ -> Theist - Does give a crap about experiencing God

This should give you a clue to what is going on here.

[Edmond Zedo]

Edmond Zedo -> INTP -> Atheist - Don't give crap about experiecning God
pintpi -> INTP -> Atheist - Don't give a crap about experiencing God

We have never met one another yet we have this in common, coincidence? I say no, we are INTP.

songbird34 -> INTJ -> Theist - Does give a crap about experiencing God

This should give you a clue to what is going on here.
We're a similar breed, but I know all to well that type and religious tendencies are not hard and fast comparisons. I know INTJ and INFP atheists, and INTP true believers.

[songbird36]

It's nothing to do with IQ. However I'm not bothering to explain why any further, as neither of you seem capable of understanding at an intellectual level the sort distinctions I'm making.

You're both limited and closed minded, and I feel sorry for you for that reason. I truly do.

[Star]

You're both limited and closed minded, and I feel sorry for you for that reason. I truly do.

Translation: You're both going to burn in hell!

[Edmond Zedo]

You're both limited and closed minded, and I feel sorry for you for that reason. I truly do.
You know, another true believer irl told me almost exactly the same thing. To be honest, he wasn't 3/4 as smart as you are. What I told him: I feel sorry for me too, because I'm stuck in this world with people like you.

[Edmond Zedo]

It's nothing to do with IQ
I'm talking about me. Since I wish there was a god, I'd believe it if I wasn't smart enough not to. I realize smartypants worldwide truly believe.

[cjs55]

I understood precisely what you were trying to say.

You know, I remember 'feeling the spirit' in church. Tears well up in your eyes, something you can't explain, etc. I have once been a 'true believer'. I also remember that as I became wiser and learned more about the world, it became more and more apparent to me that this feeling was not necessarily something from God. Perception/experience is variable, faulty, flat out unreliable. Basing your beliefs on it without anything else to back it up is unreasonable.

[pintpi]

We're a similar breed, but I know all to well that type and religious tendencies are not hard and fast comparisons. I know INTJ and INFP atheists, and INTP true believers.
I agree, it isn't type along but it clearly does play a role, especially in the case of the INTP type. It seems to be a combination of experience, knowledge and personality type, not necessarily in that order (order is probably dependent on type). But I would still be quite interested in hearing how an INTP can be a "true" believer, if they have actually come to believe this by logical argument or if they have been able to ignore the logical arguments or some other way. I would be willing to entertain theories on this but would be more interested in a first person account.

[pintpi]

Translation: You're both going to burn in hell!
I already know I am there right now. They can't scare me with that one any more. :devil:

[Edmond Zedo]

I agree, it isn't type along but it clearly does play a role, especially in the case of the INTP type. It seems to be a combination of experience, knowledge and personality type, not necessarily in that order (order is probably dependent on type). But I would still be quite interested in hearing how an INTP can be a "true" believer, if they have actually come to believe this by logical argument or if they have been able to ignore the logical arguments or some other way. I would be willing to entertain theories on this but would be more interested in a first person account.
There are several INTP forum members who are. If you read a few posts, you can easily discover them. Ask them.

[songbird36]

I understood precisely what you were trying to say.

You know, I remember 'feeling the spirit' in church. Tears well up in your eyes, something you can't explain, etc. I have once been a 'true believer'. I also remember that as I became wiser and learned more about the world, it became more and more apparent to me that this feeling was not necessarily something from God. Perception/experience is variable, faulty, flat out unreliable. Basing your beliefs on it without anything else to back it up is unreasonable.

I don't agree that experience is unreliable. In the end, it's actually *the* single most reliable indicator of truth that we as humans have available to us. In fact scientific truth is based largely on inductive reasoning (collective observation and experience of a phenomenon as proof of its existence).

But for some unknown reason people get all sqeaumish when exactly the same modes of reasoning are applied to establish the existence of a God. Perhaps because they can't see it with their eyes? Well we can't see the wind either, but we know it's there.

[songbird36]

I know enough about the mind to know that if I halved my IQ, I'd most likely be a true believer just...like...you.

Well based on all that I'm trying to work out (logically and rationally mind you) what my actual IQ must be.

I'm presumably 50% greater than your misguided Christian friend and in view of the incredible intellectual titan you have shown yourself to be, I reckon I'd be incredibly fortunate even to be able to aspire to 10% of your colossal IQ.

Hmmm...so that puts me at around 60. It's a wonder my brain stem is still functioning.

[cjs55]

You're flat out wrong about science. Explain to me how just perception would result in even say Newtonian laws of physics. Now move on to Einstein.

Experience/Perception tells us that we aren't moving across the galaxy at x amount of miles per hour. Experience/Perception tell us that we and the entire world aren't made of tiny uniform particles. Experience/Perception is simplistic, and only useful as means of species survival, not truth seeking.

[mgb]

I find that my intuition works pretty well for me a lot of the time. I probably use it more than my other 5 senses when I get the chance.

[mgb]

Well based on all that I'm trying to work out (logically and rationally mind you) what my actual IQ must be.

I'm presumably 50% greater than your misguided Christian friend and in view of the incredible intellectual titan you have shown yourself to be, I reckon I'd be incredibly fortunate even to be able to aspire to 10% of your colossal IQ.

Hmmm...so that puts me at around 60. It's a wonder my brain stem is still functioning.

How come you lash out when people don't see things your way?

[songbird36]

How come you lash out when people don't see things your way?

I don't - it's been the other way round on this thread. I got attacked a personal attack (not just on my views of God) by Pintpi, and then by Edmond Zedo.

I don't think I can be blamed for trying to defuse that with humour.

[Eileen]

I guess that depends on what "truth" is and what you value. I know I love my mother. That's the truth. You can't prove or disprove it with the scientific method, but there it is. Why does it even matter that we are moving across the galaxy at x miles per hour, or that we're made up of dancing quarks (I like that better than tiny particles; it's prettier)? I mean, I'm glad I know (but mostly because these things are beautiful concepts to me and fit nicely into poetry), but what the hell does it matter, really? Because we can know it? Woo-fucking-hoo. I'll take the mysteries too, thanks.



This all has made me realize that realizing one's type can severely limit his self-conception as much as it can broaden it.

[pintpi]

No worries, I often get bored with these dicussions too -- I can't remember the last time I have heard a novel idea on the subject. I think you said in a previous post something to the effect of INTPs being destined to become atheists, should they give the issue enough thought. I just wanted to explain a point of view of an agnostic INTP who is not likely to become either a theist or an atheist.
Yea i should have been a bit more inclusive. I should have said given enough time all INTPs will deny a belief in God. I think this includes agnostics. But I do think being agnostic is on shaky ground, like a bit of a balancing act. I was agnostic at one point and had to switch to atheism so I could constuct a more defined world view.


I understand what you say and would agree that knowledge and faith are opposed. I simply think that I cannot know that God does or does not exist. I am aware that there is no "proof" for God, but there is no "proof" against God either, which leaves possibility for both. Since niether explanation for the origin of being simplifies the problem, I have set up camp in agnostic land. (This is where the IPUs come back to the discussion, for which I tried to explain the difference in the two notions in my last post.) I apologize for essentially repeating myself and am certain we could talk circles around each other for some time. I am positive that we will have to agree to disagree and would have been thoroughly suprised if the outcome was any different. As I said, I was just trying to illustrate how one could come to another conclusion, not convince you that mine is the correct conclusion.
What kind of proof are you expecting? I don't have proof either way but I am able to state that there is no God. It might have something to do with how we constuct our world views. I basically start with a completely empty universe and only add things to it that I have reason to believe exist. This is basically what gives be the ability to say there is no God as I have no reason to stick a being like that in my world.

I would be happy to agree to disagree but I would be interested in an overview of how you construct your world view, of course I am not suggesting the way I do it is the most correct but it does work quite well for me and I haven't found any significant logical problems in there.

[mgb]

For those who meagerly claim science and religion are "separate but equal" in so many words...Does it not strike you as humorously fucked up that there are hundreds of intricate yet mutually exclusive religions throughout this world and its history, yet only one catalogue of scientific knowledge which spans the world, and history?

I think they are both wrong, so seperate and equal that way.

[pintpi]

I don't - it's been the other way round on this thread. I got attacked a personal attack (not just on my views of God) by Pintpi, and then by Edmond Zedo.

I don't think I can be blamed for trying to defuse that with humour.
Can you point me to my post that was an attack on you? I don't remember doing that.

[cjs55]

This all has made me realize that realizing one's type can severely limit his self-conception

I came to many of my conclusions before I ever found MBTI. Try to remember that NTs really are much different than NFs, at a very basic level of understanding (that will never be comprehened by the other type). I would never try to argue this subject in this fashion with any other type than conceptualists. But this is how NTs come to conclusions.

Its not a limiting factor, its just the way things are.

[mgb]

I don't think I can be blamed for trying to defuse that with humour.

Do you diffuse fires with gasoline?

[songbird36]

I wonder whether either you or EZ have read Karl Popper, who wrote a lot about the nature and philosophy of science. He often claimed that scientific "truths" were historically and culturally relative. What we believe or claim to be the case now, may be completely different in 20 years time.

And on Pintpi's post above - Pintpi would you agree that the definition of "reason" (that you advocate so strongly as being necessary in this debate) is the process of drawing a conclusion from a set of linking premises? If you accept that, then your argument for "no God" is circular, because you are assuming the truth of your conclusion (that there is no God) from the basis thing you are seeking to prove (universe that consists only of things we can see and measure). An universe consisting only of what is scientifically measurable is actually far *less* plausible than the existence of a God.

[cjs55]

Science isn't 'truth'. I never said it was. However, it is exceedingly useful. All science is is a human conception of reality that logically fits together, to allow us to do anything from make certain metals to send people to the moon to understand the human body and comprehend things that we have never experienced. Science is an imperfect explanation of reality, not simply experience. It doesn't mean it IS reality by any means. I don't think we'll ever actually get to that reality.

Belief in science results in some incredible things that no one can deny. Belief in God results in nothing but a perception shift. The same events may occur, but now with a different viewpoint from the beholder.

[cjs55]

The difference between the two is like the difference between modern day chemists, and ancient alchemists.

[cjs55]

BTW, I apologize if it seems like people are ganging up on you Songbird. I just want to present my own ideas on the matter, and it so happens others are doing so as well at the same time, and you are the only one defending your position (although, admitedly, you are the only one who could defend your position since it is based on experience alone)

[songbird36]

*Why* do people devalue experience so much as a means of apprehending truth?

Take gravity for example, we all know it exists, no-one would deny it, and yet no scientist can yet explain exactly how it works or why it occurs. Yet is a collectively observed, experienced, phenomenon, that can be described in quite specific terms.

So is God. I'm not going to describe some of the things I've experienced because I would simply be inviting more unpleasant attacks in doing so.

[Phenylethylene]

Yea i should have been a bit more inclusive. I should have said given enough time all INTPs will deny a belief in God. I think this includes agnostics. But I do think being agnostic is on shaky ground, like a bit of a balancing act. I was agnostic at one point and had to switch to atheism so I could constuct a more defined world view.


What kind of proof are you expecting? I don't have proof either way but I am able to state that there is no God. It might have something to do with how we constuct our world views. I basically start with a completely empty universe and only add things to it that I have reason to believe exist. This is basically what gives be the ability to say there is no God as I have no reason to stick a being like that in my world.

I would be happy to agree to disagree but I would be interested in an overview of how you construct your world view, of course I am not suggesting the way I do it is the most correct but it does work quite well for me and I haven't found any significant logical problems in there.

I'm glad you brought this up as I was realizing the differences in the way we construct our model from one of you more recent posts. I'm going to apologize ahead of time for any lack of clarity; I was just about to head to bed. Actually, I think most of my methodology for what gets in my universal model evolved from the God question. To make a long story short, I grew up in a Christian home but never felt comfortable with it. I never "got it" the way other people did and thought I was doing something wrong. Eventually I got tired of trying to get it and became an atheist with a model much like yours. I had various problems with this model and made a slight modification.

Essentially anything observable gets put in a keep and refine area which seems to be conceptually somewhat like a node-branch structure. The modification I made was to add a speculative area. The criteria for this area are much looser -- items that do not have observable evidence but are more or less reduced versions of possibilities. Unicorns are out of the observable area for obvious reasons. They are out of the speculative area because they are 1) unecessary to explain anything and 2) create more complexity than simplicity. God is out of the observable area, but in the speculative area because 1) God could explain some things 2) creates roughly no more complexity than simplicity. Items do not get moved from the speculative area without further thought or observation that confirm or deny their validity.

Things in the speculative area have multiple but tentative connections to items in the observable area. Where tentative connections are found, multiple constructs are simultaneously considered with more or less equal credence. The implication is that I can essentially hold several points of view on an issue which seems to very much confuse some people.

Does that make any sense? I've never put it into words before and will be giving it more thought.

[Phenylethylene]

FWIW, Songbird, I very much appreciate your comments. The idea of experiencing God as you describe is completely foreign to me, but it does help me understand where other people come from on the issue.

[pintpi]

I wonder whether either you or EZ have read Karl Popper, who wrote a lot about the nature and philosophy of science. He often claimed that scientific "truths" were historically and culturally relative. What we believe or claim to be the case now, may be completely different in 20 years time.
I haven't read a lot of Popper but I have read some of his stuff on philosophy of science a while ago. I am not too great at remembering the details of a particular persons ideas but I do remember his writings being interesting. But I do hear this a lot, that scientific theories are just temporary and at some point will be replaced by another theory. This hasn't been true for quite a while. All we have done for the past 300 hundred or so years is refine scientific theories, we don't replace. Still today Newton's equations are use all over, every physics student still learns newtonian physics.

But that is all besides the point. The point is science has never claimed to be absolute or claim to be the true representation of the universe. Every scientist knows that it is just a model that happens to correspond to the observable universe. All scientists I know of are quite aware of solopsism and that we can't absloutely know anything.


And on Pintpi's post above - Pintpi would you agree that the definition of "reason" (that you advocate so strongly as being necessary in this debate) is the process of drawing a conclusion from a set of linking premises? If you accept that, then your argument for "no God" is circular, because you are assuming the truth of your conclusion (that there is no God) from the basis thing you are seeking to prove (universe that consists only of things we can see and measure). An universe consisting only of what is scientifically measurable is actually far *less* plausible than the existence of a God.
I haven't advocated "reason" in this debate at all. Again I have done nothing but tried to explain the INTP point of view and have done nothing to try to convince you that the INTP point of view is correct. Zedo can be interpreted as having done that but you will have to ask him to know for sure.

I have repeated several times that I see our world views to be on equal footing, your's based on experience mine based in logic. I am not trying to disparage or demean you in anyway, I appoligize if I have some how lead you to believe I am attacking you but I am at a lost for how you got that impression.

[cjs55]

First, gravity can be accounted for in theories that work on a large scale, even if we don't know how it exactly works. But this is what I was trying to point out earlier. We Never know how anything really works. That doesn't stop science from being useful to us.

The only 'truth' we get from experiencing gravity is that stuff falls when we drop it. Not all that useful. Theories that are not based directly on experience but explain some of what gravity is in their large-scale conception are much more useful.

All of this is somewhat tangential to your point though: You are arguing that no one would deny that gravity exists because we can experience it. Unfortunately, the analogy fails because gravity is an objective experience. I can see you drop something, and we both can watch it fall, and have roughly the same understanding of the 'truth' of the event. And it actually has an impact on everything around it. If you drop a rock in a pond, we both see it fall, and we both see it land, and splash, and displace the water. This is objective and subjective coming together.

The point, finally: In all of my experience, intuition, understanding of the world: A belief in God only changes what would be expected to be changed based directly on the belief alone, not instead resulting from any Gods influence. I don't see the splash of a God here or anywhere. Thus, this is only subjective, and the only subjective is not grounds to base objective truth beliefs on.

[pintpi]

I'm glad you brought this up as I was realizing the differences in the way we construct our model from one of you more recent posts. I'm going to apologize ahead of time for any lack of clarity; I was just about to head to bed. Actually, I think most of my methodology for what gets in my universal model evolved from the God question. To make a long story short, I grew up in a Christian home but never felt comfortable with it. I never "got it" the way other people did and thought I was doing something wrong. Eventually I got tired of trying to get it and became an atheist with a model much like yours. I had various problems with this model and made a slight modification.

Essentially anything observable gets put in a keep and refine area which seems to be conceptually somewhat like a node-branch structure. The modification I made was to add a speculative area. The criteria for this area are much looser -- items that do not have observable evidence but are more or less reduced versions of possibilities. Unicorns are out of the observable area for obvious reasons. They are out of the speculative area because they are 1) unecessary to explain anything and 2) create more complexity than simplicity. God is out of the observable area, but in the speculative area because 1) God could explain some things 2) creates roughly no more complexity than simplicity. Items do not get moved from the speculative area without further thought or observation that confirm or deny their validity.

Things in the speculative area have multiple but tentative connections to items in the observable area. Where tentative connections are found, multiple constructs are simultaneously considered with more or less equal credence. The implication is that I can essentially hold several points of view on an issue which seems to very much confuse some people.

Does that make any sense? I've never put it into words before and will be giving it more thought.
Yea, makes quite a bit of sense. I understand what you mean by speculative and tentative but I'm not sure if I have an area like that, I like to think I just have empty voids that hold the place of unknowns but I bet I do have something similar to what you are referring to, as I'm not sure if I can truely replace an unknown with nothing since it really isn't possible to hold the idea of nothing in my head.

Hum, I'll have to ponder this a bit more.

[songbird36]

First, gravity can be accounted for in theories that work on a large scale, even if we don't know how it exactly works. But this is what I was trying to point out earlier. We Never know how anything really works. That doesn't stop science from being useful to us.

The only 'truth' we get from experiencing gravity is that stuff falls when we drop it. Not all that useful. Theories that are not based directly on experience but explain some of what gravity is in their large-scale conception are much more useful.

All of this is somewhat tangential to your point though: You are arguing that no one would deny that gravity exists because we can experience it. Unfortunately, the analogy fails because gravity is an objective experience. I can see you drop something, and we both can watch it fall, and have roughly the same understanding of the 'truth' of the event. And it actually has an impact on everything around it. If you drop a rock in a pond, we both see it fall, and we both see it land, and splash, and displace the water. This is objective and subjective coming together.

The point, finally: In all of my experience, intuition, understanding of the world: A belief in God only changes what would be expected to be changed based directly on the belief alone, not instead resulting from any Gods influence. I don't see the splash of a God here or anywhere. Thus, this is only subjective, and the only subjective is not grounds to base objective truth beliefs on.

I think this opens a can of worms on a rather complex philosophical area that is still not very well understood - subjective vs objective reality. People actually still don't agree on whether the concept of objective reality actually exists, let alone which things can be categorised as such.

So for that reason alone, I would prefer not to get into a debate about whether my experience of God (which is very real I might add) falls into the scope of subjective or objective reality. I'm not suggesting my personal experience of God proves there is a God, but I think when you take the personal experiences of millions of people from all around the world, from all walks of life, and from all cultures and races, of a God, and compare the similarity in a lot of fundamental respects of these religious experiences, this creates a degree of "proof" of His existence which is (to me at least) of a high enough standard.

[songbird36]

I haven't read a lot of Popper but I have read some of his stuff on philosophy of science a while ago. I am not too great at remembering the details of a particular persons ideas but I do remember his writings being interesting. But I do hear this a lot, that scientific theories are just temporary and at some point will be replaced by another theory. This hasn't been true for quite a while. All we have done for the past 300 hundred or so years is refine scientific theories, we don't replace. Still today Newton's equations are use all over, every physics student still learns newtonian physics.

But that is all besides the point. The point is science has never claimed to be absolute or claim to be the true representation of the universe. Every scientist knows that it is just a model that happens to correspond to the observable universe. All scientists I know of are quite aware of solopsism and that we can't absloutely know anything.


I haven't advocated "reason" in this debate at all. Again I have done nothing but tried to explain the INTP point of view and have done nothing to try to convince you that the INTP point of view is correct. Zedo can be interpreted as having done that but you will have to ask him to know for sure.

I have repeated several times that I see our world views to be on equal footing, your's based on experience mine based in logic. I am not trying to disparage or demean you in anyway, I appoligize if I have some how lead you to believe I am attacking you but I am at a lost for how you got that impression.

OK well thanks for that last comment. Overall I have actually found this debate quite stimulating, and of a higher standard of argument than I have encountered on other threads, so I don't want to stop it, or bow out just yet.

The issue of scientific truths and relativity is quite interesting and I'm sure could probably spawn a whole new discussion thread. But the essence as I understand it (well the gospel according to Bill Bryson in a Short History of Nearly Everything) is that there are still, in the year 2005, relatively few scientific "truths" that everyone universally accepts as true. I'd have to dig back into the book for some examples of the many things that are still hotly contested, but I remember thinking when I read it that some of the things I thought were "taken as read", really weren't at all.

I'm not sure how one defines "science" for the purposes of this debate, but in any case I find the contrast that people seek to draw between "religion" and "science" a bit bizarre. I'm not quite sure why you would contrast these two things, or how they are regarded as mutually exclusive. Perhaps people are talking of the tension between religious *dogma* (e.g. the 7 days of creation) and scientific "truth" (the fact that the universe and the planets in it probably evolved slowly and over time).

[Eileen]

I came to many of my conclusions before I ever found MBTI. [...]
Its not a limiting factor, its just the way things are.

I've lived with one INTP or another my whole life. One knows his type and cares, and one knows his type and couldn't give a rat's ass. Neither would be so foolish as to say that they don't value experience as a way of knowing (I use that term loosely because if you don't around here, people get picky) about the world. They may not trust it as their PRIMARY way of knowing about the world but they both use it.

It may be true that you are less likely to prefer and use one cog. process than the other. I am less likely to prefer or use either type of sensing (Si or Se) as an INFJ than any of you as INTPs are. But that doesn't mean that I DON'T and CAN'T use it; it just means that it's harder for me than it is for people of other types. (The same is true for INTJs, actually--we have the same dominant, inferior, and shadow processes.) If we didn't use sensing, we wouldn't be able to survive in the world.



Also,



From Albert Einstein, archetypal INTP:

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery— even if mixed with fear— that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man."


and



My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.


He doesn't seem to devalue experience, and he gets the INTP crown.

[floid]

I have an idea of how your mind works, just like so many peoples' minds. Your instinctual drive toward a higher power, like a gut feeling, is simply stronger than your intellectual ability to supress it. I wish there was a god, but I don't want to be an idiot about it.

Assuming you are an average heterosexual male, Zedo, (as some of your other posts imply) then the following is also relevant:

I have an idea of how your mind works, just like so many peoples' minds.
Your instinctual drive toward negative space, like a crotch feeling, is simply stronger than your intellectual ability to supress it. I wish you weren't lead around by your dick, but I don't want to be an idiot about it.

[Geoff]

Assuming you are an average heterosexual male, Zedo, (as some of your other posts imply) then the following is also relevant:

I have an idea of how your mind works, just like so many peoples' minds.
Your instinctual drive toward negative space, like a crotch feeling, is simply stronger than your intellectual ability to supress it. I wish you weren't lead around by your dick, but I don't want to be an idiot about it.

That's funny, I thought the hole around the back was in charge ;)

-Geoff

[floid]

That's funny, I thought the hole around the back was in charge ;)

-Geoff

That's negative space too, most of the time.;)

[Helios]

I think it is interesting that while everyone trys to be objective, we all seem to judge "God" as the being what we personalty were taught (typically the 3 headed trinity monster, who sends people to a burning hell) , or whatever other crap was created by the socail forces in your community to control you. Perhaps, none of that was anymore true than the stories about Santa.

Now this doesn't mean someone who cared about you didn't buy the gifts, they sure didnt evolve on there own. The flash of time when you unrap those gift can not tell you anything about who what and where they came from, only the story can. But no doubt each of them have a long complex story (mostly likely starting in a factory ran by political prisners in the PRC). Likewise the brief flash of time we know about and the obsenely tiny scale we exsist in make it impossible for anyone to pass such judgement as we all have been.

We (more so as INTPs) like to be global thinkers, but we can not so much as graps the distance from here to the edge of the Milkly way, we can speak of "light years", but our minds can not really undetstand or "hold" such huge scales. How then can we rise above and dismiss the force or person or whatever that created these things.

I'll close by saying; No, I am not "religious" as I think the word is typically understood. No I don't do X-mas, what a freaking nightmare! I think Pasteur was the death of Darwin. Sure things can adapt and change fine, but we have yet to see any life ever come from the absense of life.

[Johnny]

I bet you will.Then you are a winner.

:sombrero:

What's it like, winning yourself?

[Johnny]

:hug:
:hug:

[mgb]

God is an abstract concept. He has to be. He can exist in no other way and no one can prove otherwise. Until the middle to late Dark Ages, God was an abstraction, at least the Judeo-Christian God. They had stories about his doings, but no one really ever saw him, in fact, of the five senses, not one of them can be used to detect God, people could say they felt Him working though. Then came the age of reason as a direct result of the church seeking God. People discovered the logic of Aristotle and set out to prove the existence of God. Within 500 years they came up with the Scientific Method. That has single handedly killed God. Now the feelings of God can be explained as well.

When you hold God up to the light of reason, he dies. Keep him as a figment of your imagination, it is where God belongs.

The "logic" that God is like gravity is a logical fallacy, specifically a red herring.

[cjs55]

I think when you take the personal experiences of millions of people from all around the world, from all walks of life, and from all cultures and races, of a God, and compare the similarity in a lot of fundamental respects of these religious experiences, this creates a degree of "proof" of His existence which is (to me at least) of a high enough standard.

Disconcerting, because all this proves is that there is a similarity in human beings to have a belief in God, and then be effected by that belief in predictable fashion. Consider that muslim suicide bombers feel the same as the quakers did. Consider that peaceful Catholics today had the same feelings and experiences of God as those in the Inquisitions.

Why would God allow his presence to such an opposing collection of people? And not me? And I actually was a believer for a while. I suppose once you decide that God may not exist, he never allows you to experience him again. I'm sorry, it just doesn't make sense at all, and is much easier explained by human physiology and psychology.

As far as objective and subjective go, there certainly is an objective. I could easily destroy any philosopher on this point, I have it clearly in my mind and it so exceedingly simple as for there not to be much doubt to its existance. I think maybe people are asking too much of an objective reality. Instead, let me give an example: When you play catch, the ball is objective. You use your perception (which is subjective) to catch the ball (which is objective). Your perception alone cannot alter the balls movement. However, when you catch it, your subjective perception grasped the objective reality well enough to come into contact with it, and make the catch. Anyone that argues that the ball is actually subjective as well is wrong: No matter how hard you try to change your perception of it, it takes the same course through the air.

[mgb]

Disconcerting, because all this proves is that there is a similarity in human beings to have a belief in God, and then be effected by that belief in predictable fashion. Consider that muslim suicide bombers feel the same as the quakers did. Consider that Catholics today had the same feelings and experiences of God as those in the Inquisition.

Why would God allow his presence to such an opposing collection of people? And not me? And I actually was a believer for a while. I suppose once you decide that God may not exist, he never allows you to experience him again. I'm sorry, it just doesn't make sense at all, and is much easier explained by human physiology and psychology.

As far as objective and subjective go, there certainly is an objective. I could easily destroy any philosopher on this point, I have it clearly in my mind and it so exceedingly simple as for there not to be much doubt to its existance. I think maybe people are asking too much of an objective reality. Instead, let me give an example: When you play catch, the ball is objective. You use your perception (which is subjective) to catch the ball (which is objective). Your perception alone cannot alter the balls movement. However, when you catch it, your subjective perception grasped the objective reality well enough to come into contact with it, and make the catch. Anyone that argues that the ball is actually subjective as well is wrong: No matter how hard you try to change your perception of it, it takes the same course through the air.


God isn't a ball and you can't catch Him. He isn't an object, He is an abstraction. It's like saying you are catching a ball of Superstrings. You can't catch a ball of Superstrings. We can only guess that they exist, and are an abstraction in scientific terms. In reality, you are doing no such thing when you "catch" the ball of Superstrings.

[cjs55]

Yes, I made this distinction of science a while back. It is not derived from direct experience, but rather a complex theory of reality that should explain it. Its usefulness dervies not from its truthfulness but rather from its effectiveness, due to human perception being so hopelessly useless in the case of observing directly, say, superstring theory.

However, this argument is not about science. Science and God are very different. Songbird is arguing that the collective experience of a certain group of people is enough to justify an objective truth alone. I am simply trying to point out that it can't be that obvious of a truth, like gravity is. This is because gravity is objective, and feelings of God are subjective. I can't argue against gravity because I drop something and it falls, every time. I can argue against God because their experience is on another realm, the realm of perception. This realm is not inherently true by any means simply because the perciever 'knows' it is God: Instead, it lends itself to a variety of explanations, God being fairly low on the list of plausability.

[earwax]

Interesting that a discussion on "are INTP's less likely to be religious" turns in to a discussion on the existance of "god". I guess it's kind of inevitable since our central goal is to understand and seek truth.

I have been on both sides of the argument, believer and atheist. I came to the conclusion that there is no proof to support the theory of a god. But you can't really prove a negative. As Carl Sagan would say, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

I am now comfortable with the term agnostic.

[cjs55]

Yeah, I agree with Sagan. But as far as my purposes are concerned, there is no afterlife or active God who will judge me when I die and send me to heaven or hell. I'll live much more effectively without such underlying baggage

[earwax]

I'll go along with that. I see no evidence to suport an afterlife or an active god either. So I quit worrying abut it. And it does make life a bit easier.

[Johnny]

God is an abstract concept. He has to be. He can exist in no other way and no one can prove otherwise.

When you hold God up to the light of reason, he dies. Keep him as a figment of your imagination, it is where God belongs.

The "logic" that God is like gravity is a logical fallacy, specifically a red herring.To conclude that God can be experienced when you assume God is an abstract concept is not enough, I agree. But he has to be only an abstract concept? How did you get there?

Who here has experienced a perfectly straight line with no thickness? Infinity? Pi? Division? These are abstract concepts too. Why is God so limiting a concept that He cannot be something that exists, something that is real, and you are not convinced of this because of your unwillingness to recognize this? Mind you, I'm not offering you the Ontological Argument here. I'm trying to go a different direction:

It's one thing to argue that I am trying to control your behavior by offering a sales pitch for God as I define Him and the way of life I describe to honor Him, but it's another thing to say that God doesn't truly exist for my efforts.

To me, believing in God isn't about erring on the safe side, it's about recognizing that I'm just a player, not a creator. It's not that "All other things being equal, a being existing in the mind and reality is greater than a being existing in the mind ", it's that the mind is not our creation. It's something we're born with and something that is organized and functions according to rules we follow, not rules we devise. The rest, well, someone like Joseph Campbell can illustrate better than I can.

Don't get me wrong, I think the mind rocks...

[cjs55]

it's that the mind is not our creation. It's something we're born with and something that is organized and functions according to rules we follow, not rules we devise.

Thats just saying we are a creation of nature, not evidence of God.

All of science and INTPhood is an attempt to understand and propose theories which describe natural systems. Plausability = those theories which explain the most about the world around us. Our mind is useful because it can predict the world around us with amazing accuracy in some cases.

[mgb]

To conclude that God can be experienced when you assume God is an abstract concept is not enough, I agree. But he has to be only an abstract concept? How did you get there?

Who here has experienced a perfectly straight line with no thickness? Infinity? Pi? Division? These are abstract concepts too. Why is God so limiting a concept that He cannot be something that exists, something that is real, and you are not convinced of this because of your unwillingness to recognize this? Mind you, I'm not offering you the Ontological Argument here. I'm trying to go a different direction:

It's one thing to argue that I am trying to control your behavior by offering a sales pitch for God as I define Him and the way of life I describe to honor Him, but it's another thing to say that God doesn't truly exist for my efforts.

To me, believing in God isn't about erring on the safe side, it's about recognizing that I'm just a player, not a creator. It's not that "All other things being equal, a being existing in the mind and reality is greater than a being existing in the mind ", it's that the mind is not our creation. It's something we're born with and something that is organized and functions according to rules we follow, not rules we devise. The rest, well, someone like Joseph Campbell can illustrate better than I can.

Don't get me wrong, I think the mind rocks...


It's not how I got there, it's where I came from in the case of God. For most of man's existence, he has been an abstract concept, something to pray to so the harvest will be increased. A feeling when you needed to feel something. As the rest of my post stated, it wasn't until we tried to reason God into existance that we realized he was an abstraction.

Division can actually be explained by grouping, so that's not so abstract.

The other concepts are. I don't believe in those other. Constructs by humans to explain the world around us. Pi, like God, exists in our imaginations. That is why it is so hard to believe. Just like God, those abstractions are convieneces we use to make our lives easier. Pi makes math easier. God makes you feel like you aren't alone.

If your mind isn't your creation, fine, but leave God in there. Don't take him out. He dies when you take him out. Let him cuddle your thoughts. God never intended that you have him anywhere else but in your head. If he had, we would be able to use our 5 senses to detect him. He wouldn't be an abstraction.

[earwax]

If your mind isn't your creation, fine, but leave God in there. Don't take him out. He dies when you take him out. Let him cuddle your thoughts. God never intended that you have him anywhere else but in your head. If he had, we would be able to use our 5 senses to detect him. He wouldn't be an abstraction.

Oh My God! This actually makes sense to me!

[Johnny]

God never intended that you have him anywhere else but in your head. If he had, we would be able to use our 5 senses to detect him. He wouldn't be an abstraction.I've gotten you wrong then, mgbradsh. When you were battling against ignorance, I thought it was because you valued learning.

You're really fighting for the hope that you actually know something, aren't you?

[raincrow007]

Earwax let his god out! He killed him!!! Whoops. :P

[earwax]

Earwax let his god out! He killed him!!! Whoops. :P

Damn! And I was just starting to like him...

[mgb]

I've gotten you wrong then, mgbradsh. When you were battling against ignorance, I thought it was because you valued learning.

You're really fighting for the hope that you actually know something, aren't you?

Wow, that's really deep.

How about this then, since you want to hold God up to reason, prove beyond a reasonable doubt that He exists. Not this, Holy Spirit stuff (an even deeper abstraction), but that God himself exists.

Show me some evidence, things done, not by the hand of man, but by God himself.

[mgb]

You may call me ignorant, but my search for truth is no less valuable than yours. So far I have learned that there is nothing.

[earwax]

I remember being about 8 years old and asking my mom, "How do we know there is a god?" (Luckily I was raised in a family where such questions were not only allowed, but actuallly encouraged.) Her response was that we don't KNOW. It's something that everyone has to decide for themselves through their own experience.

Here it is almost 40 years later and I am still waiting on an experience to confirm the theory...

Maybe setting one of my bushes on fire and telling me firsthand that she exists would do it....

[Johnny]

Wow, that's really deep.

How about this then, since you want to hold God up to reason, prove beyond a reasonable doubt that He exists. Not this, Holy Spirit stuff (an even deeper abstraction), but that God himself exists.

Show me some evidence, things done, not by the hand of man, but by God himself.You're not going deep enough, and it's not fair to demand I not be a human being and offer you something that my hand has not touched (and, as you suggest, defile? Come on, mgbradsh, does God have to hate us that bad?)

It is not at all my position that God can truly be grasped by reason. I'm not offering to pull your head out of your ass or mine out of my own. I'm not offering a rational argument for God, like some version of the ontological argument. I will agree that contemplating God makes a great intellectual exercise gym, but that offers nothing to prove He doesn't exist and impact us for this.

I remember a really smart guy who said, "What I can't see doesn't exist", and then he threatened to destroy the guy sitting next to him by directing his field of vision away from him. He made good on his threat, and the guy sitting next to him pulled his hair. When that stops being funny, then I'll become an atheist.

[cjs55]

Heh. The really funny thing though is, God doesn't pull my hair, nor is he pulling yours, and your experience does not come anywhere close to proving that I am wrong.

[booyalab]

The logical stance I referred to I didn't state in that post. It is that we can't know if there is a god or are gods or not at this point in time. In other words, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Your confidence in the logic and intelligence of your position was more frequently stated than your actual position and the reason behind it.
Tell me, what data would be required (or what would it look like) for you to believe beyond a doubt that God either exists or does not exist.



Am I held to making statements consistently following hard logic? I'm flattered, but I don't. My statement about the origin of religion was not. It's based on knowledge and intuition. See above for a statement using hard logic.
You mention logic and being logical and smart and intelligent etc. alot, without making much of an effort to back it up. Excuse me for trying to discern whether you actually have anything, or whether I should be taking you off your high horse.


Take your mind back to when comparatively nothing was understood about the universe. Religion became a way to explain everything away. We don't need that anymore. The only reason to believe is desire, and if you are capable of supressing that desire for the sake of being correct, every religion past and present means absolutely nothing.

(premise) A: Religion was invented out of thin air to fulfill an immediate purpose.
B. The need is fulfilled by something else now
C. (..is for conclusion)Religion is meaningless.
(notice the striking similarity between A. and C.)
Maybe religion WAS invented out of thin air!.....maybe your 'knowledge' happens to be correct, but the flaw in your argument is independent of the premise. (<--which is still an assumption...trust in popular interpretations of historical data..)



I wonder exactly where this statement comes from. Certainly not reason.

http://users.colloquium.co.uk/~BARRETT/Logic4.htm
http://www.keldysh.ru/pages/BioCyber/Logic.html



Banter! Using wordplay as a red herring in the context of topical discussion won't impress some of us.
Just because you won't bother to understand doesn't make it a red herring.

Logic either originated with Aristotle or in conjunction with language (matter of opinion).
The most basic study of philosophy will reveal that logic is a quite limited framework for correlating data, much like religion.
If religion is -meaningless because it is outmoded- , then since we know now (at least most of us) that the era of rationalism is over, and that the Greeks are dead and we know much more than Aristotle, among other things...Logic must be on it's deathbed as well.

I stand by the second fallacy I pointed out, though it may have looked like banter since I was bored by then.

[Miss Anthropic]

:thumbup: Booya! You go girl!

[Edmond Zedo]

I guess that depends on what "truth" is and what you value. I know I love my mother. That's the truth. You can't prove or disprove it with the scientific method, but there it is.
Yes we can! If we take a portrait of your mother, and several control photographs of people you don't know, or know but don't love, and show them to you while observing you, your pupils will dilate upon seeing your mother, thus proving your love. Science rules!


Why does it even matter that we are moving across the galaxy at x miles per hour, or that we're made up of dancing quarks (I like that better than tiny particles; it's prettier)? I mean, I'm glad I know (but mostly because these things are beautiful concepts to me and fit nicely into poetry), but what the hell does it matter, really? Because we can know it? Woo-fucking-hoo. I'll take the mysteries too, thanks.
Many people don't give a damn about the way things work, and it only upsets me when they try to impose their literally ignorant view on others. They so often do.

[Edmond Zedo]

*Why* do people devalue experience so much as a means of apprehending truth?

Take gravity for example, we all know it exists, no-one would deny it, and yet no scientist can yet explain exactly how it works or why it occurs. Yet is a collectively observed, experienced, phenomenon, that can be described in quite specific terms.

So is God. I'm not going to describe some of the things I've experienced because I would simply be inviting more unpleasant attacks in doing so.
Pardon my boldness, but what a load of garbage that barely deserves an argument. Gravity is measurable and predictable. God is make believe.

[cjs55]

Well Zedo, it does deserve some argument, because they are arguing they experience God in the same way they experience gravity. It is still incorrect due to what I posted above, but it still needed to be refuted.

[Edmond Zedo]

Your confidence in the logic and intelligence of your position was more frequently stated than your actual position and the reason behind it.
Tell me, what data would be required (or what would it look like) for you to believe beyond a doubt that God either exists or does not exist.
If I were aware of something which was completely observable by The World, and completely contradicted the laws of science, I would most likely be a believer. For example, if all the oceans drifted into the sky to form a giant talking head, and I wasn't the only one who saw it, I'd go for it. But in a few hundred years that may be possible via technology. God had better hurry.


You mention logic and being logical and smart and intelligent etc. alot, without making much of an effort to back it up. Excuse me for trying to discern whether you actually have anything, or whether I should be taking you off your high horse.
Hmm--I don't know what you're looking for. Can I answer some word problems for you? In my posts, I try to make points without being so long winded that I wouldn't even read them. That means I don't say everything that could possibly be said every chance I get. I won't alter this practice. Many other posters in this thread have made excellent points that I don't feel I should repeat, but agree with completely.


(premise) A: Religion was invented out of thin air to fulfill an immediate purpose.
B. The need is fulfilled by something else now
C. (..is for conclusion)Religion is meaningless.
(notice the striking similarity between A. and C.)
Maybe religion WAS invented out of thin air!.....maybe your 'knowledge' happens to be correct, but the flaw in your argument is independent of the premise. (<--which is still an assumption...trust in popular interpretations of historical data..)
You're right, and as I've said this wasn't a pure logic argument. And iirc, I didn't use the phrase "thin air." It's my best ESTIMATION that religion came about (at hundreds of points in time) for two reasons. 1., People want to believe there's something more than this world, and 2., Before the Rennaissance in Western Society (other points in others), so little was known about science and reality beyond the obvious that religion was fairly viable. And again, people want mysteries explained. Religion does that easily if you can believe it.


http://users.colloquium.co.uk/~BARRETT/Logic4.htm
http://www.keldysh.ru/pages/BioCyber/Logic.html


Just because you won't bother to understand doesn't make it a red herring.

Logic either originated with Aristotle or in conjunction with language (matter of opinion).
The most basic study of philosophy will reveal that logic is a quite limited framework for correlating data, much like religion.
If religion is -meaningless because it is outmoded- , then since we know now (at least most of us) that the era of rationalism is over, and that the Greeks are dead and we know much more than Aristotle, among other things...Logic must be on it's deathbed as well.

I stand by the second fallacy I pointed out, though it may have looked like banter since I was bored by then.
I have no interest in discussing or reading about the origins of the word logic presently, as it has no relevance to anything except History. Your comments remind me that I'm primarily concerned with fundamentals--Things which aren't bound by time and culture. If what we call the Scientific Method became unknown because, say, the Earth was swallowed by the Sun today, would it become invalid? No. The Scientific Method is based on research following logic. Something which an extraterrestrial culture, if existent, would likely come around to eventually, but call it something else.