I notice that most of the ENP members I've exchanged words with on this site had dogmatic religious beliefs. In my life I've come across several ENPs who professed to be religious zealots. Yet, I certainly had doubts about the sincerity and of their claim.
For one, I have an older ENTP 'friend' who holds a senior pastor position in his church. He always carries many masks and rarely lets the opportunity slip to coax the audience into believing that he is exactly what they'd like to see. The man always carries many masks and the way he manipulates them aroud is nothign short of a work of art. It is very common to see him interact with many groups of people simultaneously, leading each one to believe that he is a steadfast champion of their cause. He almost never knew where he stood, but of course, this noone, not even he himself was aware of! At the time he earnestly thought that he believed in what he was preaching, yet had no compunction about asserting almost the opposite the next sermon. Seemingly ignoring or failing to see the contradiction. Yet of course, even the most analytical of minds would have trouble pointing out his deceptive tendencies as he always managed to obfuscate them in dense walls of rhetoric and artistic expression. His claims were usually open to double or even triple layers of interpretation and when questioned he managed to skillfully maneuver his way out of the charges. On several occassions it took me over an hour of intense scrutiny to pin him down. And when pinned down, he infallibly succeeds at making the charge seem less grave or even endearing to the accuser. This, unfortunately, was the part where I was unable to call him on his bs as making quick value judgments is not my strong side.
My other ENFP friend rocked the same show for 5 years. Professing to be a religious zealot at the outset, and completely lost his faith a few months ago. He had even stronger presentation skills than the former as he not only knew how to come in tune with the 'spirit of the time', but also he knew how to make his sermons endearing to the individual. Thus, this character managed to put up the presentation everyone liked irrespectively of its content or his personal beliefs. Those who have shown disagreement or displeasure were tamed momentarily, walking away feeling like they are the center of his life. Over a dozen of people could earnestly claim that they felt very special talking to him after the sermon even though he may never think of them again. Such people also would have forgotten their indignation at what he said, assuming it was something profound and extremely endearing. When in reality he uttered a thousand words having said nothing, only made the position he presented on stage seem different, yet at the essence it was the same damn thing. Afraid of being questioned? Yes, unlike the ENTP he lacked the sharp, quick-thinking analytical mind to contest people directly who challenge him, but he certainly loved to boast how he could equivocate around their questions and in the end they love him all the more for it.
Why did these men happen to be dominant Extroverted Intuitives and what does this tell us about Extroverted Intuition. Is it merely a coincidence that such behavior happened to be acted out by those two ENPs? I would think not. Ne, as I described in my ENTP profile easily adapts to the Intuitive patterns shared by the external environment. Thus because ENTPs are strongly in tune with the external perception itself, and perception itself is malleable, they can easily manipulate the external perceptions dressing them in any form they need them to be in. They naturally identify with the 'spirit of the time' and zestfully merge with it.
The ENFP likely will embody the popular sentiments with a great sense of inner personal conviction appealing to the individual (Fi as slave to Ne), yet in reality there is nothing individualistic about what they said. It is means to the end of enticing the masses. The idea is radically collectivist almost by the essence of itself.
ENTP on the other hand will perceive the external situation as means to the end of achieving his impersonal goals. Much like the great Machiavelli. Religion is very attractive to both types as it offers ample opportunities to influence the masses and make a name for oneself. As religion is often identified with orthodoxy, and conventional society identifies virtue with orthodoxy itself. Thus to be normal and to be good mean the same thing without a doubt here.
Thoughts?
Any other ENP experiences and why these types gravitate towards organized religion. It should be noted that this has nothing to do with pursuing morality or higher purpose. It is all about exploiting the religious orthodoxy to appease one's vanity. Personal beliefs and ambitions are of ancillary importance to making an impact in the external world.
The only thing ENFPs are 'dogmatic' about is Fi.
Your 'examples'. What can I say about your examples exept that I don't care. You probably honestly don't even know if those folks are extraverted intuition types. I can't even help being blunt about this anymore. What have you read anyway? Psychological types? It's a great source, but you know just as well as I do that it really emphasizes neurotic tendencies. Remember, Jung treated crazy people. In fact, Beebe has suggested that the tendencies Jung mentions don't neccesarily reflect the dominant function. The dominant is the easiest to conciously control, and the most 'ego-syntonic', so why would that make us crazy, especially when thier's an inferior function and several shadow archetypes around to disturb the psyche much more.
One thing I find particularily problematic about this kind of theorizing is the way that you 'proove it'. If you have an idea that EN_Ps are religious demogogues, and then observe demogogues and type them as EN_Ps, that's not proof. That's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Add to this the fact that you've already proven yourself to be extremely biased about certian types. You know what? I must admit that makes me much less able to even take your side of the story (with those examples) for granted.
All of this is why there's really no burden on anyone to proove you wrong. Just so you know. The burden's on you to proove you're right, which you haven't yet.
Ne doesn't have big 'goals' or 'purposes' by the way. Heck, If you're just extraverted percieving with religion, you'll be scratching your head for ever. I for one, haven't met god yet! I can't think of anything 'out there' to relate god to, and if you're trying to teach people something, god doesn't seem to get anywhere, it just seems to make them stupider. Heck, I still see it as a fairly open question of whether god exists (that one's a bit pointless), whether anything in the bible relates to troubles today, and can it be usefull in creating anything worthwhile? It also occurs to me that religious zealots are usually unwilling to brainstorm or question anything, which makes the whole fundamentalism thing pretty boring.
For instance, that whole jesus wipping the traders out of the temple thing. Someone could say "it means jesus hates gay people". Yes, that is one interpretation! But I couldn't even vouch for it because that's never what I get from reading between the lines. Usually, I get something more like "jesus was a socialist". Oh. OoOPs. NOW you're not allowed to mention that to the zealots, which really ruins all the fun, even if you have no morals and don't care about gay people.
Which brings me to a big assumption that you ALWAYS make when you write these things. You ALWAYS habitually assume that the auxiliary isn't really doing anything through all of this. Huh? The whole idea about the auxiliary function is that because it process, and is used profeciently, sometimes almost as much as or even more than the dominant depending on the situation. People never complain to themselves about having to satisfy the auxiliary function, because it's use is almost as enjoyable as the dominant. This is why I don't like the growth models that obsess about developing the auxiliary function. It usually has nothing to do with a person's actual problems, which are much more likely to be related to the inferior or shadow processes. The former idea about the auxiliary was (i think) developed because for a while people got way too formulaic about the personality.
