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Can one be an athiest and an INFP?

Quiesce

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Jul 1, 2007
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I am an Atheist

This is the only thing that ever made sense to me, though I have only thought to study matters theological or religious (drawing a distinction between the ideas and the institutions) as part of a broader examination of culture and history, rather than any sort of search for meaning or answers.

I feel it is important to remember that the term "atheist" implies only a rejection of the sentient creator, one could go so far as to specifically believe in the immortal soul as an atheist.

I certainly do, though perhaps my concept heavily conflicts with the Christian ideology that spawned the term, but I am used to this.



An inner sense of something greater than oneself. Recognition of a meaning to existence that transcends one's immediate circumstances.
Spirituality is a tricky matter, but I can agree with this interpretation from Sahara's link.
 
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Totenkindly

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I feel it is important to remember that the term "atheist" implies only a rejection of the sentient creator, one could go so far as to specifically believe in the immortal soul as an atheist.

How hilarious. The article I read in Newsweek tonight, about what happens when people have heart attacks and die... and how we can better revive them... was leaving me feeling despairing that even the mind truly exists outside the brain -- let alone a soul.

Now it seems I have become a soulless agnostic theist.

This site is so bizarre -- it's like "Shake up every religious label known to man in a bag, then draw three to decide what you are."
 

Quiesce

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How hilarious. The article I read in Newsweek tonight, about what happens when people have heart attacks and die... and how we can better revive them... was leaving me feeling despairing that even the mind truly exists outside the brain -- let alone a soul.

Now it seems I have become a soulless agnostic theist.

This site is so bizarre -- it's like "Shake up every religious label known to man in a bag, then draw three to decide what you are."

To me there is no useful distinction between the abstract human mind and any manner of soul. I also see the body as merely the vessel for this entity, and as such why should it not be greatly repairable?

After all, what is a heart attack? The standard of death was once breathing, no breath no life. Then it was the pulsing of blood, until the heart was restarted. Now is is the brain. I wonder how long that will last.

All of this only strengthens my idea that the end of this body is not the end of the aspect of a human that transcends this meatbag, as a favourite character of mine would say.

All that sloshing around of internal organs, how does it not drive you insane?

Silly ro-bit.
 

Totenkindly

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After all, what is a heart attack? The standard of death was once breathing, no breath no life. Then it was the pulsing of blood, until the heart was restarted. Now is is the brain. I wonder how long that will last.

The impression I got was that the brain and body is more like a computer.

You turn off your computer, it looks dead, but all the settings/data is saved on the hard drive. If you turn the computer back on, it'll boot (hopefully) and the OS (your mind) kicks back on.

Once the brain cells deteriorate (which actually occurs over a large amount of time, even days or a week), then it's like having a corrupted hard drive, and your OS will no longer load. The system eventually breaks down and the data goes with it. No brain? No mind. No mind? No person.

Very generalized analogy, but it might be apropos. I won't define more here because I will start another thread about it.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I ran across this awhile back, and remember asking an INTP if he knew of any athiest INFP's, to which he said he didn't.



INFP Personal Growth

Also no matter what site I am at reading about my type, I am constantly being told that I am somehow spiritual, yet I am not.

I agree that my mind is often dwelling on spirituality, god, religions, morality and ethics, I am driven in my quest to evaluate all religions and versions of "God", but I do not FEEL anything.

I do not feel spiritual, I do not have faith.

I have travelled the road from Muslim, to agnostic to athiest in the course of 3 years. (although my entire life prior to that was a muslim one)

I admit that last year I would have been afraid of letting go of the idea that some kind of god exists, to abandon that final belief seemed to make life lose it's meaning, as if reaching a stage where I must sit back and say "Well what's the point then".

Yet here I am now, not afraid to reject that notion, and able to see that life is about humanity, secularism, and not the pleas to an imaginary being to have mercy on our souls, or to somehow save mankind. Mankind is capable of saving itself.

Am I the only INFP to feel this way? am I lacking something that should be there?

I often feel sad that god does not exist, I enjoyed the fantasy (not the reality of god via religions) of some supreme being and of course I grasped the concept that when i died some part of me would live on. But it's not true, so I let go of it as it no longer fits my value system, which is all about humanity.

Any thoughts? :)


Its possible to be a spiritual atheist. A better question to ask is, how likely are INFPs to be non-spiritual? Not very, those who are--are missing out on much potential.

A problem for the INFP is being deterred from spirituality because the hypocristy and narrow-mindedness of religigiosity taint its image.

Organized religion has little to do with honest spirituality and should dare not besmirch its name.

Spirituality has to be a personal endeavor and religion by its nature requires a community. It should be the only task of the latter to provide a sound environment for the former to be practiced, no more. Religion ought not to make prescriptions on how spirituality is to be conducted.

You dont need to believe in God in order to be spiritual, once again, nor do you have to have anything to do with conventional religious organizations. You can create spirituality from within yourself.
 

Wiley45

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(I suppose I'm technically agnostic, but I lean pretty heavily toward atheism.)
 
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