MBTI type and belief in god

[Timeless]

Supposedly I'm a Unitarian Universalist.

Uh huh...

 

[lost verses]

My answer would still remain the same. Only in different context.

And my initial reply would still be the same: "that's rude."

 

[Lexicon]

Are NT's usually atheist?
Are NF's usually theists?
Are there any NT's who believe in god?
Are there any NF's who don't believe in god?
I have zero spirituality. Nil. Nada.

I'm an atheistic NF.
I'm also friends with an agnostic INFP irl. He was brought up devout Catholic, but has questioned his faith, etc, in recent years.

I suppose some may say I'm a spiritual-type of person, regardless. I search within myself for faith, meaning, drive, purpose for existing; I don't look to a divine entity for these answers. I take in the world around me and run it through my own filter of internal values. I rejoice in experiencing life, and derive a profound sense of fulfillment from seeing, learning, expressing my passions, building off both my achievements and my failures, growing, and helping those around me grow. I create myself, so to speak, every day, and my personal sense of faith runs off that unending momentum. Absolute answers are irrelevant for me.

 

[Polaris]

It's hard for me to answer the question because I don't categorize things as true or false. My beliefs are value judgments: I'll discard an idea because it's distasteful, and I'll embrace one because it appeals to me. In one sense God is an incoherent concept and no one can believe in him. In another sense, every time someone uses the word "God" they're thinking of something, whatever it is, and it's perfectly reasonable to believe in that thing. I don't share that belief. I find it unnecessary to believe in God, and theism runs counter to my personal values. I'm an NF, and that's a very NF reason not to believe.

 

[Alwar]

I was born a snake handler, and I'll die one.

Most NT's do seem to be naturalists, including myself.

 

[Sacrator]

Im kinda agnostic leaning torward atheism. I only say im agnostic so the thiests wont hate me for thinking theism is silly. But hey theres a possibility for everything. After all you might as well say we are a simulation inside of a simulation 6000x over but hey who's to say its not true.. No one knows the truth for certain.

 

[cafe]

My INTP husband and I are Christians. Having trouble finding a church we like, though.

 

[Alwar]

My INTP husband and I are Christians. Having trouble finding a church we like, though.

Start your own fellowship.

 

[slant]

Yeah, I'm a godless person.

But when people ask my religion since I live in the contraversal state of mormons (utah) I just claim discordianism.

 

[r0wo1]

I think its remarkable that when the subject turns to religion it suddenly become the "cool thing" to claim agnosticism or atheism.

I'm Christian! ^^ (Oooo look at me going against the grain )

 

[Spamtar]

I tend to see atheism as merely another religion. See little difference between fundamentalist and hardcore atheists (which I see more as a J thing).

Agnostics I see more as a TP thing in general and tend to relate to them better than hardcore atheists or religious fundamentalists. Feel more at ease with a group of FPs and TPs not having "harsh" arguments over the dinner table about religion in general (but not always). I have always thought war over religion was not only stupid but ludicrous (although I see the big picture that there would have been war anyway and religion was just handy propaganda to move the masses)

Find most Fs believe in something regardless if it is new wave spiritualism or old school religion.

I am an INTP have been brought up Roman Catholic. I like a lot of the ritual of the Roman Catholics yet in general don't go to church much more than once a month. Although divinly inspired and in parts beautiful, I find much in the bible which is doubtfully and irrelevant.

My TP allows me to muse over the nature of God.

My N gives me "faith" there is a God.

My "I" makes my relationship with God a more individual one and less of a community thing. I care less about what other people believe when it comes to God. Ideally people will get whatever they wish for and go to their own chosen heaven or otherwise "rest in peace" knowing they were right about no god or any other applicable theory which makes them content.

 

[Journey]

I'm INFJ and I have many of all type friends who believe as I do, even INTJ and INTP friends. I am what I'm sure you would label a fundamendalist Christian for I believe in literal Truth of the Bible as it appeared in the original text, which includes belief in a young Earth (not necessarily the "right interpretation" of the Bible, I admit), natural selection, but not evolution theory (for how can it be proven when there is no proof that any new information has ever been added to any genome?), the fact of man's fall into sin and the resulting separation from his Creator in the Garden of Eden, and God's great plan of redemption first announced at the fall. God's sending His Son to enter history as the Savior of the world to redeem our fallen race through His blood sacrifice on the Cross in order that His substitutionary death would save those who accepted His sacrifice as the price for their sins, thereby accepting Him as Lord of their lives and re-establishing a right relationship with God that was lost at the fall of mankind in the garden.

This is why I think you would label me a type of fundamentalist Christian.

I don't think that only NF types are likely to be written in the Book of Life. I suspect that God uses all types of people. He definitely likes to use the poor and foolish to confound the rich and wise in their own eyes. He says so in 1 Cor 1:26-31:

26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

 

[simulatedworld]

I tend to see atheism as merely another religion.

Dogmatic atheism is another religion; however, unlike Christianity, a wide majority of atheists don't arbitrarily claim 100% certainty (faith) in their positions, so...no, not another religion.

No, not even Richard Dawkins. Read his work before you badmouth him.

 

[Spamtar]

Dogmatic atheism is another religion; however, unlike Christianity, a wide majority of atheists don't arbitrarily claim 100% certainty (faith) in their positions, so...no, not another religion.

I am not bad mouthing atheists, nor fundamentalists deists nor any other religion regardless if it is dogmatic or no. I doubt there is much difference between the relative degree of "certainty" of those who claim to be Christians, Islam, Judaism or any other theists, mono or poly; and the degree of certainty of who claim to be atheists (as opposed to agnostics who are waiting for all the evidence to come in).

In other words atheists seem less about having lack of faith but faith there is no god before all of the evidence is in similar to how I have faith there is God without all the evidence being before me. The only think different is my faith to me is something living inside of me, for lack of a better word, a soul.

My point goes more to the point of the original OPs question as to the propensities of different types of MBTI beliefs in God. I know atheists don't like to see themselves as a religion in their own right yet it is difficult to make the disconnect because atheist often "preach" there view as much as theists preach their view. That and Js tend to be the biggest preachers of each religion/[doctrine of antireligion if you prefer]

 

[simulatedworld]

I am not bad mouthing atheists, nor fundamentalists deists nor any other religion regardless if it is dogmatic or no. I doubt there is much difference between the relative degree of "certainty" of those who claim to be Christians, Islam, Judaism or any other theists, mono or poly; and the degree of certainty of who claim to be atheists (as opposed to agnostics who are waiting for all the evidence to come in).

Yes, and I'm here to tell you that that doubt is misguided and unfounded. Most atheists are atheists precisely because the arbitrary faith argument in whatever religion they were raised in didn't sway them.

In other words atheists seem less about having lack of faith but faith there is no god before all of the evidence is in similar to how I have faith there is God without all the evidence being before me. The only think different is my faith to me is something living inside of me, for lack of a better word, a soul.

It's not faith that there is no God--that's an ignorant misinterpretation. It's the adult realization that you can't have absolute certainty on many of these issues so you have to consider them in terms of probability, not absolute truth value. (See Russell's Teapot if you have any more questions.)

My point goes more to the point of the original OPs question as to the propensities of different types of MBTI beliefs in God. I know atheists don't like to see themselves as a religion in their own right yet it is difficult to make the disconnect because atheist often "preach" there view as much as theists preach their view. That and Js tend to be the biggest preachers of each religion/[doctrine of antireligion if you prefer]

Most theists preach the view that they are absolutely 100% positive their faith in God is correctly placed, and so others should be too, because I said so.

Most atheists preach the view that popular conceptions are probably not literally true, and then list a bunch of reasons that add up inductively to suggest that religion is most probably not literally correct. We do not claim "faith" in anything because the entire concept of atheism is rooted in the realization that absolute metaphysical knowledge is impossible, hence the reason we reject dogmatic religion in the first place.

 

[Polaris]

Dogmatic belief =/= religion. If that were so, everything we believe would fall under religion, since we form a belief either without thinking about it or on the bases of an arbitrary judgment. You might argue that probability of truth-hood makes some beliefs superior to others. But probability is based on the assumption that the future will repeat the past--an assumption that always proves false, or time would stop--as well as faith in one's own experience as an accurate measure of unexplored realms--another assumption which proves false, otherwise "unexplored" would mean nothing.

Probability, in other words, exists only to the extent that things freeze in place and cease to change. But nothing ever ceases to move; it's only in our heads that things screech to a halt, and even there, you'll find a lot of movement.

So probability exists in your head and only as a projection of the past into the unknown. No such projection is bound to accuracy, for if it were, the unknown would not be the unknown. Nor is there any reason to believe that your projection will even resemble the future. If it doesn't, then you revise your probability calculations, that's all.

But you'll seek for a binding rule that predictions must have some truth in them; why else would we possess them? They can't be in vain, surely. You'll look to those who show a knack for using models or relying on their intuition to predict the future. But that only brings us back to point one: you've assumed that the past prescribes the future. A model can fail in an instant, and the greatest foresight can give way to blindness.

What this tells me is that probability is more like a stockpile of past experiences arranged into a subjective pattern that suddenly breaks off at the point where the future begins. It's more like a filing cabinet that arranges memories into a useful system than it is an oracle.

What this means, then, is that choosing to believe something will prove true rests on the plainly false assumption that your pattern will go unbroken. Your beliefs are not only uncertain; they're bound to prove false, for this is in the very nature of time. The only upshot is that you can nevertheless find satisfaction in what lies ahead; perhaps certain variations of the past's rhythm, for example. Either way, to believe is only to point to a thought of yours and on that basis make a doomed prediction.

 

[Spamtar]

Pascalian Wager

Most atheists preach the view that popular conceptions are probably not literally true.... We do not claim "faith" in anything because the entire concept of atheism is rooted in the realization that absolute metaphysical knowledge is impossible, hence the reason we reject dogmatic religion in the first place.

Well it is uplifting to know that most atheists are now more open to the possibility God exists. Most I have met don't share your view and are pretty much doom and gloom.

Nunki notes
"Either way, to believe is only to point to a thought of yours and on that basis make a doomed prediction."

The T/T(i) in me appreciates the doubt or the possibility that my N/N(e) knowledge of God is a hallucination of some sorts. At the Same time my TP can appreciate the Pascalian logic that if my faith/N(e) is wrong than the worst case scenario is that I was a lot nicer to a lot more people than I would normally choose to be and I become worm food with egg on my face, jokes on me.
On the other hand if my faith/N(e) is right I have avoided eternal damnation and gained paradise. A bookmaker would clearly see the upsides to how I chose to bet my soul. I have raised this point before with both atheists and religious fundamentalists and both never give me a response I feel addresses this logic directly. They either seem to be of the view that it is a sin or cowardly to choose to logically hedge my bet towards the bigger payoff.

 

[Polaris]

I don't understand why someone would put stock in Pascal's Wager except as an offhand excuse for their beliefs. In the first place, the Wager assumes that a god would reward or at worst disregard those who worship him. If you think about it, though, a god could be just as twisted, and even more so, than a human being. Look around you, and you'll find plenty of murderers and rapists. It isn't remotely difficult to imagine that the person who invented them might be every bit as twisted. The second issue is that even if you assume (with no basis) that God is a little more humane than that, you expose yourself to an added risk whenever you invest yourself in a religion. Someone who only lacks belief is far less likely to earn the ire of a humanlike god than someone who worships a god who is either nonexistent or opposed to the god who has jurisdiction over him. With a number of possible gods so large that all the pages in all the books of the world could not record it, it seems clear that the real answer to Pascal's Wager (if we assume a humane god) is more along the lines of a placating, trembling agnosticism. God is more likely to take mercy on someone with an open mind than someone who latches onto a false or rival deity.

The final issue (and I should have mentioned this earlier, but I don't feel like editing the above paragraph) is that belief isn't a switch to be flipped at will. If I could believe things just because they're convenient, I would write up a wish list that would make Santa blush. And this brings me back to what I said right at the start: Pascal's Wager seems to be more about justifying one's beliefs than it is about convincing anyone else. In general, this is what people aim for when they invent an argument, so it's no surprise.

 

[Spamtar]

seems to be more about justifying one's beliefs than it is about convincing anyone else. In general, this is what people aim for when they invent an argument, so it's no surprise.

Yes I agree Nunki, especially when it comes to religion.

Regardless of how our points of view don't agree I would like to complement you on a creative novel argument about the "evil god" twist. I, wasn't expecting that one and since I have a dark sense of humor really enjoyed thinking about it.

I would like to play the devils advocate with another critique of Pascal’s Wager in the same vein:

What if Lucifer and his demons won the war against God and his angels? He/she would probably like the evil Satanists and war mongers, torturers/rapists the most; Hate the Christians/theists the most (maybe he would like some of the real mean terrorists and wackjobs within the bunch; dislike the upbeat main stream pagan religions, and probably like or at least be relatively neutral towards the athesits souls when it came to dishing out punishment for not backing the right horse.

 

[Polaris]

I would like to play the devils advocate with another critique of Pascal’s Wager in the same vein:

What if Lucifer and his demons won the war against God and his angels? He/she would probably like the evil Satanists and war mongers, torturers/rapists the most; Hate the Christians/theists the most (maybe he would like some of the real mean terrorists and wackjobs within the bunch; dislike the upbeat main stream pagan religions, and probably like or at least be relatively neutral towards the athesits souls when it came to dishing out punishment for not backing the right horse.

Oh my, it looks I'm having a bad influence. It's not a first, either, or even a second or third. At this rate I'll have to concede that Satan exists, and that I'm him.