mal12345 said:
I think even Jung originally indicated the Sensors will believe in the supernatural. The SFJ wouldn't even question it. The ISFJ would put a personal spin on things (earth-mother versus God, for example). The ESFJ is just following cultural religious norms.
Your ex was a very interesting ESFJ because integral to their type's make-up is following cultural norms. The ESFJ type forms the backbone of many of our cultural institutions, religious or otherwise.
They are religious in some other way.
i really have to disagree with all of these, mal. or perhaps i am not understanding your wording. i don't think being an ESFJ is about following cultural norms at all. i think that all Fe dominants have a good understanding of interpersonal relationships and interactions between people, and as such they are the most skilled at building, defining, rerouting, and upholding social ties and therefore social institutions. i also think that all Si dominants have a good conceptualization of concrete data - what things are, what they have been, what they are likely to be, what they are similar to and what they are different from, how they are similar and different... the "forms" or measures of things. thus an SFJ in particular has the gifts that allow them to be an incredibly skilled guardian of the things that keep our social worlds functioning. but it's quite a different thing to have that gift available, and to limit its usage to "following" norms. i don't think it's about following at all - i think it's much, much more aware than that. i think it's about choosing, using, and changing norms. navigating social waters, if you will - not just allowing oneself to be swept along by a current.
in much the same way, i think that SFJs are very likely to be aware of their particular society's religious and supernatural views and how those views impact their day-to-day lives, but whether the SFJ chooses to embrace those same views is a very different story. my own ESFJ mother and i share incredibly similar religious views - we were both raised loosely catholic, are now both agnostic believers in a grand divine entity, choose to draw wisdom from many religions, and choose not to attempt to define our views much further than that. we are both loosely spiritual. neither of us really believe in the supernatural, but both of us agree that we feel certain "taboos" - for instance, not pretending like someone in your family has died to get out of work. i suppose you could say we both have a loose sense of karma. i don't think that has anything to do with type, really. my ISFJ grandma is a deist, i believe. i think attributing "religious in some ways" to SFJ and "personalizes belief" to ISFJs is very, very specific. i think
most people are religious in some way. i mean statistically, i'm pretty sure they are. and pretty much everyone i've ever met personalizes their beliefs in some ways... even the most rigid catholics typically choose their own patron saints.
