INTP and hating religion.

[sleepy]

I do it to, hate it that is, sometimes I think it is really funny. Most often I really need to constrain myself for not wanting to go up there and dip the priests head in the wash basin during baptising. God knows they could do with some cold water on their face.

 

[Fluffywolf]

I absolutely love religion. I don't always like the people practising it.

There's nothing I hate. But how could I possibly like anything, if I didn't dislike a single thing. Which is why I don't hate that which I dislike.

 

[lowtech redneck]

i think foolish is a very good term to describe someone who believes a book full of what is essentilay, fairytales, combined with contradictions and logical and scientific impossibilites. not to mention all the violent, opppresive stuff in the OT and the very nasty underlying message of the NT.

If believing that book provides them with greater utility than not believing it, and they are capable of such faith, why are they foolish to choose to believe it? Their irrationality is paradoxically quite rational.

Dude, I actually agree with your essential point about the concept of eternal Hell, and it was a huge factor in my decision to become a Deist before I (reluctantly) became an agnostic, but this evangelical polemic against a belief system that doesn't substantially affect your life here on this earth is tiresome, and seems to serve no purpose other than spiteful provocation at best, and at worst constitutes a selfish attempt to achieve validation by attempting to undermine the faith of Christians (which has great utilitarian value for its adherents, at little or no net cost to others under dominant contemporary interpretations of religious doctrine).

 

[Robert165]

If believing that book provides them with greater utility than not believing it, and they are capable of such faith, why are they foolish to choose to believe it? Their irrationality is paradoxically quite rational.

because its impossible to have this type of "faith" with science staring down the barrel. it becomes a matter of whistling in the dark, and when confronted, the solution is to whistle louder.

 

[lowtech redneck]

because its impossible to have this type of "faith" with science staring down the barrel. it becomes a matter of whistling in the dark, and when confronted, the solution is to whistle louder.

Its impossible for you to have such faith in the face of scientific evidence, but not impossible for others; whistling in the dark makes those others much happier than they would otherwise be.

 

[Robert165]

Its impossible for you to have such faith in the face of scientific evidence, but not impossible for others; whistling in the dark makes those others much happier than they would otherwise be.

first of all, why the hell do you even want to defend these idiots??? Second of all i dont think anyone can look around this world and continue to pretend that "god" loves people".* It's just not possible for any rational person to actually believe that. that doesn't stop them from pretending.


* the funny thing is we are a lot better off than we have ever been but movies and the media make it seem otherwise.

 

[lowtech redneck]

first of all, why the hell do you even want to defend these idiots???

Lots of reasons.

I don't think that I'm better than them.

Because, for me, the "pleasures of benevolence" are greater than the "pleasures of malevolence."

Empathy.

The people in this world I love most (my family) are Christians.

Because my brain chemistry induces feelings of annoyance at repetitive and mean-spirited diatribes that lack either purpose or entertainment value.

 

[lowtech redneck]

Second of all i dont think anyone can look around this world and continue to pretend that "god" loves people".*

Why should others suffer for your existential angst?

 

[Lark]

first of all, why the hell do you even want to defend these idiots??? Second of all i dont think anyone can look around this world and continue to pretend that "god" loves people".* It's just not possible for any rational person to actually believe that. that doesn't stop them from pretending.


* the funny thing is we are a lot better off than we have ever been but movies and the media make it seem otherwise.

Yeah, I had some respect for you but it turns out that like the title of the thread suggest you are just a hater, getting satisfaction from playing cops and robbers, casting religion as the villain.

I really dont believe we'd be better off, unless you think the instances were unmitigated rationalism or science ruled the roost were good times, ie systematic genocide in Nazi Germany, mass executions of the "unfit", Stalin's and China's anti-religious purges, the cultural revolution, the atrocities of the French revolution.

I'd say that exactly the contrary is the case, rationalism has had an abnormally good press, religion and abnormally bad one. No one feels inclined to defend the foundations of modernism which are religious and couldnt have grown up without religion having existed in the first place. That's a pretty bad thing, families in denial about their family history or origins or past are generally maladaptive and repeat the same mistakes over and over, I'd say the same goes for society too.

 

[Haphazard]

I don't see how you can dismiss all of religion based on one.

If you are so concerned about the afterlife, there are so many interpretations. Even in Judaism there are a few:

1. stuck in a metaphysical "waiting room" for up to 12 months after death, pretty unpleasant waiting, in the process being purified as everyone gets in all their prayers for you (12 months after death people are not allowed to mourn anymore) and after such you are either deemed pure enough for paridise or oblivion;

2. you end up being reincarnated enough times to fulfill each of the 613 commandments. Considering some only apply to men and some only to women and some only to Konanim, etc., it's impossible to do in one go.

The reason why there are multiple interpretations of religious texts (often) is because often they are not clear without context. It's like trying to read The Canterbury Tales with no annotation.


I mean come on. I remember reading about a form of Gnosticism that believed that the God of Abrahmic religions is evil and to become free of Him one had to commit every sin written in their holy books. What's not to like?

 

[milkyway2]

See now this thread pisses me off and I'm not gonna come to it anymore!

I think religious people piss me off so much because I'm angry at them all for lying to me when I was a kid.

 

[Haphazard]

I think religious people piss me off so much because I'm angry at them all for lying to me when I was a kid.

And atheist parents don't lie to their children?

 

[milkyway2]

Ok athiests too I'm sorry. Any parent that tells their child that they know whether or not God exists or not is a liar. How hard is it to say "I don't know." That's the truth. None of us know anything.

 

[Owl]

None of us know anything.

^How far would you take this?

 

[Totenkindly]

See now this thread pisses me off and I'm not gonna come to it anymore!

Wow.

I think religious people piss me off so much because I'm angry at them all for lying to me when I was a kid.

I can grasp that, I'm still mad at some of the things religious people have held over me too.

But we still have to come to terms with it.

 

[milkyway2]

^How far would you take this?

REAL FAR

 

[Sniffles]

REAL FAR

It's just like as Chesterton stated: "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense."

Even when Socrates declared he didn't know anything to the Oracle, he did so on the grounds that only God posseses knowledge. By contrast, man in his incomplete understanding of the world is at best a lover of knowledge and wisdom("philosopher").

 

[Lark]

I dont know how this thread has provoked the strength of feeling it has in some people, I'm not visiting it anymore because it got dull.

There's only so far you can take any one topic before it becomes pantomine, "oh yes it is!", "oh no it isnt!" style.

 

[Bubbleboy]

There's only so far you can take any one topic before it becomes pantomine, "oh yes it is!", "oh no it isnt!" style.

Like 99% of the threads, thanks to people's drone collctive buzzing on message boards :steam:

 

[IntrovertedThinker]

It's probably because INTs, in general, tend to apply analytical reasoning to everything in a vicious manner that we tend to dislike church. Plus, as you said, we're not very social or generally optimistic (as in fact, we tend to be very cynical). Thus, church and the superficial smiling and false emotions which go along with it just tends to throw us off. We INTPs generally aren't made to see life from some false rosy glow; we want to know what is truly driving the world. Hence, logic tends to be used like a knife to cut away at anything and everything which doesn't add up. Therefore, we can totally reason away all of the happy aspects of life which simply ultimately lack real meaning. This may lead to nihilism, or something similar, but always something realistic and based on what logically exists. So we just tend to want to be around intelligent persons, as we are—not a bunch of rather "mindlessly social" drones who actually do tend to believe anything they are told.

At least that's how I tend to view the INTPs general relationship to society. I've been there, done that. I destroyed the concept of God, internally, through logic. I've reasoned away all of the fancy wishful thinking hopeful perceptions a human being could have toward this world (which I've come to conclude is absurd and meaningless). I've decided people are generally morons (as George Carlin did). So a church is the LAST place I ever want to be, truly wasting my time. I could masturbate, or play a few video games, instead. And life's more pleasurable and less logically dissonant that way.