I was raised on one hand being taught about God from the adults of my grandparent's generation, but my parents had thrown off religion, and when they saw how it was being used to teach me stuff like not defending myself, then my father stepped in more to teach me evolutionary naturalism, through the nature shows on PBS, and such.
I then saw religion as a primitive control too, especially in the 80's, where evangelicalism suddenly thrust itself into the core of political debate (and by people who often seemed to be opposed to racial progress and economic equality, along with the moral issues where they wanted to control everyone else's behavior).
Totally frustrated with life in general by my 20's, I ironically try it out, especially when I find variations of it that seemed to make some sense, such as a focus on how prophecy seemed to be being fulfilled, and also, a suggestion from one group that not as many people would be "lost" as mainstream Christianity insisted.
Still, what I found, was that it was incredibly difficult to get this "faith" to rise beyond the level of hypothesis, as in any other metaphysical belief about the universe. (science, etc). My wife (now a fairly ardent charismatic) had been pointing this out for years). This is natural from a TiNe perspective. It's hypothetically "possible" (Ne), but does not always seem to fit the way the universe is known to work (Ti). When it begins demanding things of me (such as devotion, or "positive attitudes towards pain in life" (below), then I feel double-bound, and Trickster Se demands hard tangible evidence).
Faith is often fed to us as the basis of a coping strategy, where we use it to weather the storms of life, because we are looking for a "new world" after this one. This is the basis of much of televangelism today, which is only a small part of a massive teaching industry via the other media (books, speaking engagements, etc). "Life is but a vapor" (James 4:14), and "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Cor. 4:18) are often tossed about, and from this, a fairly popular old hymn says "Fix your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim...". This is seriously fed to the flock in the face of suffering, and if people still don't change their attitude, then their "faith" is questioned! (and it certainly doesn't help how the leaders often amass a lot of the good things of the world, and have loudly voiced their fears of "the godless" taking it all away from them!)
So while holding onto it, I really struggle with it. Much of the evangelical argument for man's culpability in unbelief is the first two chapters of Romans, which talks about God "showing" people Himself presumably through "nature". But ironically, nature is the very thing science has used too challenge the idea of God in the first place. This is then chalked up to "holding the truth in unrighteousness". They know the truth, but deliberately interpret the evidence wrong. "Intelligent Design" and "conscience" are these absolute evidences (known as "general revelation") that should prove God infallibly, like proving gravity by walking aout a window. But then, they all admit "faith is hard" because it's in the "unseen". Still, man has a duty to "respond".
From the context of Romans (and much of the rest of the New Testament), the people God had "shown" things to, were the Israelites in the Temple system, through special revelation (supernatural events and His presence before the nation).
NT is said to be the most skeptical regarding faith, and it comes out for me this way. When first studying temperament, I also remember hearing that Choleric in Control has the hardest time "submitting" to God, and this is a direct correspondence.
While both INT's often seem to be skeptical, I find that INTJ's tend to be harder on it and more skeptical than INTP's. Seems to stem from a "directive" and closure-seeking NiTe perspective in contrast to an "informative" and open TiNe. If an NTJ does believe in it, it tends to play out in "dominating" in different ways.
Om nom nom nom metaphysics. <3
