Subject:
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Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 26 Oct 2004 20:58:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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1929 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote:
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But that right there got me curious-- if people inherently *want* a God to
exist (I know I always did as a kid, and heck, it still might be really nice
depending on the God),
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That’s an interesting separate question: do atheists, by and large, *want* a
God to exist? Do they wish God *did* exist?
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I’ll put it this way-- I’d wish a “truly fair” God existed-- one that believed
in relative morality, etc. Because, hey, it IS somewhat comforting to know that
“everything’s gonna be ok” or whatever.
Would I want a Christian God to exist? Heavens, no. At least, not the way He’s
typically portrayed, which, granted, isn’t really fair because “He” should be
the only one to give us an impression of Him, not his followers. But alas, his
followers and “their word” is really about all we have to go on.
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and if the above is true, should it follow that religious people
are inherently more decisive than atheists?
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It is an interesting question. I do know, though, that there are many
religious people who believe that atheists are the ones who are stubborn in
their disbelief of God, and that it is atheists who refuse to consider all
the evidence. Of course, it is entirely possible that this is simply what
such religious believers want to believe about atheists, and cling to it
only because they refuse to consider evidence to the contrary. :)
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I guess it’s true to some extent-- it’s sort of at the point now where atheism
is being taught to the new generations of kids. I remember someone on Lugnet
saying ‘you have to THINK to be an atheist, to be religious only requires you to
follow’-- I think his point was that people are typically brought up
religiously, and must “break the mold” by thinking their way through it. But
really, I’d say someone who’s brought up atheistic doesn’t have to think at all
to remain that way. So, yes, it’s entirely possible that there’s equally
stubborn atheists, and there’s really no relation to religiousness. I dunno.
Still a curious theory of mine I’m wondering about.
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But I would guess that this sort of thing is the case for human beings
whether the beliefs in question are religious or not.
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Oh, certainly so-- it’s the other aspects that you see all the time from people
that made me make the correllation. I just don’t know if the correllation is
more widespread than my limited experience.
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Anyone know any Meyers/Briggs analysis that cross references religion?
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That would interesting for whatever results it suggested.
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Yep-- There’s also the “Think/Feel” aspect to M/B, which I’d have to again
assume lends itself to atheistic/theistic, mostly given that atheists don’t
trust their “feelings” like Christians (and assumably other religious types) do.
The most common reason I get for being religious is something along the lines
of: “I just FEEL like I have connection to something higher”; whereas atheists
would just pass off such evidence as non-evidence.
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Is it possible to see the world in shades of gray (instead of stark black and
whites) and still be “decisive”? The latter doesn’t seem to rule out the
former.
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I would say so-- IE that someone being “decisive” (maybe that’s the wrong word
for it, I dunno) would say “XXX is YYY shade of gray” and be less likely to
change that grade of YYY when given new evidence, vs someone who was less
decisive.
Tangent:
Younger people seem to like black/white worlds better than older people. Kids’
cartoons have very decisively “evil” or “good” characters, and when playing
(with boys anyway), there’s typically this concept of “good guys vs. bad guys”.
Not usually many in-betweens. Later on, however, we like the concepts of tragic
heros and complex characters who have a foot on both sides of the line, and who
must decide between paths.
I guess that’s generally the outlook I have on religion-- the concept that
anything such as morality could possibly come down to a simple “ultimate good”
vs. “ultimate evil” just seems ... well, I guess naive or unrealistic to me. A
fine fantasy (which is why I must admit some internal desire for a certain kind
of God to exist), but not something I could actually believe in.
DaveE
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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| (...) I would say that it's definitely a sliding scale, because we're all guilty of that to some extent. I certainly note such tendencies in myself--I just try to keep them in check. (...) That's an interesting separate question: do atheists, by and (...) (20 years ago, 26-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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