Pychological type and religion

[Mist]

I don't want this to turn into a 'my religion is superior to yours' thing, but I do want to know how someone’s type might affect his or her views on their religion.

What different types find useful about religions.
What makes certain types turn to strong religious beliefs and others not to.
How types are more inclined to certain types of mystical experiences.
How these experiences are interpreted and how types are likely to treat them.
How they feel when they walk into a place of worship (ISFp seem to effected by this quite a lot).


Stuff like that...

[Kristiina]

Firstly, I probably wouldn't be religious if I hadn't been raised as a Christian. I believe in God, but not in the institution of church. Sacraments are not necessary, the rules are outdated and I don't think that the minister knows so much more about the world compared to me. (I am Lutheran, not Catholic. We don't have priests.) It is also in the footnote, but I am INTJ.

What different types find useful about religions.

Religion helps weak people cope with life. This is not an attempt to provoke people to argue with me, I really think that. People who have willpower and belief in themselves don't need religion. I like it when criminals start to behave good because of God. Then God is just the excuse and they have wanted to be good people for a while already.

What makes certain types turn to strong religious beliefs and others not to.

If God walked up to me and told me that the Heaven really exists and that I will not get there if I don't change my lifestyle, I would probably start having strong religious beliefs. Probably! On the other hand, I might just go to a psychiatrist. For me the existence of God is more like the knowledge that there is gravity. I have found no logical explanation to why I believe. There is no proof of God. Neither is there proof that God does not exist...

How types are more inclined to certain types of mystical experiences.
How these experiences are interpreted and how types are likely to treat them.

I think that every type has the same amount of mystical experiences, but they just interpret them differently. When I'm being talkative and optimistic, I might say that I have had my fair share. I have almost died more than once (saved by a chance). I have seen things that I couldn't have seen... A few years ago, when I was looking for my small cross earring, I suddenly saw a zoom-in of where it is. It was just in front of me, but I also saw the details of its surroundings. I thought I was imagining things, but it was quite creepy when the same thing happened the next day with the clip of the earring that I still hadn't found. I woke up, sat, sleepily looked around and suddenly saw a picture of the clip beside the pillow. Right now I'm feeling more pessimistic... Actually, never mind. I must have been imagining things. People don't have sudden zoom-ins. And even if some people do, I couldn't have seen it. I do love the idea of having psychic powers, but I know I have none.

How they feel when they walk into a place of worship (ISFp seem to effected by this quite a lot).

Old churches have a really strong energy. When I walk in, I feel different. Usually I feel inferior to God. But at the same time close to Him. New churches don't have that. It's almost like stepping into an office that belongs to someone important.

[Creepy-]

Old churches have a really strong energy. When I walk in, I feel different. Usually I feel inferior to God. But at the same time close to Him. New churches don't have that. It's almost like stepping into an office that belongs to someone important.

That is most likely due to other factors involved, like size of the building, the height of its ceiling, and its architecture that give you a certain feeling when entering the room that has nothing to do with it being a place of worship.To me religion is pointless; I think religion is for the weak it gives them hope for tomorrow. I am agnostic.I have had some mystical experiences, but have proven them all to be normal events by perusing them.

[Mist]

Old churches have a really strong energy. When I walk in, I feel different. Usually I feel inferior to God. But at the same time close to Him. New churches don't have that. It's almost like stepping into an office that belongs to someone important.

That is most likely due to other factors involved, like size of the building, the height of its ceiling, and its architecture that give you a certain feeling when entering the room that has nothing to do with it being a place of worship.To me religion is pointless; I think religion is for the weak it gives them hope for tomorrow. I am agnostic.I have had some mystical experiences, but have proven them all to be normal events by perusing them.

What type of mystical experiences do you have?

[Creepy-]

I have always believed that religion is a healthy part of being human. Since a young age, I've always been passionately fond of discovering the religious traditions of the world. I grew up in a Hindu household, but my parents never crammed dogma down my impressionable throat as a child, and I am greatful for that. I grew up with exposure to many different religious ideas and cultures - Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, the many flavors of Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, and even the occasional Wiccan. I delved into the religious literature and scripture of many of these religions, and am fascinated by what they all have to say.

It is interesting to note that scripture is read in an almost reactionary attitude. We read them to remove ourselves from the contrivances of modern society, and to connect ourselves with the inevitable facts of life - such as death. Scripture is not read casually - it is read at those moments when there is something missing from our own lives. I am convinced that the Bible is he world's most popular therapist.

During high school, I did a research paper on the African-American movement in spirituality. Here were people who had the ground itself taken away from them - they were taken from their homes, treated as dispensible commodities, brutalized, and denied their own humanity. As a result of their desolate circumstances, they were looking for what had been taken from them: they were looking for validation, for recompense, for hope, and for identity. And where did they find it? In the American Baptist movement. The words of the Bible became what they wanted - what they so desparately needed. As a result, the church became a major gathering post for the African-American culture - it became a foundation from which the Civil Rights movement could gain power and influence. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a reverend, after all.

Can you call these people WEAK? I refuse to do so. If nothing else, these people were incredibly strong - and religion gave them their strength, because they could get it nowhere else.

Whether you will admit to it or not, all of us do indeed need to find some means of strength in our lives. Some find strength in science. Some turn to material wealth. I have found that it is when these things are not available that religion enjoys a resurgence. Throughout history, times of great oppression often precipitate times of great relgious devotion. Religion is often a last resort, but it has always existed as an option and a very good option at that, I believe. That is why religion continues to thrive to this very day, and will probably do so forever on. It is not weak. Only HUMAN.

That said, I do believe that being human makes one fallible - and a tool such as religion in fallible hands can go wrong. I do believe that religion has gone awry much of the time, and is being bastardized for the sake of self-promotion, self-satisfaction, and mere politics. This is not a new phenomenon either. As religion can be a source of great strength, it can also be a source of great destruction. The Reconquista in Spain, the Crusades, the Muslim-Hindu divide in India, the Muslim-Judaic divide in Isreal, the Catholic-Protestant divide in Ireland, the list goes on and on... religion can be used to take away anything that it gives.

I myself believe in the existence of a higher power - the nature of that power doesn't really seem relevent to this life, but I acknowledge it but don't pretend to know more than I do. I believe everything emerges perpetually. That we dwell in a cyclical spiritual realm of void and existence - thought itself is the most eloquent example of this. Thought emerges, but from where? And how? I, like most people, will often read scripture to heal - I consider it nothing more than my human needs expressing themselves.

I am an INFp, BTW.

[Scrummy]

elboe tchaikovsky freezer burn

[Cone]

I am an INFp, BTW.

Somehow, I kind of guessed that from your username. Or maybe it's that your post looks like something my mother would write (which is good.)

Anyway, welcome to the board!

[Scrummy]

elboe tchaikovsky freezer burn

[Angel von Himmel]

Socionics has not changed my perception of religion at all, only enhanched it ...

[Creepy-]

Can you call these people WEAK? I refuse to do so. If nothing else, these people were incredibly strong - and religion gave them their strength, because they could get it nowhere else.

Sure I can, I consider anyone who gets their fake strength from religion to be weak; it is not really strength it is more so ignoring reality (the whole idea of life after death is endorsed by people that are afraid of dying so they want to believe that there is life after death to comfort them). The above is just a opinion....

[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[Scrummy]

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[Black Molly]

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elboe tchaikovsky freezer burn

[MysticSonic]

I don't want this to turn into a 'my religion is superior to yours' thing, but I do want to know how someone’s type might affect his or her views on their religion.

What different types find useful about religions.
What makes certain types turn to strong religious beliefs and others not to.
How types are more inclined to certain types of mystical experiences.
How these experiences are interpreted and how types are likely to treat them.
How they feel when they walk into a place of worship (ISFp seem to effected by this quite a lot).


Stuff like that...

I was baptised a Roman Catholic, but due to my bizarre academic situation, I was raised, academically at least, as a staunch Protestant. I'd never forfeited my complete faith to Christianity, and had doubted it since I but a wee lad, with mechanisms of fear manifested in the form of the doctrine of hell and societal pressure keeping me from immediately rejectiing the religion. After years of indoctrination by the Church, being maddened by the blatant hypocrisy within it, I broke away from it and believed in God in a doubting manner; after only a few months, my beliefs waned and my doubts grew stronger. As I currently stand, I am an atheistic agonstic, whom has a slight tendency towards the tenets of what is either Buddhism or Taoism, I'm not sure which.

[Black Molly]

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[MysticSonic]

"Don't you just love guilt?"

Yes, especially when such guilt is brought on by, what I believe to be, intentional mistranslations of the three words: gehenna, hades, and sheol. Why would individuals translate such three DISTINCT place if NOT to solidify the view that hell is an eternal punishment?

[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[Creepy-]

dfsdf

[MysticSonic]

States of mind as in the three words represent three different states in which the mind can exist? If so, I wouldn't agree, as there would be no reason to assume that. Perhaps your statement has some meaning that's alluding me.

[Mist]

Sure I can, I consider anyone who gets their fake strength from religion to be weak

I don't think (emotional or philosophical) 'strength' from religion is fake at all. As people who are less realistic are proven to lead to a happier lifestyle.
If you’re happy with your life as it is now your probably deluding the truth of reality (positively) in one-way or another. So some devout religious people are seeking a way out of realty to be more sane (to be like everybody else) by taking on a new reality.
The strength acquired enables the person to do things they would not do if this support weren’t there.
Weakness would probably come when the person’s reality is negative, leading to badly made decisions and psychological problems.
Also it gives people extra strengh from strong psychological position.
By the way there is no such thing as fake strength if it exists.
Your views on religion only seem to span over western and Abrahamic religions what do you think about some eastern religions such as Buddhism.

Old churches have a really strong energy. When I walk in, I feel different. Usually I feel inferior to God. But at the same time close to Him. New churches don't have that. It's almost like stepping into an office that belongs to someone important.

I personally have never felt this experience before in my life and I have been to quite a few old Churches.
It was issues like this that I was trying to get at in the topic, the differences between religious philosophy/experience and type.

[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[MysticSonic]

Ok, mutual misunderstanding, Let's leave this conversation as it is.

[Black Molly]

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[Mist]

We're sort of surrounded by misinformation telling us what to think and what to do. Americans believing they're better than Europeans and Europeans believing they're better than Americans, but are they really.
Where do these ideas come from?
Are they accurate or false?
Do people believe these ideas?
Well a lot do.


Maybe your faith wasn't strong enough or you saw logical flaws in arguments or maybe I'm just wrong.

[Mist]

It could be the religious society collapsing around you as well.

[Creepy-]

fdsdfds

[Black Molly]

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[Mist]

I'm not saying anyone should DO anything, but if it works for them I'm not going to stop them.

[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[Black Molly]

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[Mist]

I don't take any religious preference by the way, and could care less about you being of the Jewish race, not everyone lives in your world.

And your right about Buddisium, probably one of the best religions.

[Scrummy]

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[Black Molly]

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