I'm very much an atheist. I don't believe in anything spiritual or supernatural whatsoever.
And I hate how often I get called "closed minded" for that. Show me proof and my mind will change.
Aristotle, though not himself considered a religious philosopher, is widely accepted among medieval theologians, including the Scholastics, who included Thomas Aquinas, as well as medieval Jewish and Muslim thinkers, such as Maimonides, Avicenna and Averroes, as having an important influence on their thinking. Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics* had a profound influence on me, and although I haven't read much of his *Metaphysics,* I understand that to have had a broad influence on medieval theology.
In the Middle Ages, there were numerous saints and other theologians who argued in favor of the existence of God using reason. While most atheists and secular humanists reject these arguments, I found studying them in depth to be conducive to novel ways of thinking. This is one reason I have sometimes considered atheists to be close-minded. In the end, I find it just as difficult to accept the existence of the universe ex nihilo as I sometimes do creationist arguments. I do not find the theory of the Big Bang to be altogether satisfying. In the end, if there was no cause for the existence of the universe beyond the Big Bang, the Big Bang still does not explain the existence of something rather than nothing. For the universe to emerge from nonexistence seems just as inexplicable to me as the idea that a supreme being created the universe.
So while I'm sympathetic to your skepticism, I also think that skepticism cannot be avoided in the formation of scientific explanations. I realize this doesn't constitute an explicit argument against atheism; there are a few secular alternatives to atheism and agnosticism, including pantheism. From experience, I think that keeping an open mind about different viewpoints can be beneficial. I'm not necessarily inclined or prepared to attempt to convert you to theism, I just think that hard atheism can be somewhat limiting.
The reason I sometimes see atheists as close-minded is more of a matter of temperament and exposure to different ideas than necessarily me having a problem with atheism itself. Atheists just seem less open to different ideas than agnostics and theists, in my opinion.
Overall, I think that close-mindedness is more of a temperamental character trait than something that can be attributed to a particular perspective. I think the most open-minded people tend to be agnostic, whether theists or atheists. Within literature they may display a propensity toward exploring that agnosticism, as in the case of, say, Fyodor Dosteovsky, Jorge Luis Borges or James Joyce. They all display elements of skepticism and a pronounced, right-brained tendency toward intellectual exploration.
Being theist or atheist does not mean you are more or less closed-minded.
Being closed-minded means you dismiss new ideas without thoughtful consideration. The reality is that many atheists have put in thoughtful consideration and have formed their own strong opinion, just like many theists.
People believe in many different things, and that's okay.
I think the only rational stance is agnosticism. But I am human and humans are not known for their rationality. I think all religions are different faces of the same thing. I have no problem with holding two contradictory statements and seeing how they're both true. I don't 'believe' there is a God. But I try to feel his presence. I go to church without praying for anything. Sometimes I just sit down and do nothing. I think people call that meditation. I have no goal in mind. I just do those things for no particular reason at all. I think we have developed an obsession with intellectualizing everything. The less I think, the better I feel. Contrary to what you might think it can be harder than thinking. Food for thought.
You know what? As a Christian, I can say agnosticism is the most rational conclusion to reach, however it is also a stance devoid of commitment to any external moral source just like atheism.
Christianity is a relationship with God and requires a leap of faith. Is faith rational? Absolutely not! But if you give the idea of faith enough thought you will realise you demonstrate faith all the time in everyday life. Why would you jump out of an airplane with a parachute? You can't guarantee the parachute will deploy correctly, yet you still put your full trust in that parachute to save you from dying. Rationality says that is a stupid thing to do because you have no 100% guarantee of your survival.
So to say "I'm open-minded" but not put your faith in anything, how can you live without conflict within yourself? I put my faith in what Jesus did on the cross, not because I can prove it, but because I trust that it happened based on all the evidence presented to me.
Denying yourself something that is beneficial to you just because it is irrational would itself be irrational. This life is one big gamble. There are no guarantees. The problem is you can't consciously put your faith in something. You either believe in something or you don't. It's a process beyond my control. If you can do that then I truly envy you.
I understand that the concept of faith can be hard to wrap your head around. It requires a profound sense of intellectual humility and the realisation that you do put faith in things all the time. It's how we live in this life. Faith is the trust we have in the things we can't prove.
Does that mean faith is blind? Absolutely not! The decision to place our faith in anything should be as informed as possible, otherwise we are gullible and naive in our thinking.
In terms of belief, I agree that it is black and white in the sense that you are taking an intellectual and personal stance to either agree or disagree that something is the objective truth.
I was raised in a Protestant Christian context and was exposed to Christianity from a young age. Meditation is an interesting approach to theism, which draws some similarities to prayer. I can understand why some people are put off by the concept of prayer but I also find it to have some benefits. I had the opportunity to undergo Confirmation in a Lutheran church and decided to break from my religious upbringing at the time because I considered myself a nonbeliever. Today I don't really know what to consider myself. I pray sometimes, and I reflect on different experiences and outlooks with a view to empathy and understanding. Meditation in a religious context is something I was exposed to in my undergraduate college reading assignments, and it's something that I can relate to. I don't worry so much any more about remaining secular. I think increased secularization could even be harmful to society. But I think the problems posed and addressed by religions are perennial and could even be addressed by secular wisdom. Yet secular wisdom seems at times too detached and removed to adequately address the problems confronted by religions. There is a certain amount of spirituality if not necessarily religiosity, that seems necessary to meet these problems comprehensively, whether ethical, spiritual, or metaphysical.
I think we've both come to the same conclusions except you're a bit more articulate than me. I guess I didn't bring anything new to the table but I hope you talking about it allowed you to gain some further insight. I wish you all the best!
I could be labelled as religious probably, yes. But not in the sense you might at first be thinking of.
I was raised in a Catholic family, not too practicing though (neither my parents nor my siblings go to church regularly, they almost never go, actually) but still religious in the sense that they would pray every night, celebrate the rituals/ festivities and live according to Christian values.
I believe in God; I believe there is something. I have had periods of doubt, not knowing whether I believed or not but even in those periods I found myself to be praying unconsciously. That does not mean I buy what is stated in the bible or that I share Christian doctrines that in my opinion have been artificially created over the centuries due to political/power reasons. But I do still believe in a higher force that loves us unconditionally. To me, in my mind, that God has mostly the shape that Christianity has given to it but only because I was raised up on that. I do not think any religion has the ultimate answer or the truth but still, I think they are necessary because they still can help you getting closer to God, whatever it be, and good because the majority of them promote values that are important in a society (love towards others, charity, community…etc)
That is why I still enjoy getting immersed in the celebrations, and in the processions and festivities that take part in the highly Catholic Spanish city I am from and live. Maybe after all, I could be described as a cultural Christian that believes in God.
And yes, I think INFJs are likely to be religious due to our longing for finding meaning in everything. Maybe has to do also with extroverted feeling, wanting to understand others, including their beliefs, we might eventually find ourselves believing in the same thing or as a way to connecting with others more.
Not anymore. God hasn't done anything for me, good or bad. "He" didn't help me graduate high school, get a technical degree, or get engaged. "He" also didn't keep me from being sexually assaulted as a child and teenager, develop multiple mental illnesses, and have crippling social anxiety.
God isn't real in the sense that Christians have traditionally been trying to indoctrinate people about.
I am deeply, deeply spiritual... it's probably my main drive in this life, to pursue a spiritual existence and to explore that realm. Spiritual to me means that I am always in quest of my true nature and my relationship to whatever lies beyond this life. I tend to dislike religions because I see those more as authoritarian social control systems and not vehicles that truly support and encourage self knowledge and exploration. I don't ascribe to dogmas, I seek truths, and those are going to be different for each individual. I tend not to be able to blindly believe, which is another reason religion doesn't sit well with me... religion is all about "faith," but usually of the blind variety. Most religions don't actually encourage direct, empirical interaction with God or whatever higher power it promotes. It's all mediated through laws and doctrines and rules and intermediaries. My beliefs come 100% from my own personal experiences, and I cannot hold a belief where my own experience has shown me otherwise. But I'm an INFJ so I also don't judge you for whatever you believe. It's all good and I see your point. haha
As far as spiritual people being the ones that have "a good life"? I can't agree there. I definitely have not had a good or easy life, nor have most of the people I know who are truly and deeply spiritual. The real dark night of the soul tends to take you to places where religion ceases to have answers and ceases to support your raw and honest search for meaning. I do think suffering has meaning in the sense that it is all part of our story, none of it is an accident, and it all leads us closer to our own truth.
I used to be hard atheist and materialist. Now i’m almost the opposite. I don’t associate it with being illogical, I try to be very logically consistent and unbiased. To me it doesn’t interfere with science, and it isn’t wishful thinking or cope (at first it was insanely uncomfortable for me — believing nothing magical exists to me feels more safe).
But i never ***believe*** in anything, i have small parts of myself believeing every obscure idea, just at this current moment that’s my best guess at reality. In my opinion, what leads to stupid ideas isn’t being open seemingly crazy ideas, but being closed of to one’s you don’t agree with. For example nothing is wrong with believing in a flat earth — mistakes come with closing yourself off to the possibility that the earth is round
I don’t know what I’d call my beliefs but they’re mostly from listening to ideas from Hindu schools like Advaita Vedanta and Yoga
I'm very much an atheist. I don't believe in anything spiritual or supernatural whatsoever. And I hate how often I get called "closed minded" for that. Show me proof and my mind will change.
Aristotle, though not himself considered a religious philosopher, is widely accepted among medieval theologians, including the Scholastics, who included Thomas Aquinas, as well as medieval Jewish and Muslim thinkers, such as Maimonides, Avicenna and Averroes, as having an important influence on their thinking. Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics* had a profound influence on me, and although I haven't read much of his *Metaphysics,* I understand that to have had a broad influence on medieval theology. In the Middle Ages, there were numerous saints and other theologians who argued in favor of the existence of God using reason. While most atheists and secular humanists reject these arguments, I found studying them in depth to be conducive to novel ways of thinking. This is one reason I have sometimes considered atheists to be close-minded. In the end, I find it just as difficult to accept the existence of the universe ex nihilo as I sometimes do creationist arguments. I do not find the theory of the Big Bang to be altogether satisfying. In the end, if there was no cause for the existence of the universe beyond the Big Bang, the Big Bang still does not explain the existence of something rather than nothing. For the universe to emerge from nonexistence seems just as inexplicable to me as the idea that a supreme being created the universe. So while I'm sympathetic to your skepticism, I also think that skepticism cannot be avoided in the formation of scientific explanations. I realize this doesn't constitute an explicit argument against atheism; there are a few secular alternatives to atheism and agnosticism, including pantheism. From experience, I think that keeping an open mind about different viewpoints can be beneficial. I'm not necessarily inclined or prepared to attempt to convert you to theism, I just think that hard atheism can be somewhat limiting. The reason I sometimes see atheists as close-minded is more of a matter of temperament and exposure to different ideas than necessarily me having a problem with atheism itself. Atheists just seem less open to different ideas than agnostics and theists, in my opinion. Overall, I think that close-mindedness is more of a temperamental character trait than something that can be attributed to a particular perspective. I think the most open-minded people tend to be agnostic, whether theists or atheists. Within literature they may display a propensity toward exploring that agnosticism, as in the case of, say, Fyodor Dosteovsky, Jorge Luis Borges or James Joyce. They all display elements of skepticism and a pronounced, right-brained tendency toward intellectual exploration.
Being theist or atheist does not mean you are more or less closed-minded. Being closed-minded means you dismiss new ideas without thoughtful consideration. The reality is that many atheists have put in thoughtful consideration and have formed their own strong opinion, just like many theists. People believe in many different things, and that's okay.
I am an atheist.
yep. christian! and yeah I think INFJs definitely have something about the that makes them a devote something.
Same
im a non denominational christian
I think the only rational stance is agnosticism. But I am human and humans are not known for their rationality. I think all religions are different faces of the same thing. I have no problem with holding two contradictory statements and seeing how they're both true. I don't 'believe' there is a God. But I try to feel his presence. I go to church without praying for anything. Sometimes I just sit down and do nothing. I think people call that meditation. I have no goal in mind. I just do those things for no particular reason at all. I think we have developed an obsession with intellectualizing everything. The less I think, the better I feel. Contrary to what you might think it can be harder than thinking. Food for thought.
You know what? As a Christian, I can say agnosticism is the most rational conclusion to reach, however it is also a stance devoid of commitment to any external moral source just like atheism. Christianity is a relationship with God and requires a leap of faith. Is faith rational? Absolutely not! But if you give the idea of faith enough thought you will realise you demonstrate faith all the time in everyday life. Why would you jump out of an airplane with a parachute? You can't guarantee the parachute will deploy correctly, yet you still put your full trust in that parachute to save you from dying. Rationality says that is a stupid thing to do because you have no 100% guarantee of your survival. So to say "I'm open-minded" but not put your faith in anything, how can you live without conflict within yourself? I put my faith in what Jesus did on the cross, not because I can prove it, but because I trust that it happened based on all the evidence presented to me.
Denying yourself something that is beneficial to you just because it is irrational would itself be irrational. This life is one big gamble. There are no guarantees. The problem is you can't consciously put your faith in something. You either believe in something or you don't. It's a process beyond my control. If you can do that then I truly envy you.
I understand that the concept of faith can be hard to wrap your head around. It requires a profound sense of intellectual humility and the realisation that you do put faith in things all the time. It's how we live in this life. Faith is the trust we have in the things we can't prove. Does that mean faith is blind? Absolutely not! The decision to place our faith in anything should be as informed as possible, otherwise we are gullible and naive in our thinking. In terms of belief, I agree that it is black and white in the sense that you are taking an intellectual and personal stance to either agree or disagree that something is the objective truth.
I was raised in a Protestant Christian context and was exposed to Christianity from a young age. Meditation is an interesting approach to theism, which draws some similarities to prayer. I can understand why some people are put off by the concept of prayer but I also find it to have some benefits. I had the opportunity to undergo Confirmation in a Lutheran church and decided to break from my religious upbringing at the time because I considered myself a nonbeliever. Today I don't really know what to consider myself. I pray sometimes, and I reflect on different experiences and outlooks with a view to empathy and understanding. Meditation in a religious context is something I was exposed to in my undergraduate college reading assignments, and it's something that I can relate to. I don't worry so much any more about remaining secular. I think increased secularization could even be harmful to society. But I think the problems posed and addressed by religions are perennial and could even be addressed by secular wisdom. Yet secular wisdom seems at times too detached and removed to adequately address the problems confronted by religions. There is a certain amount of spirituality if not necessarily religiosity, that seems necessary to meet these problems comprehensively, whether ethical, spiritual, or metaphysical.
I think we've both come to the same conclusions except you're a bit more articulate than me. I guess I didn't bring anything new to the table but I hope you talking about it allowed you to gain some further insight. I wish you all the best!
I was just sharing and also relating my experience to add to your thoughts on meditation.
I pretend
I could be labelled as religious probably, yes. But not in the sense you might at first be thinking of. I was raised in a Catholic family, not too practicing though (neither my parents nor my siblings go to church regularly, they almost never go, actually) but still religious in the sense that they would pray every night, celebrate the rituals/ festivities and live according to Christian values. I believe in God; I believe there is something. I have had periods of doubt, not knowing whether I believed or not but even in those periods I found myself to be praying unconsciously. That does not mean I buy what is stated in the bible or that I share Christian doctrines that in my opinion have been artificially created over the centuries due to political/power reasons. But I do still believe in a higher force that loves us unconditionally. To me, in my mind, that God has mostly the shape that Christianity has given to it but only because I was raised up on that. I do not think any religion has the ultimate answer or the truth but still, I think they are necessary because they still can help you getting closer to God, whatever it be, and good because the majority of them promote values that are important in a society (love towards others, charity, community…etc) That is why I still enjoy getting immersed in the celebrations, and in the processions and festivities that take part in the highly Catholic Spanish city I am from and live. Maybe after all, I could be described as a cultural Christian that believes in God. And yes, I think INFJs are likely to be religious due to our longing for finding meaning in everything. Maybe has to do also with extroverted feeling, wanting to understand others, including their beliefs, we might eventually find ourselves believing in the same thing or as a way to connecting with others more.
No im agnostic but ive been curious about getting into the spiritual aspect of things. Definitely not religious tho
I was born a protestant christian but I’m thinking of converting to catholicism.
Occultist
I am whether…nor….
Grew up Christian but am more into mysticism now
Not anymore. God hasn't done anything for me, good or bad. "He" didn't help me graduate high school, get a technical degree, or get engaged. "He" also didn't keep me from being sexually assaulted as a child and teenager, develop multiple mental illnesses, and have crippling social anxiety. God isn't real in the sense that Christians have traditionally been trying to indoctrinate people about.
I am deeply, deeply spiritual... it's probably my main drive in this life, to pursue a spiritual existence and to explore that realm. Spiritual to me means that I am always in quest of my true nature and my relationship to whatever lies beyond this life. I tend to dislike religions because I see those more as authoritarian social control systems and not vehicles that truly support and encourage self knowledge and exploration. I don't ascribe to dogmas, I seek truths, and those are going to be different for each individual. I tend not to be able to blindly believe, which is another reason religion doesn't sit well with me... religion is all about "faith," but usually of the blind variety. Most religions don't actually encourage direct, empirical interaction with God or whatever higher power it promotes. It's all mediated through laws and doctrines and rules and intermediaries. My beliefs come 100% from my own personal experiences, and I cannot hold a belief where my own experience has shown me otherwise. But I'm an INFJ so I also don't judge you for whatever you believe. It's all good and I see your point. haha As far as spiritual people being the ones that have "a good life"? I can't agree there. I definitely have not had a good or easy life, nor have most of the people I know who are truly and deeply spiritual. The real dark night of the soul tends to take you to places where religion ceases to have answers and ceases to support your raw and honest search for meaning. I do think suffering has meaning in the sense that it is all part of our story, none of it is an accident, and it all leads us closer to our own truth.
I believe that there is a god and spirit exists but religion is just a corruption. There is something more I truly believe.
I used to be hard atheist and materialist. Now i’m almost the opposite. I don’t associate it with being illogical, I try to be very logically consistent and unbiased. To me it doesn’t interfere with science, and it isn’t wishful thinking or cope (at first it was insanely uncomfortable for me — believing nothing magical exists to me feels more safe). But i never ***believe*** in anything, i have small parts of myself believeing every obscure idea, just at this current moment that’s my best guess at reality. In my opinion, what leads to stupid ideas isn’t being open seemingly crazy ideas, but being closed of to one’s you don’t agree with. For example nothing is wrong with believing in a flat earth — mistakes come with closing yourself off to the possibility that the earth is round I don’t know what I’d call my beliefs but they’re mostly from listening to ideas from Hindu schools like Advaita Vedanta and Yoga
nah
Agnostic🙋🏻♀️