I told you things would change.
I used to counsel other friends that, when the stress of maintaining any relationship outweighs the pleasure you receive from it, it’s time to step back and assess whether a separation is needed.
I can’t believe I spent so much time ignoring my own advice.
There’s no way to really explain it clearly, but how about this: I’m tired of having to deal with people who are so emotionally haphazard that every interaction is a high-wire act in which I tip-toe around their deep-seated insecurities and inhibitions. And I’m tired of associating with people with whom I can’t have an intelligent conversation without struggling against the narrow-minded fear and ignorance of the goddamn Dark Ages.
The person I spoke to tonight said “I’ve known you for X years. I can’t believe you’re going to do this over a freakin’ issue!” That’s not the reason. Heavens, no. I disagree with lots of friends “on the issues,” and barring certain extreme views, it would be stupid to end friendships because of them.
At the same time, though, I’ve spent way too much time dealing with narrow, one-dimensional, ill-informed, up tight and selfish people who will never (care to) understand me or where I’m coming from. The cheap novelty of those interactions has now given way to a nauseating predictability that leaves me, quite simply, wanting more.
Only time will tell if I’m making a huge mistake. But I suspect that improving my own life starts with distancing myself from those who so often leave me feeling angry, frustrated or just plain misunderstood.
I was browsing the internet with some intj link and came upon your website. I have come across many others but your foxnews graphic caught my attention (which is quite funny). I read a couple of your posts and looked at your bio. I don’t want to sound rude, but I think you may be putting too much stock into what your personality profile says. I am also an intj, and I think I can fall into the habit of forcing the world into my profile, but I don’t think this is very healthy. There are many things that I could comment upon in your site, but for the sake of brevity I will limit it to your spiritual beliefs. It is uncharacteristic of your personality to make such an overgeneralization about religion. Instead of being a “crutch” I think it takes more intellectual energy and fortitude to actively hold positive religious faith. I would encourage you to look at especially your past and think about religion with an open mind. If your past is anything like mine, I am sure that you have encountered some Christians who are fascist, closed-minded, and (sometimes) down-right evil. But I came to know some Christians in college that are amazing thinkers, people I find unparalleled in the secular world. So, I would like to retort your position that organized religion is for the weak minded by saying that being an agnostic is for the weak minded. I think everyone should fight the good fight in everything that they do.
Finally, related to what I have just said, there are some people who use Christianity as a crutch, but what a wonderful (although sometimes terrible) crutch that can be for someone. I suspect that you have come to a point in your life that you see the world in all its terrible complexity. Why persecute people for simlifying their life and not going through the pain that can come with deep intellectual study. There are times that I wish I had not opened “pandora’s box” and remained in my ignorance. Life is a lot simpler (and perhaps happier)that way. Why take that away from anyone, when they do not want to open the box?
Forgive me if I have offended you.
Mike the commentor, if he knew Aaron at all, or about INTJ, would know that criticizing his religious beliefs based on almost no real arugment is folly. It is perfectly consistent with the intj profile to think of religion as a crutch, they think that way about anything that doesn’t have any reasonable argument.
Anyway, I think most of us are smirking that a intj would ever become a “born-again” christian, which yes I am assuming that Mike is …
Heya,
First, thanks for all the comments. I love hearing what people have to say about my beliefs or the site in general.
I’ll respond to the two main points of your post.
The first is that I’m putting too much stock into my personality type. I’ll admit, there is *waaay* too much personality stuff on those pages. I’m actually planning to pare it down.
But I’ve never changed my beliefs or expectations because of my personality type. To the contrary, reading about the types has merely helped me better articulate what I’ve felt all along. In fact, if you were to review all of my weblog posts, you would not find a single mention of the personality type.
The type stuff is just an easy way of conveying my general personality to people. It doesn’t dictate my worldview at all.
The second point you made was regarding my dismissal of religion as “a crutch for weak-minded people.” I have several things to say about that.
First, I made a distinction between spirituality and organized religion. I think that the former is simply being in touch with one’s emotions (and awaree of the connectedness of people with their environment and each other). The latter is, in many cases, to accept an entire belief system without subjecting it to rigorous intellectual scrutiny. That naturally leads me to my next point:
Second, I also made a distinction between those who are religious because they believe in the theory of intelligent design, and those who blindly accept the dogma and fantastic fables of a religion because they desperately need something to believe in. Another huge difference.
Third, if you want to know specifically what I meant by saying religion is a crutch, some of your comments will help me make that point: “Instead of being a ‘crutch’ I think it takes more intellectual energy and fortitude to actively hold positive religious faith.” Hold faith against what? Reason? I don’t know the ultimate truth any more than you do. What I do know is that to accept arbitrary, fantastic allegories as truth is to do anything but use one’s intellectual energy.
“If your past is anything like mine, I am sure that you have encountered some Christians who are fascist, closed-minded, and (sometimes) down-right evil. But I came to know some Christians in college that are amazing thinkers, people I find unparalleled in the secular world.”
I don’t know about unparalleled. Where are you looking? I do know Christians who are great thinkers. Again, they are Deists who never cease to subject their beliefs to rigorous intellectual scrutiny.
“So, I would like to retort your position that organized religion is for the weak minded by saying that being an agnostic is for the weak minded. I think everyone should fight the good fight in everything that they do.”
Sorry, wrong. To examine the fantastic theories handed down by others and find them all wanting is perfectly reasonable for an intellectual. This isn’t about fighting “the good fight.” Again, that’s just plain stubbornness. It’s about trying to find the truth.
“Why persecute people for simlifying their life and not going through the pain that can come with deep intellectual study. There are times that I wish I had not opened “pandora’s box” and remained in my ignorance. Life is a lot simpler (and perhaps happier)that way. Why take that away from anyone, when they do not want to open the box?”
Well, I think that statement unwittingly agrees with what I said — it just takes issue with my lack of tact. I’m not trying to “persecute” anyone, but it defies logic to classify people as “strong-minded” or “intellectual” when they shy from the intellectual “pandora’s box” and take cover in dogma.
It is what it is. I don’t know about you, but I never let my sensitivities eclipse the truth.
Adam Morris: I am not sure what you mean by “born again” Christian. These are somewhat redundant terms. All Christians are “born again.” Or do you mean to use that phrase as an adjective like “what a crazy nut, he thinks he is born again?” I am an orthodox Lutheran. I am not Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. I do not get caught up in all of the trendiness of the reformed branch of Christianity like WWJD and other such nonsense. I take my faith seriously and on intellectual grounds. I am baffled that you would make such a statement as “I think most of us are smirking. . .” but, if you want to think that I am dumb, you are welcome to that opinion.
Aaron W. Benson:
I disagree with your definitions of spirituality and organized religion. Spirituality is more than “getting in touch with emotions,” as is made clear by your next statement about organized religion. You say that organized religion must go through intellectual scrutiny, and therefore are suggesting that there is more involved in spirituality than mere emotions.
There is a lot of intellectual rigor in theological study. I find it to be the most challenging study that I have ever done, and I have studied a lot in many of the liberal arts. But I suspect that you and I are not on the same terms about what we mean as “valid” thought. You say that you have respect for deists, but not anyone who believes in fables. It is unfortunate that so many people get caught up in the “scientific” sides of the bible, both people inside and outside of the Church. I will not reject what you call fables, because they are a component of my faith, but it was not these “fables” that convinced me of the truth of Christianity. I think the philosophy of Plato had the greatest impact on my faith. He is interested in the fundamental truths of our existence, makes an interesting argument for the existence of God, and prepped me for a much fuller understanding of my faith. I think there are a few fundamental truths about human existence that cannot be overlooked. (1) I think there is God. (2) I think there is a lot of evil in this world and in humans. (3) I think there is a telos to this world and to us who have the capacity of self awareness and thought.
I think Christianity is a good solution to these problems of existence. But at the same time I agree with Kant and Kierkegaard. I do not think that the existence of God can be proven (or disproven). And I think that we are all, no matter what we believe, involved in a leap of faith. I am not going to be able to present arguments for my faith, but when you limit our existence on this earth to arguments there is lost a significant part of ourself. Intuition, in my opinion, is another form of knowledge. I cannot explain to you why I simply believed Plato when I read his philosophy, just as I cannot explain why I am a Christian. From what you have said about what you think is valid forms of knowledge, I think you may be missing out on a major part of what human life consists of. I do not think the world began in the enlightenment. There were a lot of people before Hume and the other Rationalists that were intelligent and believed in positive religion. Actually, I think your beliefs are rather behind the times. Kant, I think, has been defeated. There is no pure reason. Life is more than if-then statements.
I do not know where I have gone from where I have started. I just kept rambling, but I hope there is something of worth there. I would also like to apologize for some confusion over “pandora’s box” and other things that I wrote. I should have done some editing before posting. Thank you for your thoughtful response.
Mike.
Mike,
Actually, I wasn’t arguing that one should only believe what can be logically proven. I personally believe in some form of intelligent design, and even Deists acknowledge that, in the end, one can never fully prove or disprove the existence of God.
So, we both have faith in intelligent design.
But here’s the main difference: You appear to accept full-blown Christianity, with all its fantastic fables and arbitrary assertions about God and the universe, as truth.
And I can’t understand for the life of me why any rational person would do that.
One more thing: You refer to spirituality as if the term is interchangeable with organized religion. It’s not, and to imply that someone is not in touch with his spirituality because he does not accept organized religion is folly.
In fact, I think it a positive trait that I can be a spiritual individual without allowing others to graft some system of beliefs onto my own emotions.
-A
First, my problem with the idea of intelligent design: Let us assume that there are an infinite number of universes as Einstein hypothesized. Like a million monkeys typing for a million years, something great will be created… On the few occasions were things work out beautifully life is created. Life is a product of these random occurances of events. Life then leads to brains. The brains only see the beautiful universe that they exist in. They can’t see all of the other universes that sucked… and sucky universes don’t produce brains. So no brain will ever see a sucky universe. Life is a product of a beautiful unverse. So we shouldn’t be surprised that our universe is beautiful.
Next, Aaron: I must also disagree with your definition of spirituality. I agree with Mike that it is much more than “getting in touch with emotions.” Spirituality implies some meta-physical/religious thought/emotion. Being in touch with your emotions is merely being ‘sensitive’ or ’emotional.’
M-W:
Main Entry: spir·i·tu·al·i·ty
Pronunciation: “spir-i-ch&-‘wa-l&-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Date: 15th century
1 : something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or to a cleric as such
2 : CLERGY
3 : sensitivity or attachment to religious values
4 : the quality or state of being spiritual
Next, Mike: your acceptance of Christianity, with all its fantastic fables and arbitrary assertions about God and the universe, as truth, is not logical or even reasonable. If anything is “weak-minded” it is taking the unknown and explaining it with ‘faith.’ You make up some bogus explanation that no one could disprove (meta-physics) to explain the unknown. You use religion as a crutch to explain the world. This is the ultimate in weak-mindedness.
Check out an ongoing discussion on webpage.
An afterthought to the definition of spirituality:
3 : sensitivity or attachment to religious values
In my opinion, Aaron is not off-base. A sensitivity to religious values can take any shape – worth of people (“thou shalt not kill” and “love thy neighbor”, etc.) and love of the environment, general revelation. Emotion is a large part of faith, because it is love and trust that keeps it strong or breaks it down. To contend that spirituality is either mental or physical is a vain argument. Didn’t C.S. Lewis examine the mental arguments for belief?
Anyways, I believe that sensitive religion may serve a function on the individual level of motivating and organizing life. I think blind faith is saddening, but for those who have examined themselves and the teachings of their religion and found that they match, religion serves to bolster their way of life and direct their thoughts in an organized manner.