Does your personality effect your beliefs?
Posted on: June 23, 2008 - 11:08am
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Does your personality effect your beliefs?
A few days ago in my philosophy lesson I discussed why I didn't believe in the afterlife due to being an atheist. My philosophy teacher said that I am most likely largely an atheist due to my destructive nature. He went on further to say that my beliefs would most probably change as I am still young at the age of 17, a so called age of manipulation. It made me wonder as much as I protested and argued that my belief or lack of belief was based on logic and rational thinking rather than personality , can someones mindset effect their beliefs? Does one have to be stubborn to accept atheism?
(this is my first post btw)
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
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Typical Christian bullshit.
Christian in denial to be honest. People who like to think they are more spiritual than their counterparts but are only more deluded and afraid to be athiest as it may effect how they look in their crocs and ridiculously blue jeans.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
Welcome firstly!
I think this has more to do with your age than anything. People think you're too young to make an informed choice. Alot of teens, when stating their atheism, are told 'it's just a phase.'
I was a chrisitian until 17, then I started thinking for myself and ended up atheist.Two years later it's no phase.
I don't see any reason to say you have to be stubborn.Open minded, mildly intelligent and honest,yes. There could be something to be said for personality affecting (non) belief. I might catch flak from the theists around here, but I think you could link people who need more support in life to theism.
Enjoy the forums..
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
the guy sounds like a jackass for saying what he did. He is basically implying that you are young and don't know any better. Also, if you are at 'the age of manipulation' then wouldn't that make you more susceptible to christian shenanigans?
people of all mindsets come to all sorts of different beliefs. Coming to any belief is (IMO) a subject of nurture (in place of nature) and circumstances. You can be brought up as any kind of theist and never use any amount of critical thinking on your belief, being stuck in the religion trap your whole life. You can be brought up in religion, but shown how to use critical thinking which you then in turn use on your pre-set belief, breaking free of it. You can be brought up as an atheist, never hearing of any god belief. You can have any kind of upbringing and decide to investigate the whole religion thing for yourself and decide who has the best arguments and come out on either side of the theist/atheist debate.
What I would do to hammer it in to him that your are an atheist because of logic and reason is to ask him to present testable, repeatable, unambiguous scientific evidence for the existence of his god. when he fails or refuses to then you tell him that is why you don't believe in a god or afterlife, as no one has been able to give you satisfactory evidence for either.
if he is a christian, then ask him what version of the bible he has and what version of christianity he subscribes to. after that, tell him that you see too many different versions of christianity alone, not to mention all the other religions all claiming that they have the one true god and are the one true religion and all else is false, so taking the middle ground or using Occam's razor, it logically concludes they are all wrong.
oh, and welcome to the RRS
When god gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD 1 Thessalonians 5:21
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Your personality will absolutely impact your beliefs, but insofar as logic and reason are concerned what you believe, in most cases, either contradicts logic and reason or agrees. Your 'mindset' will determine whether or not you will reconcile your beliefs with the outcome of logical analysis (accept that you are wrong and adjust your beliefs) or fail to do so and maintain your beliefs despite logic and reason.
Your teacher is an ass and, apparently, is ignorant of what Atheism is if he believes that a person's 'destructive nature' has anything at all to do with Atheism. You do not have to be stubborn to accept Atheism, you only have to be honest.
By the way, welcome to the forums. I have no doubt a moderator will be along to ask you to introduce yourself in the appropriate forum any time now.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I was rather of a destructive personality for the first quarter century of my life. And I considered myself a christian through all of it. I did not consider myself atheist until I was 30 years old, married with kids, and leading a rather normal, boring life. So that idea fails.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Welcome to the forums, Gamage!
Was this in a college course? What an ingnorant pretentious ass. Most philosophy instructors I have come across are atheists... strange. This is going to make me sound paraniod - but watch you grade in the course.
To be completley honest in spite of what I said, he is a good teacher and a good laugh. Hes agnostic. But I am the only atheist in that class so I can almost see why someone would believe that, however I don't want someone to believe I base the entire premise of my beliefs on wanting to be different.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
Well, firstly, let me say what an incredibly condesenting, patronising, and insulting thing he said to you, not to mention unproffesional. Any teacher, but particularly a philosophy teacher should know there is no right answer to such a subjective question as faith, and he has no right, nor any philosophical foundation for telling you that your oppinion is simply wrong.
Secondly, I can certainly attest to that different people are attracted to different ideas and oppinions, on a small and trivial scale, based on their personalities, but it is also certainly intrue that atheism is something only specific personality types are attracted to.
I live in Denmark, and here we are at least 80% atheist. Everyone I have ever known personally certainly are, and as you can imagine I, like everybody else, know many different kinds of people. Some are flaky, some are silly, some serious, some orderly and proper, some scatterbrains, some outgoing, some contemplative and quiet: all sorts. Everyone of them have been in no way religious with the exception of one, who was a sort of Buddhist/pantheist new ager, and her personality did not differ strongly from some other people I have known who were otherwise like her, only not religious/superstitious.
So, please do me a favor, ask him how a country such as mine (or Sweden or Norway or many other countries with similar statistics of atheism) can be so atheist, if non-belief in God is a result of a "destructive" personality. Have mine, and these other countries, just got an extraordinarily large amount of such personality types, even though they are inhabited by people who are otherwise perfectly ordinary examples of Homo Sapiens, in no meaningful way fundementaly different from any other people? And if so, then how have such a disproportionate number of "destructive" personalities come about in an otherwise normal population of normal humans?
In all seriousness, if at all possible, I should very much like you to ask him that, and tell me his answer. You can say you are asking on behalf of a Danish friend, if you wish.
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
Of course the idea that agnosticism is somehow a compromise between theism and atheism is itself an irrational precept.
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He wasn't insinuating that belief is right and I am wrong. You make very valid points btw. But like I say he is a good teacher and is usually very open minded, it was just when this was said it did make me question whether he was as open minded as I once believed. It wasn't as if he was dismissing atheism but instead dismissing my unspoken reasoning for being an atheist, his assumption if you will.
I will be sure to raise your points upon my next opportunity.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
If you are born in the US you will probably be a christian
Born in Saudia Arabia you will be a muslim
Born in Scandanavia you will be an atheist
Born in the UK and you will just be a born whiner
The more I hear shit like the stuff in the topic I begin to think religious people really shouldnt be allowed in any position of power, politics, teaching being a pilot etc.
I mean how the hell can you serious;y teach deep thinking on anything if you believe without any evidence in bronze age mythology. Your lecturer isnt fit to teach !
Hmmm getting more and more militant by the day, I must tell myself that religious people are human beings too
God I hate the weather.
Just to clarify once again he is a good teacher and has helped me throughout my philosophy course impeccably, and no im not saying this with a gun held to my head............ just a crucifix.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
My beliefs don’t seem to enter into the equation for me as I really feel like I don’t have those anymore. I sometimes wish I did.
I’m pretty based in knowledge and learning, logic and reason, and think love is wonderful, that includes the feeling of being in love, but even all of these do not spell out my entire personality.
People who know I am an atheist will often ask me if I have feelings in all other areas of my life (other than religion). It can be a sobering question to have to repeatedly answer and while I’ve accepted that people are naturally curious it can occasionally bring out the worst in me.
My standard reply ends up at, “Well, yes I have feelings. In fact, an abundanceof them. But I don’t consider my personal feelings to be my beliefs.”
I noted your earlier response regarding your status as the only Atheist in the class.If you know this to indeed be the case, perhaps your instructor was merely using you as the example for the rest of the class and continued to do so once he “got you going”.
I had a marvelous teacher who operated like that until a few weeks into his class when several of us caught on to his methodology.
Good Luck
I would say that it certainly does.
I am pessimistic, skeptical, and introverted by nature, so it made it a lot easier for me to see religion in its worst of lights without paving it over with optimism or faith in my fellow man.
Either he was trying to help you by getting you to think about defending your position, or you may simply have the worst philosophy teacher ever.
Does he know you personally? Do you even have a destructive nature? Has he witnessed you destroy something recently?
The age argument is nonsense. It could be applied equally to theists (age of manipulation indeed).
I was never destructive - either figuratively or literally. I figured out I was an atheist when I was about 13. And as Watcher pointed out, he was the exact opposite. Yet he wound up in the same place. So clearly there's more to atheism than personality.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
I think his wording may have been incorrect in the sense of the meaning of the word destructive. I think he was implying that I dismiss things very easilly and dont open my mind to a spiritual side as much as others. I wont question his intelligence he is a clever man as ive said many times in his defence.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
I agree with an earlier post in that he was just lumping you with others in your age group. You know teens are known for rebellion. When confronted with a teen that tells me they've become an atheist, I'm definitely skeptical. I assume the majority of them will return to Christianity before too long. It's similar to when kids tell me about how they are anarchists. I do believe that the number of teens that will remain atheist into adulthood and persist will increase in the future. As a teen, I'm sure you're used to people not taking your beliefs seriously. On average, this is for good reason. However, if you continue to backup your beliefs (about anything) with SOUND logic and reason, people will eventually respect your arguments. I have to admit, not everyone of course. Some people will just write you off for being a kid no matter what your argument. I think a great example of a teen (a young one at that) doing this correctly is DrObswolovitch from YouTube. If you guys haven't seen him, you should check out his videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DrObswolovitch
To actually address your question though, I definitely believe a person's mindset influences their beliefs. I also believe, of course, that a person's beliefs influence their mindset. People often have a major negative event in their lives such as a death and it may change how they think about their god. Likewise, a person may be drawn into a cult and take on the belief that the world will end in a year. This would dramatically change their mindset.
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I think what's giving everyone that twisty feeling in their gut is the "it's just a phase" argument. It's possible that the man was arguing against the spirit of the argument rather than the argument itself. Maybe he takes what people say at your age with a grain of salt because he knows that at that age it's typical to still be working certain things out. Of course, he may have overlooked the fact that as an agnostic (of what, we know not) he avoids stating his belief. He also seems to be projecting his own insecurites onto you (but may have done so in a classroom environment where he has to maintain his professorial status).
But why, for instance, would he immediately reject the existence of wood nymphs, leprechans, or unicorns? Once you've decided that one invisible creature is allowed, why not allow for the existence of other magical beasts?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Its 20th birthday this summer and I'm still "in this phase" according to my parents.
Funny, I am inexhaustebly optimistic, very trusting of people, and very outgoing indeed. I don't think that it wasn't easy to be an atheist. I've always thought it must be harder to be religious.
Since I'm optimistic I don't fear for or worry about the future. So I've no need for paradise or God's will to put my mind at ease.
Since I'm trusting of strangers and outgoing, I've no need for a special friend in God or Jesus to make me feel safe and console me. I have lots and lots of real friends to do that.
Why isn't MY personality the most likely to become atheist?
Maybe because personality doesn't affect your belief, but rather your beliefs affect your personality.
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
I disagree, Nikolaj. The way I see it, both of your personalities are good pointers towards atheism. It's just passing the tree on the left side instead of the right; both your personalities influence your beliefs (or in this case rather your lack of belief), just in different ways. That doesn't necessitate that you end up in different places, though.
Just ask yourself this: say there's an adult who, in this hypothetical question, has somehow been completely shielded from all theism. He's just perfectly uninformed of it. He also happens to be sceptical and have a general distrust of authority figures. Imagine then that he one day met the pope, who tried to tell him about how he should "give his life to god" and all that. From the information you have, could you make a guess as to whether he'd accept what the pope said and become a theist, or if he would turn into an "informed atheist"?
But certainly, beliefs influence your personality too. It works both ways. I imagine that ex-fundies should be able to attest to this quite well.
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
Fear of rejection is a huge problem for claiming and publicly pronouncing simple basic honest "atheism".
We still live in a world of superstition, tradition, patriotism, and a hierarchy of the rich.
EAT THE RICH
eliminate them
Atheism Books.
Without being there it's a little hard to comment on the situation, but why would your personality be of interest in a discussion about atheism? If you have your reasons that's what would be addressed, and actually even if someone wanted to look at the psychological aspect you'd think something a little more insightful than your age and a "destructive nature" (whatever that's all about) would be mentioned. And hey, lets suppose for a second this guy is playing the role of the well meaning elder, taking an interest in the development of one of his students - how helpful is that kind of comment? To me it's just not that interesting.