What is your opinion on religions/spirituality and gods?

I’m currently 24 years old, and had never identified as a Christian, while striving (and failing) to look like one in order to avoid conflict with my parents, who are such devoted Christians that they threw away everything they had (my dad has a Master’s in some STEM area I never asked about, and my mom was the head nurse at a military hospital thingamajig) to become missionaries in a third world country.

Earlier this year in mid January, while I was low on an existential crisis and high on anti-depressants+anxiety meds, I reached a... an explanation that worked for myself. I want to emphasize that by no means do I mean that you or anyone else should adopt the same view, or that my view is right, but just that this is what worked for me personally.

The soul. While there is no cut-out definition for it, some of its “proponents” can be described. One of them is Free Will. The soul is free will. I will use the terms interchangeably.

In Christianity, humans are described as having a mind, body, and soul. The body contains the mind (the brain) and the mind contains the soul (the... free will).

To me, Christianity is simply the belief that you should live by your soul. That is, your soul should control your mind, and your mind should control your body.

One comment mentioned an example of hitting his imaginary wife out of anger and/or frustration at her repeated bad behavior. He mentioned that he can’t help it. But thoughts and emotions (such as frustration and anger) are components of the mind, and to act upon it by becoming violent is to be inhibited by the mind and controlled by the mind, rather than by the soul.

This is what sets us apart from animals. Animals have a body and a mind, but not a soul - imagine an angry dog. His mind is programmed to react a certain way, to snarl and growl, and eventually when that final straw is pulled, to pounce and bite. But humans have the free will to choose to bite or not bite. And it’s usually easier for us to choose to bite, because it feels good to smack dumb people for being dumb (as an INTP I prefer to smack people verbally rather than physically with FACTS). But we can also choose to be nice and make the world a kinder place, because that’s basically what being a Christian is all about.

/r/INTP Thread Parent