Wednesday, December 5, 2012

INTP and Understanding


Hey y'all.  I'm reading more about my Myers-Briggs personality type, and apparently the dude Richard Dawkins is the same personality as me.  Also, INTP people tend to be task oriented, intellect-worshiping, principle admiring folk.  Sounds about right.

There's little quotes beneath each person, and Richard Dawkins said something that I totally understand: basically, that he doesn't like religion because it encourages people "to be satisfied with not understanding".  I get him.  He wants to know everything, and thinks it's weird not to try to know everything. Trouble is, there are some things we cannot know -- like who killed JFK, for example.

However, he is slightly incorrect.  One, he shouldn't lump all religions together, and two, God likes knowledge.  It says in Proverbs that wisdom is greater than silver and gold, and people should seek knowledge above precious stones.  It also says that it's the glory of God to hide a matter, but the glory of kings to seek a matter out.  Therefore, God wants us to seek knowledge and created within us a desire to know more.  He wants us to be intelligent, and directly tells us to learn, right there in Proverbs.

Y'know, the trouble with Dawkins is that he's looking at God only through logic and thought.  Well, the truth of the matter is that God cannot be reached through intellect alone, though I daresay a few people have grown closer to God through studying his creation.  No, the truth is, getting to God through intellect is like trying to call your neighbor with your intellect.  How do you call someone or meet them simply by thinking about them?  You have to go and meet him, or let him meet you.

It always reminds me of how CS Lewis said he was dragged into the Kingdom of Heaven kicking and screaming.  God's existence is not dependent on logical thought, but through study.  For example, I could, on an intellectual level, create a masterful hypothesis on how the kiwi bird does not exist (hey, if people believe in zombies, they'll believe in anything) and persuade some non-travelling people that kiwi birds are all a scam.  However, the trouble with that theory is that all the logic in the world cannot disprove a kiwi, because you can just go to Australia or a zoo (do zoos have kiwis?) to find them.  Likewise, God is a person, not an intellectual principle.  All you have to do is go to him.

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