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Old 09-11-2015, 06:04 AM
 
Location: ......SC
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Instinct- IMO- is something we do....without thinking about it beforehand. We just do it.
Intuition- OTOH- that nagging inner voice....gut feeling......
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Old 09-11-2015, 07:03 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
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I am, like everyone else, intuitive about certain things ... others, not so much.

Several times in my career as a software developer I have come up behind someone who has clearly been tearing their hair out for some time over a stubborn bug, take a glance at the problem, point out the cause, and continue on my way. People think that's intuitive but it's just experience combined with objectivity and lack of investment in whatever narrative was distracting the person from what was right in front of them all along. Not seeing what's right in front of you is basically the polar opposite of intuition, yet I don't see it discussed as some mystical thing requiring woo to explain it.

More truly intuitive is my ability to map a business problem or issue to a software pattern, in a way that is fairly efficient and future-proof and flexible. That my pattern matching / decision making process has gotten to the point where it requires little conscious thought (and often works better with as little conscious thought as possible, lest I overthink it) also seems preternatural, but isn't. It is no different than how a six year old rides a bike ... they don't think about it, they just do it. It is just a matter of sufficient experience correctly applied in a variety of situations, thus making it "intuitive".

Now it is possible to get out of tune so to speak with something you know very well ... to repress it or sublimate it such that sometimes it will assert itself in the form of seeming out of the blue insight, or maybe anxiety or an intrusive inner "knowing" that seems to be completely disconnected from context. Unlike riding a bike or designing software, which you are actively engaging in, you may be, say, trying to watch a sitcom while your marriage is falling apart and some part of your brain is attempting to arouse you to action completely unrelated to what you are currently doing. Later you realize you should have obeyed that impulse to talk to your spouse or break out of your rut and examine your life or whatever ... and you might misdiagnose that as resisting the "still small voice of god" or the whisperings of the universal mind or a message from beyond ... but in reality all you were doing was living in a very unaware fashion and not listening to YOURSELF. The conscious "observer" is only a part of who you are.

Then there are whole areas of life that you just don't "get", or which you constantly misconstrue. I am not diagnosably on the autism spectrum but I lean just a little that way and so sometimes miss social cues that most others pick up, or simply find people's thought processes and actions incomprehensible where it seems most are unperturbed -- to the point that at times I am tempted to become a hermit just to get away from it all. Just as with not seeing what's right in front of you, mentioned above, this is another example of unintuitiveness being just as strong a force in life as intuition. And although sometimes theists speak of a demonic veil hiding truth and insight from people, for the most part, we don't feel the need to overthink such things and ascribe mysterious or transcendent forces to them. We simply admit that we don't "get it". Well then why can't we just admit when we do, without decorating it with baroque explanations?

Maybe it's because when we "get it" -- particularly, when we "get it" especially well -- it flatters us and we want to expand the narrative of how special we are. And maybe because we are looking for "evidence" that god is at work.
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:55 AM
 
Location: Ontario, Canada
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I'm pretty good at reading people, even online. I can often accurately assess various aspects of their character and personality within a couple of posts. In rl, I usually know, with a 95% degree of accuracy if a person is lying -- about anything. Some salespeople don't much like me.

When playing cards, I will occasionally know with certainty which card will be cut. Overall, I've come to rely on feelings and hunches when they occur and can't recall being wrong. (Though I suppose it's easy to forget those times.)
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:55 AM
 
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I am intuitive in the fact that I know that a particular church is not right for me. Something is not quite right about the way they run the church or sit on their laurels. I went to a church, if you are familiar with Revelation 3 when they list the 7 churches, I attended a church that fell under the category of Laodicea, I know this was not going to change until they got some new blood in that church. The Elder and Deacons were set in their ways, there was no outreach to the community and so this church just continued to falter. I haven't been back to see if it still is a going concern or not, I just know more members had left. Intuition tells me it has, because a church can't keep dwindling down to basically no members as you could count on two hands the number of members in the congregationduring church as there was a plethora of children off in Sunday school.
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Old 09-11-2015, 09:20 AM
 
Location: USA
17,156 posts, read 11,320,701 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
This topic came up on another thread and I wanted to hear from a wider audience, so am starting a thread about intuition. What role does intuition play in your life? How do you define intuition? How does it differ from instinct? from intellect? How do you identify intuition in your life, and what value does it have for you? In what way is it part of your religious or spiritual activities?

Thank you everyone for your input and sharing.
Interesting topic. I think of intuition as a sort of subconscious awareness of the "vibe" that other people or living things or a situation are giving off. I don't know if it is subtle clues from body language and facial expressions or other things within an environment that are registering with one below the conscious level, or an actual energy of sorts that is being put out that it's possible to pick up on. Or maybe a combination of those things. Personally, I only have that experience with people and situations I know well. Very occasionally I'll get a sense about a person I'm emotionally connected to, without having had any recent contact with them, and that seems to me to indicate a sort of energy that I'm picking up on since there are no other clues to attribute it to.

I have a very difficult time reading people I don't know well or situations that are unfamiliar to me, especially busy or hectic situations ... it's sort of like sensory overload and my mind can't make sense of things, so I'd say whatever intuition I have can be shut down pretty easily.

As far as what part it plays in my spiritual activities, I don't really have any. However, I have taken up tarot as an attempt to exercise what little intuition I have, and I do try to pay attention to my dreams as well. But this kind of stuff doesn't come naturally to me and I'm not often willing to devote the amount of energy I think I'd need to to make any real progress.

My teenage daughter, on the other hand, is quite naturally intuitive about people. She has a physical reaction to certain people that she meets that implies that they are untrustworthy or even dangerous, even when there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. I tell her to trust her gut, and there have been enough times that her instincts were confirmed which gives her good reason to.

My husband is very intuitive about situations. I think that can be attributed to the fact that he's very observant, but also his brain has a unique way of processing information that allows him to see beyond what other people see and come up with creative responses. He calls it the Holy Spirit, whereas I think it's just a natural thing for him that he has honed well over the years. Either way, I generally trust his instincts/intuition in a crisis and in problem-solving in general.
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Old 09-11-2015, 09:23 AM
 
Location: california
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There are several people I know that have a " gift ".
Just like, It makes a difference so far as God is concerned, where my knowledge come's from, it is equally important what spirit has influence.
There are people that have no relationship with God, but experience a familiar spirit coaching them , either they chose it, or it adopted them at an early age .
Their information may be accurate, but that does not mean it is from God. Acts 16;16 Peter and John meet a woman with a spirit of divination ,her masters made them a lot of money .
After peter and John cast out the demon, the woman could no longer perform, and that angered the owners an had them thrown in jail.
I have known such people ,but they did not want to be freed of their demon and I cannot force it .
I know the leading and power of the Holy Spirit and have cast out demons /evil Spirits , and have had many confrontations my lifetime .
I do not operate God, I look desperately for His leading ,I respect heavily the things Jesus taught above any man, including Paul. Matthew 7; 21,22,23, Jesus is dead serious about, and I take Him serious.
John warns that there are many spirits and trying the spirits is strongly recommended NOT ASSUMED .
I have been spared by angels from falling, and attacked by demons physically on my throat .
It is no surprise that men that are strong teachers get attacked and loose the battle ,because they did not first learn to be taught of God ,,but chose the tutelage of men.
And they get sifted like wheat.( look that one up)
When one chooses the wrong influences, repair is all that much more difficult, if God's intervention is ever sought after.
Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. How desperate are you to Know God's influence ? That's what He's looking for.
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Old 09-11-2015, 09:30 AM
 
Location: USA
18,438 posts, read 9,062,540 times
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I found Newtonian physics to be very intuitive, probably because I deal with macro-scale physics every day to survive. As soon as I got into electrical physics, I was lost.

I don't think there is anything "supernatural" or magical about intuition: it's gained from past experience in the real world.
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Old 09-11-2015, 09:58 AM
 
Location: Sitting beside Walden Pond
4,612 posts, read 4,874,620 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
I found Newtonian physics to be very intuitive, probably because I deal with macro-scale physics every day to survive. As soon as I got into electrical physics, I was lost.

I don't think there is anything "supernatural" or magical about intuition: it's gained from past experience in the real world.
I was gonna say the same think. Being an Atheist, I do not believe in any supernatural forces.

My decisions in life are based on my own common sense and my instinctive sense of right and wrong. Yes, I do believe our magnificent brains have instinctive behaviors that have helped us cooperate with each other and prosper for thousands of years.
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Old 09-11-2015, 10:02 AM
 
21,922 posts, read 19,052,687 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
I don't think there is anything "supernatural" or magical about intuition: it's gained from past experience in the real world.
what about children and young people who do not have past experience in the real world?
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Old 09-11-2015, 10:14 AM
 
Location: USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
what about children and young people who do not have past experience in the real world?
My daughter who is now a teen has had a level of intuition about people for as long as she can remember. She was picking up on something beyond what experience could give her. It doesn't mean it's "magical" or "supernatural", but for whatever reason she has the ability to frequently be consciously aware of something that not all of us are.
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