INTJ

Your Type is 

INTJ

Introverted Intuitive   Thinking Judging

Strength of the preferences %

 22        50        38         33

Qualitative analysis of your type formula

 You are:

• slightly expressed introvert
• moderately expressed intuitive personality
• moderately expressed thinking personality
• moderately expressed judging personality

Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging 

by Marina Margaret Heiss

Profile: INTJ

Revision: 3.1

Date of Revision: 17 Oct 2009

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.

INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities which others might not even notice.

In the broadest terms, what INTJs "do" tends to be what they "know". Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia). INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality.

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

Functional Analysis

by Joe Butt

Introverted iNtuition

INTJs are idea people. Anything is possible; everything is negotiable. Whatever the outer circumstances, INTJs are ever perceiving inner pattern-forms and using real-world materials to operationalize them. Others may see what is and wonder why; INTJs see what might be and say "Why not?!" Paradoxes, antinomies, and other contradictory phenomena aptly express these intuitors' amusement at those whom they feel may be taking a particular view of reality too seriously. INTJs enjoy developing unique solutions to complex problems.

Extraverted Thinking

Thinking in this auxiliary role is a workhorse. Closure is the payoff for efforts expended. Evaluation begs diagnosis; product drives process. As they come to light, Thinking tends, protects, affirms and directs iNtuition's offspring, fully equipping them for fulfilling and useful lives. A faithful pedagogue, Thinking argues not so much on its own behalf, but in defense of its charges. And through this process these impressionable ideas take on the likeness of their master.

Introverted Feeling

Feeling has a modest inner room, two doors down from the Most Imminent iNtuition. It doesn't get out much, but lends its influence on behalf of causes which are Good and Worthy and Humane. We may catch a glimpse of it in the unspoken attitude of good will, or the gracious smile or nod. Some question the existence of Feeling in this type, yet its unseen balance to Thinking is a cardinal dimension in the full measure of the INTJ's soul.

Extraverted Sensing

Sensing serves with a good will, or not at all. As other inferior functions, it has only a rudimentary awareness of context, amount or degree. Thus INTJs sweat the details or, at times, omit them. "I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts" could well have been said by an INTJ on a mission. Sensing's extraverted attitude is evident in this type's bent to savor sensations rather than to merely categorize them. Indiscretions of indulgence are likely an expression of the unconscious vengeance of the inferior.

Famous INTJs:

Susan B. Anthony

Lance Armstrong

Arthur Ashe, tennis champion

Augustus Caesar (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus)

Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

Dan Aykroyd (The Blues Brothers)

William J. Bennett, "drug czar"

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Ironsides)

Chevy Chase (Cornelius Crane) (Fletch)

Katie Couric

Phil Donahue

Michael Dukakis, governor of Mass., 1988 U.S. Dem. pres. candidate

Richard Gere (Pretty Woman)

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor

Greg Gumbel, television sportscaster

Hannibal, Carthaginian military leader

Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights

Angela Lansbury (Murder, She Wrote)

Orel Leonard Hershiser, IV

Peter Jennings

Charles Everett Koop

Ivan Lendl

C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia)

Joan Lunden

Edwin Moses, U.S. olympian (hurdles)

Martina Navratilova

Michelle Obama

General Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State

Charles Rangel, US Representative, D-N.Y.

Pernell Roberts (Bonanza)

Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of Defense 

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California

Josephine Tey (Elizabeth Mackintosh), mystery writer (Brat Farrar)

U.S. Presidents:

Chester A. Arthur

Calvin Coolidge

Thomas Jefferson

John F. Kennedy

James K. Polk

Woodrow Wilson

Fictional:

Cassius (Julius Caesar)

Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)

Gandalf the Grey (J. R. R. Tolkein's Middle Earth books)

Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)

Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes' nemesis

Horatio Hornblower

Ensign Ro (Star Trek--the Next Generation)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Hamlet)

George Smiley, John le Carre's master spy

Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs)

Copyright © 1996-2011 by Marina Margaret Heiss and Joe Butt

This song makes me smile...

...and the video is about my current obsession. ^.^

Adele - Rolling In The Deep

Avalon - Undeniably You

Lyrics:

Like finding the match when the lights go out

Like finding the raft when the ship's going down

That's how it was when You rescued my heart

You covered the dark with the light of Your love

It's so much more than anything I've felt before

It's unbelievable

All the things that You do

It's unexplainable

How Your love pulls me through

And I can't question

The one thing I've found to be true

It's undeniably You

Like finding a shelter in the pouring rain

Like finding your way when you're lost in a maze

That's how it was when You came in my life

I'll always be safe with You here by my side

It's so much more than anything I've felt before

It's unbelievable

All the things that You do

(It's unexplainable)

Oh, how Your love pulls me through

And I can't question

The one thing I've found to be true

Oh, yeah, it's undeniably You

When You reached out to me

You gave me the strength to hold on again

Oh, You're everything

Everything

It's all I need, this love that You've given me, yeah

It's unbelievable

All the things that You do

(It's unexplainable)

Oh, how Your love pulls me through

And I can't question

The one thing I've found to be true

Oh, yeah, it's undeniably You

It's unbelievable

All the things that You do

(It's unexplainable)

Oh, how Your love pulls me through

And I can't question

The one thing I've found to be true

Oh, yeah, it's undeniably You

Unbelievable you

Where I Stand

Kirk Franklin - My Life is in Your Hands
II Timothy 1 and Psalms 1

I will try Father. That is all you have asked though, to give him another chance is that I will try. You know that I witness not in words but actions so I pray that my actions will speak louder than any words and that you would guide me in those things. Walk with me Father, as I continue on this path for you are the only one that can change a human heart. I will trust you with his soul and of course my own. This is my choice.

I'm sorry for the choice I made to walk away and only live in half belief. I thank you for teaching me even in that time. Discipline is a hard thing to learn but it was well taught.

I had the epiphany yesterday that you love me but I forgot something. I forgot to say: I love you too, Father. My heart, my soul, my mind, my life are in your hands.

This will not be an easy road. Sacrifice or no, I will struggle with this. But your not asking me to be a sheep just teachable and guidable by the only One in the universe that will never let me down. Serve to lead, that is the message you taught me throughout my childhood. Serve God and I will find myself in a situation to lead.

I lived this once; I breathed it; I can do it again. This time though it will be stronger because I will have to struggle for it.

The law of multiples doesn't just exist for demons. I speak of the example made that when one demon was driven out but allowed to return and he brought more with him, in abundance. They are made of you why would you not work in the same way just more.

The things we struggle and strive for are the things we hold most dear and the things we learn and live by. I will hold to this, that whatever does not destroy you makes you stronger. I say destroy for one day I might well die for You and I will cross that bridge when I come to it, and gladly.

This is where I stand. Aware of my own choices; that the blame falls to me; the responsibility is mine. I stand with a Father and friend who loves me and is loved in return. A Man who is my God who will love me, guide me, never betray my trust, never let me down, and never forsake me despite my humanity.

So say we all.

Avalon - Oxygen

God loves me!

God loves me. How simplistic and how profound. Somehow I had forgotten that until today.

God loves me. God loves you. God is love.

How crazy is it that I had an "Oh!" moment when the pastor said that this morning. I suppose it's a little like my "Oh!" moment when a friend of mine told me I knew myself best. I had forgotten that too. It's much like how I often forget to breathe. You wouldn't think it was possible. That's just one of the things the human body does naturally, but I do forget to breathe.

Still the most profound of my recent epiphanies is this: God loves me! No matter what I've done, who I've been, or where I'm currently at in life and my walk with Him; God loves me.

That thought just makes me happy. No matter what I am loved. Unconditionally, always, to the ends of the earth I am loved by an infinite God, my father, my friend.

Dr. Dre ft. Eminem, Skylar Grey - I Need A Doctor

Eric Heatherly - Flowers On The Wall

Neon Trees - Animal

Kill Hanna - Lips Like Morphine

Steven Curtis Chapman - Waiting for Lightning

Mercy Me - The Love of God

This is for my Dad. It's his favorite song.

Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts

Sugarcult - Pretty Girl (The Way)

Far - Pony (tVD Delena)

This video simply makes me happy mostly because this is my favorite couple to ship. Not to mention this song gives lovely mental images. =p

Good with Grenades - Bruises and Bite Marks

For some strange reason this reminds me of a friend of mine.

(italics implies sarcasm)

My Give a Damn's Busted

Just Live

We're going to be okay. Whatever may come we'll face it together. I finally just talked to him. Even though I'm sad about the fact that he believes his life is over until we can find some way to clear all of our debt. I get that, mine is too until we can. So, I have to go back into the field I hate because we need money and that's the easiest way to get it. After that both of us can go back to school, me a little longer than him just because I want to study more things but we'll do it standing side by side. I think even if I find my way back to God we'll be okay because we work. As disfunctional as we are we work.

Odd how one conversation with him quells most of the turmoil inside me. I still think I need to be broken there is no doubt of that but I think he'll be the one to pick up the pieces when it all comes back around.

In a lot of ways this changes nothing. That sounds wrong but it's true, my world is just set upright once again instead of being all tilty. I am still one piece of a soul that I have found two other parts to. I will still cultivate and grow those relationships and simply live the lesson he continually teaches me. Just live, let life take you where your going. Don't worry about the future you might not have one and you are probably worried for nothing. Just live.

That's what he taught me. It's so similar to a message that God gave my father years ago. Just be. I think, for a while at least I've gotten my head back on straight enough to remember what it's like to live that way.

The depression still presides. That's something I need to work through there is no doubt. I'm no longer as shattered as I was though.

Maybe I have been broken to some degree. I was bottling up things and storing them inside until I burst at the seams and just talked with him and he picked me up and put me together again. I'm not whole but the patches will hold for now.

Maybe that's the ending to my previous entry:

Love is picking up the pieces time and again, no matter how many times it takes. Love is working through the crap to find what works. Real true love is standing side by side on equal footing despite the differences of religion, background, and opinions. Love is just seeing what happens.

Questions...Doubts

Why can't I finish this thought? Why won't the words come to make this make sense? How can I counsel others so well and not be able to fix my own shit? I tell him what do we do if love isn't enough and he tells me we'll make it enough. How can you argue with that? Why would you want to? Why would anyone not want someone with them willing to go the distance? How do you tell them you're not sure if you can? I'm striving for something yet I don't know what that something might be. I know that I don't believe in the all consuming, firework type love. Maybe that's just because I've never known happiness but maybe it's also because it doesn't exist. So, how can I give up the closest thing I have to that, because he means the world to me. He's the strong one, that's the truth. I may be pulling him along ambition and dream wise but he pulls me together and pushes me to stand. I know we would both be okay on our own but are we better together? Are we better apart? I'm so confused. I don't know what I want, what's best for me. He would let me be and believe what ever I choose and I couldn't fault him for doing the same thing. But if those two things are so opposite where and how do I stand? How can I? Is it really that simple?

There are a lot of I statements here. Really that's what it comes down to it's my choice. I told someone today it wasn't just the fear of hurting them or being alone, it's the fear of regretting a decision. That's the fear that must be dealt with, can you make that choice and look back on it 5 days, weeks, months, or years from now and not regret it. If you can come to that place where you know you don't then the other two fears are relatively inconsequential. If you can find that place then you've come to the understanding that this is what's best for you and for them.

Shouldn't they be given a choice in all this though? Shouldn't they have a say in what's best for them? How do you give them that with out hurting them though? Should they be given the opportunity to prove you're wrong? What happens if you are wrong? What happens if your right? How do you proceed? How do you move forward?

All of these are questions I may never have an answer to. And if I should gain the answers I think I will be afraid to hear them. I'm not prepared.

Love (unfinished)

I need to redefine my definition of love. Love is still what happens. It is an action without true measure. What I must redefine is the love between you and your life partner or partners whatever the case may be. First, I must break a few ideas that have been poured into us all of our lives. True love does not mean that they are your everything that my friends is obsession. They are not supposed to complete you, you must be whole in and of your selves for this partnership to work successfully. That insane automatic attraction is a rush of chemicals and a rush of lust neither of which a real relationship can be built upon. You don't need to want to be with them always they just need to be the person you turn to in good times and bad who will stand with you and let you stand with them. Real love means loving people for their faults, quirks, and weaknesses.

Outpouring of My Soul

I feel a little out of place today. I'm not sure why but 'tis true.

In my darker days I feel alone though that is a strange feeling to have when I am the most connected I have ever been to anyone. I hurt those that get closer than arms length and I'm fighting every instinct not to do that again. I don't harm them physically I scar them emotionally by turning on them the moment they try to reach for more. I act indifferent and cool to those I have previously been so warm to. They don't understand and in the end become just as wary of letting people close as I and never want to try that again with me. Most of the time separating themselves completely from me.

Perhaps this is why I feel the lack of emotions, or the lack of being able to process them would be more accurate. They don't register inside me though I know the correct responses. I can't really explain it. Maybe it is just that I feel the depression more than I feel anything else so it overwhelms and contorts about me to make me not feel anything but the pain and sadness that I am wrapped in day in and day out despite the good things that happen.

When did I become depressed? I don't remember ever feeling anything. As far as I can remember I have always been in this state. Does that mean I have been depressed since I was a child? Obviously some periods of time were worse than others but could that time frame be right? How can anyone be so sad for so long? What could possibly have made a child like that? No my childhood was not normal; I was never truly a child. There were bad things that happened but does just that make the depression that I now know and am aware of in a suffocating way? I am detached from my moral compass, detached from my emotions, detached from the piece of every human that makes them so, detached from an understanding that makes you hope.

Perhaps that is the worst of all, for how can you keep living with out hope. What do you live for without it? How have I continued on and pressed forward without that base thing that all human hold so close to them? What am I if I am without hope? Can I truly be called human? I suppose I can what makes us human is our free will, the ability to make choices. But what good are those choices with out a hope that there is something bigger, better, more suited to our dreams. How do I have dreams without hope? Maybe I am not as fully disconnected from it as I think perhaps I feel more than is there. Can that be true? Can the constant disconnect be exacerbated by that suffocating pain?

Who and what am I? This is the question that we all live our lives trying to figure out. This is a journey question; one that leads us to new ones that define, shape, and mold us. Why does it feel like such a life and death question to me? These questions are make or break.

I'm so used to having to stand strong and be a pillar to all those around me. I told someone the truth the other night though, I want to be broken. I think that if I fall and shatter, the pieces that are picked up and patched together would be better than the person I am now. I want to struggle and fight and be broken by someone else's will. Then I want to find my strength again and be better for being broken in that way. My will has been test to it's limits so I'm unsure if anyone will ever push that far. I may be doomed to floatieness. For that is what I have learned to do; just float along with no reason or purpose but survival.

Do I have a survival instinct? You know the part of you that strives for self preservation. My previous wish of being broken seems to be counter to that. The way I enjoy pain seems to be opposite to that as well.

Yes, I enjoy pain it has been my constant throughout my life so instead of finding a way out I learned to make lemonade. It's a jaded and beautiful thing to find pleasure of all kinds in pain. Never fully from the pain of others mostly just in my own pain and twistedness. I'm a demented creature whatever I am. Still I am me and I'm unsure if I could ever exist any other way.

How do you break someone who walks about as a torn and tattered rag doll but still stands as if nothing is wrong? What would it take to break me? Love? More pain? Passion? Intensity? Weakness? Truth? Life? Death? Compassion? Hate? What can break a twisted thing? Is my wish impossible? Does anyone have the will to do so?

The one I thought would do it got farther than most but stopped trying when he felt he'd gotten far enough to really see me. He does see me but I'm still intact, the shell and distance remains.

I have taken another like me far in past that shell without question or thought. She is me. There are still layers separating us but they are far fewer than I have ever put between me and someone else. I am sure that with time even those will go just as quickly. There are somethings that only time can accomplish.

There is another who holds her and is held dear by her that could break me if he so wished for he is the one I told of my wish to be broken. I doubt he will though. I am a new friend to him with an attachment that I am as of yet unsure of because our friendship just sparked. He, in a different way, is me too. I keep wanting to write that I am nothing to him, but I am unsure of that statement because from what I can tell he seems to care to some extent. As I said though the friendship is new and relatively undeveloped.

I will be my own undoing though in the end and because it will be me breaking myself I don't know if I'll be able to find that strength again to patch the pieces and float again. Perhaps the two other pieces of me will be able to do the patching for me though.

It's such a strange thought to me to depend on others, I have forgotten how. I have taught myself not to because it never ends well. Just the thought makes me want to rebel, and push away, cut the ties. But it hurts to think of doing that because as I have stated I don't make clean cuts when I break away. I don't want them hurt, more so than usual. None of those that I have spoken of in this diatribe.

Paradox, that's what my friend called me. He had no idea how true that would become for me. I am as I have said many times the most extroverted introvert you will ever meet. I am the sweetest and the cruelest. The peacemaker prone to violence. I am the ambitious without purpose. I am the promise and the threat. There is no denying that. My dream job should have told me that. This is a horrible statement to make but I want to be a florist and an assassin. How opposite can you be? Well I am chaotic neutral after all.

Now after this pouring out of my soul you'd think I could move on or have some change happen because I suddenly realize how fucked up I am. Yeah, not happening. I will still float aimlessly across time until my breaking either by myself or someone else.

Perhaps I should end this dramatically though. Maybe, if I'm lucky, instead of having to pick up the pieces and find my strength again once I am broken, maybe this breaking will just kill me instead. Ha ha.

Sleepy Belief System Epiphany

I'm currently having an epiphany How could a being that never changes create a race that evolves and grows and adapts? Why wouldn't that being be capable of the same thing? Couldn't he change what he wants what he is willing to let us have and do and be depending on how we change and grow? Is it possible that homosexuality is like (to quote Lamb by Chris Moore) bacon? In that book Joshua (Jesus to us English speaking idiots) finds that the laws that the Jewish people have been living by are changing that his Father had really given them the laws they had as a guide for that time but he was a catalyst to change everything the knew and believed. Is it possible that God could do that again? Not send his son to die for us, He's completed that part, but could it be time for us to stop living by the old guide lines again? As I look back at most (if not all I need to do research) of the law that the Jews lived by it was beneficial to their heath or way of living in some way. Is it possible that the rules start changing as we become capable of dealing, as a race...rather species, with what before we couldn't handle?

The only thing I think doesn't change is the Ten Commandments...when and where did that add in no same sex couples? I see God telling us not to follow any one but Him (jealous and possessive much....I think so but He admits it so whatever). He says not to use His name in vain...personally that sounds like "Don't call on me just to whine about shit". Next up we're told to take a day off....OMG we actually have to rest and let everyone else rest too. Holy crap! We're supposed to honor our parents, which makes sense cause we'll heck those people put a roof over your head and food on the table why wouldn't you show your appreciation. (If we were all taught this crap and lived by it maybe there wouldn't be people that can find exception to that.) Now, we get to the good stuff, no murdering, not adultery, no stealing, no lying about something you supposedly saw someone else do (fucking rumormongers), and no coveting. That's all, those ten thing and we're good, if it isn't in there I think it's subject to change as He sees fit.

I think the first five books of the Bible are the part we're supposed to live by and keep, the rest is there so we can know how stuff changed what brought us here to this point so that we can know that when things start to change again we'll know we can make it through, that this too shall pass. People aren't ready to here this yet, Christians may never be ready for this. I equate them to the Sanhedrin of Joshua's day, stuck to the rules and laws of the past because that's what we've done for the past thousand years so it should keep being true now. Wrong! As I've stated before we grow we change as a species we become more adaptive. Why don't we do it again, why don't we adapt and change to our new world? That sound blasphemous doesn't it? Isn't that what they said Joshua was? He was a revolutionary, a visionary. God had to send His son because well Joshua had to die as the final sacrifice for there to be a shift then and I think everyone else would have been too scared to make people make the shift to even suggest it would have been madness. John the Baptist did it though he prepared the way for Joshua to say "Fuck what those stuck up snobs have been telling you all your life and follow what I'm saying because change is coming." There were so many changes then too that it had to be someone really important for anyone to accept.

For years I've been hear that change is on the way and I don't think it means what all the "Faith" preachers have been thinking it means. I know that I've hit on the fact that this includes homosexuality a lot but its the main issue I really see changing right now I honestly believe that God has lifted that ban for this day and age. We're more equipped to handle the things that come with same sex couples now. The health and life complication that come with having that community including those who would over indulge. I don't think God ever condemned someone who was in the past to Hell by any means. I mean I'm sure not every Jew could resist the smell of Bacon all the time and He accepted them as long as they worshiped and loved Him. Our medicines and the knowledge we were gaining at the time helped them deal with the over indulgent gluttonous bastards so God said "Have a pig feast if ya like."

Heck, you don't even have to be a Jew since Joshua's time and I don't think God condemned all of those people who weren't Jewish before His son was here. Just like now I believe God doesn't condemn someone that has never read the Bible as long as they have some sense of Him and what is right and wrong (see ten commandments.) why should He?

The other issue that I believe needs to change is the science vs. religion debate. Fuck, people God gave us science so we could grow and learn and so He could change shit up on us. I'm about to break your brains: Evolution and Creationism can work together. We don't know what happened back then only what has happened since but we can see that we have become different from what we used to be. Our world and the way it works has changed just as it is now. The poles are shifting and the climates are changing. We don't know what animals God originally put here or what our original ancestors Adam and Eve looked like. They probably weren't human in the sense we think of humans except having a bone structure including ribs because that's all we know of them.

God originally created perfection, but maybe that was the first time He used Lucifer as a instrument of his plans. He was the first sacrifice that we know of in these phases that the world is supposed to go through. Come on people haven't you ever questioned how a being without free will suddenly defies his maker? And He couldn't let that sacrifice go unrewarded so he sent another third of his angels with Lucifer so he'd never be alone. Never was Lucifer's ability to make music taken away. He is a loving God after all why would He strip one who had given so much up for Him of everything. Evil had to be introduced into the world for Good to abound. There is no light without the darkness. Why would God have put the tree there in the first place if it wasn't just another catalyst to make the first shift humans would have to go through. We don't know how long they lived in that perfect garden or when the tree was created and grew within. All we know is that perfect world was changed and entropy and evolution began then in earnest. Eve didn't sin first Cain did, she was just the second catalyst in our history spurned on by our first. What was done though was against the law at the time though and had to be punished just like Lucifer before her, just like Joshua after them perhaps this is why he asked if he had been forsaken. By committing an act against God's never changing rules Cain "sinned" and is the original "sinner". First he coveted the love and gentleness Able had then he murdered him. Both acts are against the ten commandment, though they were not set in stone at the time I'm sure they were a work in progress for God. He probably had to watch and see what happened first and see where His boundaries lied before saying "No, you can't do these things ever, eventually I'll let you do these things."

God after all, I believe, is a scientist. He sets up, experiments, watches, sets controls, introduces new variables, and is very protective of His project. Ah, the meaning of life, we're on big science experiment for an infinite being. We're not the first, we won't be His last but I believe we are His favorite or He wouldn't have allowed Joshua to become one of us and to die just to be one of our catalyst if not. Joshua must have been very adventurous to want the human experience as well.

I find it interesting that one of the things that the ten commandments also doesn't address that we've heard Christians preach about time and time again is sex before marriage. I jump to this topic for two reasons. One, it goes along with my if we are physically (health wise) and socially (life style wise) capable of handling something, even when it's over indulged in, that was banned before God lifts said ban at some point and says "Have at." Secondly, (and another brain break is imminent here) Joshua was perfect, as in he never sinned, I believe that means he never broke one of the ten commandments. Saying that, Joshua could have had sex, been married, the whole shebang. Heck, and this is really gonna make your brain hurt, Joshua could have had a "gay" lover. I know, I know, now you have to burn me at the stake or something equally as awful but it stands to reason that he still would have been living a life without "sin" and have done these things. Just because they weren't written about at the time doesn't mean it didn't happen. In all likelihood it is just one of those things that we wouldn't have been able to handle it at the time. I mean come on, we can eat bacon, not be a Jew, count women as equals and God still loves us types of changes are happening at the time, though the women part takes a while to really set in, we're in change overload. No way we could have handled all of that. Obviously God keeps His secrets too but as the scientist controlling the whole thing I guess that makes sense.

I'm about to step on more then just Christian toes now, but couldn't have God have created many different religions and showed Himself to many different people in the way they would accept it. I think that statement goes back to what I said about God accepting people who hadn't read the Bible or who weren't Jews. The Jew just happened to be the people who could accept God head on without an image of what He looked like or who he was, they were the ones who could deal with the change when the catalyst of Joshua came along. He showed himself to other people as the spirits of the earth, through prophets (visionaries) like Gandhi, Muhammad, Confucius and so many more through out our histories, as our ancestors watching over us, and I'm sure there are other ways but all of them where how the people at the time could accept Him and would worship and love Him as He requires of all of us. The same restrictions apply to us all the Ten commandments are just the version I am familiar with I know that the core a base beliefs are all roughly the same in every religion though. They all basically boil down to this, love God and respect each other. What's so hard about that to understand?