This is a Gather forum for discussing religion and spirituality. Sharing our spiritual beliefs is one small step towards building a better world.
This ongoing discussion began in June, 2008 with the publication of the Losing Your Religion Series.
The discussion rules are the same as on earlier posts:
1. Share your spiritual and religious beliefs in this moderated atmosphere, but respect the beliefs of other participants.
2. LISTEN carefully and try to see other participants' points of view, no matter how different from your own.
3. Please don't "preach" or attempt to convert anyone else to your viewpoint.
Moderators, WM (Bill) H., and Ann M.
Episode 126
Photo Credits: Thanks to Boris G. for keeping this series supplied with great images.
This article is condensed from:
Why Do More Women Than Men Still Believe in God?
Posted: Monday, October 12, 2009 8:01am
Professors at Trinity College in Connecticut analyzed the numbers of Americans unaffiliated to any religion. While the number of male nonbelievers was rocketing, the overall totals were slowed by women hitching themselves to the anchor of faith: “Gender difference is a brake on the growth of the No Religion population,” says the study, which found that 19 percent of men were no longer denizens of a religious America, while only 12 percent of women live outside the faithful fold.
In…..studies going back as far as he can remember have shown this discrepancy, and reaching back into history, even prehistory, we find the same story. And yet, major religions….have always favored men. Some investigators locate the engine of belief in our very brain chemistry, and find the female brain far more apt to sense the divine
[E]ven when men and women had the same response in the brain, women were more apt to attribute it to something divine ….
Some researchers hypothesize that women are hardwired to believe because of evolutionary imperatives. Belief in God—…—has long been connected with tribal ritual, and formed the center of communities. Women relied on these communities for the survival of their children, while men were off spearing buffalo, pillaging neighboring settlements—
Elisabeth Cornwell, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Colorado, wrote about how disbelief has always represented rebellion and nonconformity, which meant exclusion from the group—in other words, social suicide for a girl.
[W]omen explain their belief in “emotional” terms while men express “rational” bases for belief. [H]e sees religiosity as synonymous with conventionality, which women have long been under the yoke to preserve. Women's association of conformity with survival traverses the disciplines when researchers agonize about our greater piety.
Whatever the explanation, social scientists are baffled by women sticking to faith in such great numbers. Says Ariela Keysar, women are the ones who usually inculcate their own daughters in religion, despite what little power it offers them. “It's this chain of assigning roles—men don't have it in the same way,” she says.
Ophelia Benson writes,“Religion doesn't originate ideas about female subordination and male authority, but it does justify them.”
The complete article can be found here:
http://www.doublex.com/section/life/why-do-more-women-men-still-believe-god
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Comments: 485
Here is a link to the previous episode
(For the "atheist males"; I have no doubt that the vast majority of Wiccans are women.)
For the male, typical of most, to relate to another male on any level other than as a pal, friend, or an "underling" ... becomes a challenge to the ego ... possibly seen as tendencies towards homophobia if other than violent ... can't have the latter, wouldn't "look good" to the peers. :-)
Jerry,
This is unnecessarily provocative and unfair to Berf. She is a thoughtful contributor.
Bill
Ann M. (Site Scryer) Oct 15, 2009, 10:09am EDT: This thread will be closing shortly-- please move your conversations over to the new one.
Jerry Kays Oct 14, 2009, 3:04am EDT : And before we end this thread, it needs to be said, that Slim, you have the makings of a beginning religion in your philosophy around "critical thought". It has probably already been taken, but you could call it Fundamental Rationalism ... or Anti-Everything Else-ism ... Slim-ism ??? :-)
Ann M. (Site Scryer) Oct 15, 2009, 10:23am EDT : Jerry, that was uncalled for. I personally rely on Slim to check the logic of what I say here.
Atheism may replace religion, but it's not a religion. (I think the term you're looking for is "secular humanism.")
Ann, I think that your reprimand was uncalled for. First off, Slim and I have a history of dissenting views ... and as far as I know, we honor each others views.
My comment to him was not a "personal slam", there was a smiley face :-) associated with the message ... a message that further conversation might have explained as what Slim has in common with religions, is many and varied "quotations" from sources related to "his philosophy" related to Logic, Rationality, Argumentation Absurdism, or a host of others often quoted from other sources ... it all just happens to differ from religious quotations in that is is fundamentally the opposite of them ... maybe I should have placed an "ir" in front of "religious" to be more accurate in his case ... which isn't a whole lot different than my own ... IMnsHO.
(more to follow as promised)
In the above mentioned comment to Berf, I also had a question mark (?) as well as a smiley face :-) ... maybe you should re-read that a bit closer.
I feel that I also contribute to LYR ... maybe you two, Ann and Bill, (and most likely many others) feel that I may be doing so "too much" ... thus the reason for "getting on my case" here twice in a matter of hours ... either that or just flexing your moderator muscles ... will I be "kicked off" for not showing you guys enough "respect" now?
Ferosh, a valid and important observation ... I agree with you 100% ... and had I kept on writing I would have probably addressed that also.
Males, in being predominately "Left Brained" are more "aggressive" in seeking power and control over others in defense of their egos ... they see things feminine and things emotional (Right Brain traits) as a threat to their ego perception, thus they frown on such and gravitate to using physical strength and mental certitude to solve all perceived problems ... again, just "generalities" here ...
As to why they do not seek a "Female Divinity" comparable to my view as to why women seek a Male Divinity, is because to seek any Divinity goes beyond their cherished ego perceptions ... besides there being no comparable such Divinity equivalent to Jesus Christ ... unless it is Mother Mary and most of us know what those beliefs have gotten us over the ages with the violence of Patriarchy ...
If one were to read more of what I write, they would find that I believe GOD (not God or gods) is "neutral", neither a He or a She ... and that is why that during my own "Spiritual Awakening" I communicated to Spirit with the question; "" are you not female in essence in that you complete the "other half" of my physical maleness making us together "Neutral" also "" ... the answer came back in the affirmative ...
One of the first things that stands our in the polls that research these kinds of questions is the association of an ability to use one's mind critically with one's exposure to "the outside world"...the interaction with others (men have, until recent years, been the ones to bring home the bacon so to speak...to leave the home or the village and interact with others outside of the somewhat confined circumstance of house tending and rearing children. Another consideration is that of education. The polls show that the more education one receives..the less prone to superstition. (The survey also indicated that women are more likely than men to hold both Christian and non-Christian beliefs. Blacks are more likely than whites and Hispanics to hold Christian beliefs, as are Republicans. The level of belief generally is highest among people without a college education and lowest among those with postgraduate degrees.)
Another factor is age. The older a person is, the less likely he is to believe in superstitions. This is, I believe, a result of the education one receives as he ages...the act of living is educational.
There are many factors that contribute to the differences in the way men and women think or how they each evaluate and solve problems. In the matter of faith...I believe the circumstances of evolution has favored man as far as the employment of logic is concerned. The circumstances are rapidly changing however, and the role of the woman is most drastically being impacted by these changes. The role of the woman has changed more in the last 50 years than in all of the preceding history of mankind.
It is a very interesting article...but I do believe that very few questions are answered that don't open the door to more questions.
I think religion IS a superstition Jerry. I think that spirituality and religion differ.
The concepts "religion" and "superstition" are not synonyms.
If it is cloudy, perhaps that is an "omen" that it will rain.
Therefore, meteorologists are superstitious! (laughter)
I'm so glad you brought this up. A while back, when we were discussing the belief of Creationism VS. Evolution, I brought up a study that showed a connection between a person's intelligence(combined with some higher education, no doubt) and their religious beliefs.... specifically creationism or evolution.... and it showed( although somewhat flawed, as it is impossible to determine completely how smart a person is) that the more 'educated' a person was, the less likely he was to believe in creation.
In relation to men and women, I think the fact that women were denied education for so long has been a contributing factor in the huge numbers of 'believers' amongst women.
However, something I'd like to mention, and this is just my opinion, but being a woman, I think I have a little something to offer from my own experience.......
Ever hear of 'Women's Intuition'? To hear of it, one calls to mind witchery, superstition, and plain old wishful thinking.... but as a woman, I have experienced it, and cannot deny its existence, as well as its truth... sometimes, to my own dismay.... some things I just never wanted to know, but I knew anyway. Women's intuition is not a 'hunch', although many would have you believe that it is, and on a logical plane, I might agree, because there is no physical evidence of what it is 'telling' you. I believe women are more sensitive to the 6th sense. This is no phenomena, this is not magic, and I'm sure there is some very logical, biological explanation for how we know certain things without really 'knowing' them. All I know is that I 'know' certain things... I 'feel' them without having to experience them.
I also am aware of the power of suggestion and influence, and in the absence of contradiction, how easy it is to just 'go with the flow', and do what you need to do to get through life. Some want to label this as a female trait, but females these days are getting pretty ballsy and want answers. I am one of them.
I cannot tell you whether I believe in a higher power, or if I believe in nothing predetermined.... I know I WANT to believe in a higher power, just like most little girls want to believe in a Knight in shining armor and a glass slipper...... and I do not make that analogy lightly... but I am fully prepared to find out that a higher power does not exist.
Men(as far as I know, feel free to enlighten me at any point) may or may not believe in a higher power, but how many men WANT to believe in one, and how many men WANT to be that Knight in shining armor? I'm not saying you have to want to be a prince in a Disney story to want to believe in a higher power, but I'm curious what the ratio is?
And why is it, when given the same amount of education(whether the education is through school, or life) are men more likely than women, to be atheist? Again, I go back to the intuition thing. I simply believe that women are more in tune with what's going on around them in a broader sense. I guess this means that I somehow believe in a higher power, but it doesn't mean that I have faith in religion.
When as a teenager I was dating the person that would become my wife (and still is for over 50 years now), I was always more than happy to be seen as her "savior man" in that I could do so many things that she could not (or at least she didn't think "then" that she could) ... it made me feel special, even great, to be so looked up to and honored by her ... of course she was the epitome of what I sought then in a female mate also ... that was then, and for many years also ... but ...
The older I got the less I liked to be the "John Wayne Big Man Hero", it was a "role" too demanding of what I was really all about down deep inside ... I didn't have all of the answers nor all of the abilities to play that role, I had only been fooling myself and I assumed at the time, others, into a belief that I was close to such traits ...
I knew that I had vulnerabilities, even "feminine weakness's", emotional feelings buried deep inside that I so wanted to let out and just be the "natural self" that I longed for ...
All of those thoughts and feelings eventually contributed to my mid-life crisis/depression ... and my eventual Spiritual Awakening that solved all previous perceived "problems" ... giving me finally, "The Truth that Set me Free" ... free to just be the true me !
I'm certainly not attempting to neutralize real differences out of any political sentiment. It's clear, for example, that most men have more muscle strength than most women, and it would be ridiculous to deny this. Almost the same difference exists for things like affinity with machines for men, or the ability to soothe young children for women. Nobody writes bestsellers about these, because they're so obvious, nor are they very surprising things, considering our biology and evolutionary past. The data gets a lot weaker when we get to logic and intuition and all those favorites of pop science.
Here's one case to show how emphasizing the differences sells--the blurb that women speak three times as many words in a day as men (20,000 to 7,000) was being widely copied from one popular book and magazine to the other a few years ago, and people ate it up, since it conformed to their stereotypes. The source of that data has never been found (as far as I know), and actual research got very different results. But such boring results don't get the same kind of attention...
How can the Spirit enter one effectively if one resists?
This is why it is said in psychological circles that a man must integrate the "woman" within to be whole, and that the woman must integrate the "man" within to be whole or complete.
It is advantageous for logic and intuition to be in balance, or, at least in harmony with one another.
"As it is above, so it is below."
A whole or "holy" person has a power not available to a person who is divided, or, incomplete. The highest union possible, and, the one with the most power, which transcends all other known powers inherent in conflict, is that of the power between the soul of an individual and God, the soul's Source.
This power ushers in the proverbial "kingdom" to be shared with others.
Never underestimate the power of the feminine....especially when she has found her ultimate Lover!
Trinity (+=-) trends towards Spiritual Unity where opposites cooperate to solve mutual problems via their diverse differences which are GOD given "natural" opposites ... used properly resulting in a creative Synergy. (+=-) where Spirit is the (=).
Even if women claim not to believe in a "god" per say, they are still more likely than men to be "spiritual".
Most people have accepted that claim because they do not yet know the difference, which is often substantial, even 180 degrees different on many issues.
Religion, as most know it, has been a "man-made concoction", a dogmatised creed designed and defined by men ... women are there told to be subservient to those very same men ... when women come to know better and transcend such, they then become spiritual in the truest generic sense. IMnsHO.
I believe there's the big difference that believers in religions and God see that there's someone/something outside who serves as the Superego whereas those who are spiritual but don't subscribe to God have dispensed with that notion and believe they are masters of their own ships, so to speak. In both camps, the common denominator is the embracing of spiritual values. I believe spiritually minded/hearted people are more independent thinkers who generally find answers through their own thinking whereas religious believers usually subscribe to dogma and doctrine, wouldn't you say, Kris?
Could it be that you do not want to admit what you find so similar and common between the two ? As an avowed (and seemingly proud) Atheist, maybe you have a completely different perception and axe to grind than I do as a spiritual person ... (?)
I agree with an experience of one sort another also being a closing of the mind to some. It does lead to a judgemental attitude when it is combined with errant beliefs or a false dogma. Sometimes it is helpful to lead someone to a suspension of judgement.
Hi Dano ... I take my writing down it is kinda like changing moods ....... change my names too although in reality I am Lady Raven Spirit named by my dear fried Shadow Wolf. I have written about the relationship between the Wolf and the Raven.
And in the immortal words of Norm, from "Cheers" vintage, most of us are wearing milk bone underwear...
Wouldn't you agree that behavior and attitudes is a good measure of spirituality, with very little wiggle room allowed?
I think there is probably a fairly simple, two-part explanation for all of this. First, women are more aware of and willing to express emotion because it is still less acceptable for men to express emotion. I think that the experience of the numinous is very common, and not especially sex-linked, but reactions to that experience are sex-linked. Women are allowed to treat their emotions as important, and so they don't discount such an experience as men often do. (fwiw, I don't think our -- men's vs. women's -- brains are greatly different, but I do think we are taught to use them differently.)
And the second part of the explanation was well-expressed by Sam Harris (iirc) in the Four Horsemen discussion. (available at http://richarddawkins.net/article,2025,THE-FOUR-HORSEMEN,Discussions-With-Richard-Dawkins-Episode-1-RDFRS) We have no non-supernatural language for the experience of the numinous, except for specialist neuro-gibberish that no one else uses. Therefore, anyone who has such an experience, and who doesn't discount it, will naturally gravitate to one or another religious tradition.
My 2-cents-worth, anyway...
Shira
Biologically we are born male or female, a binary function. Society tends to treat masculinity and femininity as binary functions as well even though there is ample evidence, with more coming all the time, that masculinity and femininity are more analog in nature. These ideals represent poles of a continuum with most of us lying somewhere in between.
If a person identifies with the male, for example, there is a continuum of manifestation for this, as Bill has pointed out--from homosexuality to gender dysphoria or transsexualism, know as being "transgendered" in today's jargon.
I have always had a male's analytical mind, but I'm inherently female. The best I can tell you is that I'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body. lol Seriously. This has pros and cons, just like everything else.
I hate shopping. This doesn't mean I won't go shopping, it just means that when I do, it is out of necessity, and when I go, if I find something that compels me, I MIGHT buy it. I tend to buy infrequent, high-dollar items, and I don't splurge on fashion(much) or accessories. I also do not waste time when I shop. I go, I get what I need, I will not 'wander around and look' unless I think I need something else. I also like to work. I love children, and I love my own children, but I understand a man's need to get away and work outside of the home.... of course I don't see this as having to be a 'male' trait, but apparently society has labeled it as such, and if you're a female and you have those tendencies, then you are selfish or gay. When my ex-husband and I were about to be divorced, and we went to marriage counseling as a last ditch effort, even the counselor said, "you do realize that you two have total role reversal in your marriage, right?" which did not occur to me until he said it.... and then it all made perfect sense.
It's true that when we break human populations into two groups, we often find statistical differences between the groups, and it's true that with the groups "men" and "women", these statistical differences tend to be consistent. What they do not tend to be is anything you could call large.
"...says the study, which found that 19 percent of men were no longer denizens of a religious America, while only 12 percent of women live outside the faithful fold."
7%. Does that really justify using phrases like "the number of male nonbelievers was rocketing" while "women [were] hitching themselves to the anchor of faith"?
Because of the consistent nature of such statistical findings about men and women, the why questions are legitimate and the evolutionary explanations promising. But given those explanations, what's really surprising, what's an important truth about us as humans, is that the differences between men and women are that small (while there are huge differences between individuals). Yet that is hardly ever what is emphasized in popular books and articles. Instead, people get the impression that "women are like this" and "men are like that" are meaningful statements from which valid predictions can be made about the behavior of individual men and women.
(I'm not saying that's happening here--I'm describing this Mars/Venus pop science phenomenon in general.)
In other words, it is only the plumbing that truly establishes the "difference" between man and woman, i.e. male and female!
But my main point about logic and intuition (which get mapped onto the male and female categories with habandon--again, based on statistical differences worth a few percentage points) was that I've seen no evidence that they're zero-sum (in other words, that having more of one means you have less of the other), yet this is often implicitly assumed when people set them up as a dichotomy.
You're quite right about the effect of cultural development on gender roles, of course. It's also true that individual differences and choosing one's own path in life are valued more in modern societies. In traditional societies, the family you were born into frequently determined your whole life for you, from the person you would marry to what your trade or status would be.
Ben....I agree with your remark about plumbing. I have read it before. It makes sense, but I do not think that one can be positive about this until one dies or has a n NDE. Or of course unless one is fully enlightened and I have never met anyone who was [fully enlightened that is].
I think it began before the women's movement, Liz--the women's movement itself was a result of centuries of slow but steady development.
I also don't think it's women's nature that changed. We're simply allowed to be ourselves while we weren't before. (And the same is true for men. Much of this has to do with how much easier life has become, I think--all the time we have left after we take care of the needs of everyday living. Also, with the diversification of society, and the many different ways you can make a living.)
Some are cleverly designed and require careful thought to implement and are totally useless.
People seem to have a drive to classify. I like feeling like I know what's going on even though I probably don't.
IMnsHO.
RIGHT
Good, pure and sacred
Life, medicine and health
Heaven
Masculinity
Activity
The sun
Daylight
Summer
Joy
Consciousness
LEFT
Evil, impure and profane
Death, poison and sickness
Hell
Femininity
Passivity
The moon
Darkness
Winter
Sorrow
Unconsciousness
(from Archetypes: A Natural History of the Self by Dr. Anthony Stevens)
Also, remember that "right" and "left" are of equal value depending on what is needed at a given time. For example, the darkness of the womb is essential to the gestation of a child.
But, yes, because we have cravings and remain divided in our thinking, some world religions do not see the value in the "left." The result is the desire to destroy anything coming from the "left."
Both must be "wedded" together by Wisdom if we really value lasting peace, both inwardly and outwardly.
Liz, both sexes who study the nature of "archetypes" have accepted this division which appears, not only on a conscious level but also in dreams.
Jerry, until the "Christian Right" integrates its shadow, instead of projecting it upon others, it will continue to stumble...
For a thorough investigation of the concept of archetypes, I can highly recommend any writings of Carl G. Jung. He can help you better with your concerns than I can.
The moon, for example, is assigned as feminine in your quote, and the sun as masculine, because that's how they're seen in Greek and Latin-based cultures. But for other cultures, it's the other way around, or they're genderless. (Germanic cultures have it the other way around, and English, despite the massive influence of Latin and the classical heritage, retains the "Old Man in the Moon" motif.) "Health" and "Medicine" was associated with women in many cultures before the advent of scientific medicine (which, until recently, was dominated by men). Winter is an old man in practically all European folk traditions I know... and the list goes on.
We seem to have a desire to plug everything into one big dichotomy that explains it all, but the data doesn't cooperate.
We can study a dynamic, and make our studies useful to others, but there will always be paradoxes (and Murphy's Law) that will trip us up!
Again, a thorough reading of Jung's work may clear up some of your concerns. I cannot possibly cover what he has said on this thread.
I can tell you that he has helped me immensely over the years.
Thus we have come to think that we can separate everything into good and bad, destroy the bad and live happily ever after (heaven) ... f course all the bad goes where it deserves to be, (hell) ... according to such polarized thinking.
And you all know by now what I offer for the solution, so I won't go into that ...
But I will defend the pointing out of (the "mapping") the "supposed" dichotomies as a means of showing the entire range, the "playing field", of what needs to be considered ... and the problem comes only from separative judgmentalisms around valuations already mentioned.
is the fact that life, as a material reality, could not exist without conflict. The "divine conflict" is necessary in order that a Mystery be completed on a material level. The experiential universe depends upon matter.
The Life which the many Messengers of Light have offered us, is one of the redeemed soul-- a soul who knows her Source before matter (her body) came into being. This knowledge liberates a soul because she no longer identifies with the impermanence of the material world. She is free to "go" to her Source even before she "leaves" the body of matter.
The trick is to capture one's true identity despite the conflict.
The kind of "mapping" I called unjustified is forcing the many pairs to line up into a single dichotomy, by saying "masculine" goes with "right" goes with "up" goes with "logic" goes with "day" goes with "summer" etc. ad infinitum. I see no justification for the "goes with" statements, other than our desire to end up with something extremely simple and thus comforting.
The mapping of archetypal material is not arbitrary. It is derived from the intensive study of dreams and the personal waking experience in relation to those dreams. The symbolic messages in dreams are both of a universal or collective nature, and, of a very individual, personal nature.
If you would like to investigate the meaning of archetypes and their relevance to the dream life and its pertinence to our waking life, I can recommend, again, anything by Carl Jung, but in particular concerning your comments, this text: Dreams, by Jung, translation by R.F.C. Hull.
One more note: The mapping is not done to promote comfort. It is done to promote spiritual or psychological wholeness or health. If we feel "comfortable" about our analysis, so be it. Most of what Jung has done to promote understanding of the pscyhe has been corroborated by ancient symbolism in religious antiquity ( such as the Kabbalah), mythology, medicine, the arts, physics, alchemy, and, mysticism.
Aniko, if you decide to investigate this subject thoroughly, you may find more complexity than you may anticipate. The dynamic in a quaternity of archetypes, for example, appears to be simple enough, but the living relationship amongst all elements can be mind boggling.
Our prejudices, our cognitive errors are also part of the collective unconscious, and when our beliefs and reality collide, a lot of harm can be done. If those beliefs, instead of being individual beliefs, are hard-wired into our brains, the harm is even greater. We have to be able to look at reality, and when the data doesn't support our prejudices (as with all the things assigned to the the male-female dichotomy), we need to go with reality. There's no way to be fair, or kind, or loving, or in fact achieve what our objectives are, without doing that.
(I noticed your recommendation the first time, Ben, and the second time, too. I understand Jung has helped you a great deal, and you're trying to share this with others. But as I told you before--everyone is not the same, and everyone is not even looking for the same things. It's possible for me to read the same text as you and come to different conclusions. My comments about Jung's style were based on sections of Dreams.)
...something we all can learn from! Thank you, Aniko.
Good and bad are not "necessarily" synonymous with light and dark ... or vice versa.
It is only after we have become fully conscious of what we project, that we can find a unity with its opposite, provided we make it our own by psychological integration.
Consciousness is required for both the discernment of opposites, and, the unification of them, as Aniko has noted. However, I disagree that it is common to unify them. For the world, and individuals, are filled with unresolved conflict that threatens our very existence.
Many of us here, are battling with these ideas because many of them are not integrated into our psyches as a functional whole.
I haven't read much of Jung's work, Ben. I've read a little, is what I was saying. :-)
(I wasn't talking about the unification of opposites--that's your line. I was talking about the perception of continua instead of polar opposites to begin with. I meant a continuous awareness of that "unity", and of the fact that [false] dichotomies might be useful models for some purposes, but they are simplifications and they can dangerously distort our understanding of the world if we forget about their limitations and hold them as sacred.)
The "feminine" could have been assigned to the ''right" archetype. Then I suppose the males on this thread would go running in tears because they had been "slighted," not realizing that they also carry feminine attributes along with every other attribute characteristic of each archetype!
If any of us is offended by the dichotomy apparent in those archetypes of left and right, perhaps it would be well to ask why. Are they not politically correct?
Both male and female forms have within them both left and right archetypal material. This is NOT a sex issue. But the world has deluded many of us into thinking that way.
Oct 15, 2009, 8:08pm EDT
One thing I would like to focus on, however, is this whole notion of men "getting in touch" with their feminine side and women "getting in touch" with their masculine side........
To put it simply and bluntly:
"Who says we have sides??"
I prefer the company of men, and my few female friends are very analytical.
No, not at all........
Men have "maleness" and women have "feminineness"...........
Or, to say it more simply, in proper English:
"Men are men and women are women."
They're just not as......as.......uh......"tata-ish".........
But in the world of Spirit, the reality is regeneration, that is, a movement toward a restoration, unity, or, "oneness" of Spirit.
And so it is advantageous NOT to identify so completely with the body of matter, for it is temporary, and generated for transitory, although useful, purposes.
To identify with Spirit, then, is to know one's true essencewhich never dies nor changes.
Eventually, "the world is a corpse." Take delight in the world, but be prepared to leave it, precious souls!
Perhaps we need not worry so much about analyzing and just lean back and enjoy it. (Even good sex can be ruined by too much analysis! (more laughter)
Analyzing things, of course, is another one of those things that comes to us naturally. (as much laughter as you want)
"Well, my intuition tells me that, logically, people should have no problems understanding that men and women are, in many ways, not the same...... "
If ignorance is bliss, how come there aren't more happy people?
Women invest so much attention and money on makeup but it all gets cancelled by the unpleasant expressions people walk around with. A smile goes a long way to make you look good, ladies (and gents)!
Intuition: I do not believe it is necessarily predominant in women than men, only that women tend to be more sensitive many times. That sense of just knowing is unexplainable as well, so less often is it discussed.
Women turning to religion or staying with their religious beliefs, I believe is the turn towards maternal nature and passing your beliefs on to your children. I don't have that consideration, since I don't have kids, but that is the trend that I see.
Ben will you please put a shirt on. No not the brown one. Just kidding, you do make a first impression.
Are you dismissing that each have aspects of the other gender, those with one of the other would be rather caricaturish, IMO. Even hormonally, women have a testoserone level and men some estrogen, no?
Namaste!
Re: your above comment to Berf, "Men are men and women are women."
Both men and women share the same hormones, but they're distributed differently. Sometimes a fluctuation in one direction or the other produces women with higher sex drives, and men with 'tatas'(yes, Berf, here's your man tatas).... some men have even gotten breast cancer. This only gives them aspects of the opposite sex, but it doesn't take away from their own.
I must be an exception to the "rule" though, because I very much prefer the smaller and more natural "tatas" ... now if I still don't know what they are, then I may really sound weird. :-)
(Since LYR is on family settings, I should add NPR's "the following program mentions the existence of sex" warning to that link, amended with an "explicit pictures of non-human primates" flag.)
((The article credits Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape, which is indeed where I first read about this. If anyone wanted to blame someone for my fascination with what evolutionary biology says about humans, Morris is the one they'd have to blame. I remember sitting in the library of the British Council in Budapest one afternoon and reading that book cover to cover.))
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all ideation and "spirituality" from a psychoanalytic perspective has its locus in brain function. Even the "collective unconscious" is sort of an inheritance that has its seat in the evolved brains of individual humans.
I think so, but I'm not sure that Jung did. From Wikipedia:
"Collective unconscious, sometimes known as collective subconscious, is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a society, humanity and all life forms, that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality."
It's all subject to empirical inquiry, which is gradually revealing the details of brain function--memory, imaging centers, comparators, neural networks that relate right and left brain function, and so forth.
Jung considered the collective unconscious "the product of ancestral experience," shared by all life forms. Perhaps he meant instincts, but perhaps is referring to something supernatural-- a collective memory.
It's not to say that attempts to describe the operation of complex systems, absent empirical data, are not useful; only that they are replaced when the science becomes available. It's a "Jung of the gaps" comment, I guess one could say.
Some of the best use of Jungian psychology is in personality theory and in dream interpretation. I think personality is "subject to empirical inquiry" in that it is largely inborn and therefore partly dependent on brain structure.
Dream interpretation will be more difficult to investigate, but I think it can be studied in the same way that instincts are studied in animals. (For instance, most bird species possess an inborn hawk "archetype." Passing a hawk silhouette over newly-hatched game birds causes them to crouch and freeze).
Campbell's reply (a close paraphrase): "I suspect that we will have such a marvelous time looking at God that nothing else will matter."
That is, of course, a place where I can be corrected. I saw it as something that is only found by peering into individual minds and noting that they are in one way or another "synchronized" through the bringing forward of elements of memory through generations. There are a few other commenters that know much more about Jung's work than I do, including you.
I'm not too surprised about Dawkins' opinion. In this case I'm on Dawkins' side. I'm on Campbell's side too. Can I do that?
I was was mystified when people started calling me an atheist, because I share many of the beliefs and perspectives of Jung and Campbell (With the caveat that I will consider a supernatural explanation only if there is no natural (rational or scientific) one).
Jung's greatest gift was that he saw clearly into his unconscious mind. Although he analyzed much of what he saw, I think that, in a way, he was collecting raw data that others are also free to analyze.
(I look forward to the publication this month of his long-secret "Red Book," about his innermost dreams and fantasies).
Though he's quoted as saying "I don't believe, I know", I can see where the above is also true of him and I can identify with that kind of indetermination, being like that myself. I think it's possible to be somewhat sure of things and still be looking for further information, ever ready to refine answers and thinking. It's not over till it's over, IMO.