Ender

Fair enough! Generalizations are the disease of philosophers with an addiction to metaphysical presence. Sometimes i think elevating the matters of sentimentaly over truth in diplomacy is a liberal invention to counteract the traditional hierarchical values of patriarchy.

Walrus

Whenever you feel like engaging in a conversation that includes reciprocity, instead of flattering the opposition with imitation, let me know. Otherwise my predictions will always remain factually correct!

~theothanatologist~

WJ

ender!

Just curious, is it a fact that both men and women share their genetic makeup? If so, your concerns seem to be really relevent to the dichotomy of human nature. Afterall, I could be a girl in a man's body. You could be a boy in a woman's body. What do you think?

Wally

Karen M

Hello Ender


>>>Women confuse thinking with feeling. In general they think truth is an irrelevant trivality that serves as the stumbling block for men.<<<

Though most women tend to cry more and such, men are the ones most likely to go get drunk and then beat their wives half to death when they do something they don't like. Men are more likely to have testosterone induced aggressiveness or anger which makes them make decisions they may regret later.

I agree that emotionalism from being the more oppressed group in society could be part of what drives women and africans to be more religious, but men and other races are not immune from emotions[though these emotions would lead them in different directions as they are not the oppressed group].

I also noticed that this thread seems to assume that theists are stupid or illogical. That is not necessarily true. Brain structure can be a large modivation for or against religon. Your brain ultimatly controls everything you sense; some people's religous experiences are just as real to them as the chair you are sitting in. Though I'm not sure about a movie's accuracy, but for those who have seen "A Beautiful Mind," the religous experiences that some theists get can be compared to the people who were figments of Nash's imagination in that movie.


later,

Karen

Samhain

Well, this would suggest that all "religious experiences" stem from schizophrenia or delusions.

Now, a more plausible explanation would be that a theist who has had a "religious experience" attributes certain feelings in times of heavy emotion, or certain "unexplainable" solutions as acts of god. In other words, if you wish to pursue this type of reasoning, it would be better demonstrated by allowing that theists attribute what they do not immediately understand as god/satan acts as opposed to finding the most resonable and logical explanation for the problem. Hence, allowing emotional feelings to override what they know to be naturalistically true and false.

Karen M

Greetings Sam


>>>Well, this would suggest that all "religious experiences" stem from schizophrenia or delusions.<<<

hmm...not quite that intense, but yes, from brain chemicals and reactions.

I believe the traits that cause religous experiences and the intensity of these experiences could be caused by a bunch of different genes. The two most frequent types of worldview conversions in the world are 1. from the cultural religon of the area to atheism and 2. from atheism to cultural religon of the area. The actual conversions from one religon to the other[such as Islam to Christian or Hindu to Islam] are much lower.

I believe these stats imply that those who get the genes more likely to discourage religous experiences who are born to relgious families are more likely to convert when they get older and vice versa to those with religous genes born to non-religous families. On the other hand, there are probably also a good amount of theists running around that have the traits that discourage or do not promote religous experiences who are still firm theists because of upbringing.

My basic problem with just assuming that anyone who is a theist must be illogical is that I know a lot of very logical theists who claim to "know God" and such. These people are not stupid. I find it more likely that their brains are simply wired to accept religon[which could actually be advantagous if you look at it on the evolutionary level; religon promotes a stronger sense of group and in some cases, a modivation to go attack other tribes, help out the people in your group, etc.]


>>>Now, a more plausible explanation would be that a theist who has had a "religious experience" attributes certain feelings in times of heavy emotion, or certain "unexplainable" solutions as acts of god. In other words, if you wish to pursue this type of reasoning, it would be better demonstrated by allowing that theists attribute what they do not immediately understand as god/satan acts as opposed to finding the most resonable and logical explanation for the problem. Hence, allowing emotional feelings to override what they know to be naturalistically true and false.<<<

This is probably also a good part of it, yes.


Karen

Samhain

Karen M:

You realize this is highly arguable:

Especially considering that religion seems to breed dissent against others with differing views, etc. Utilitarian ethics are not acceptable in many circumstances, and when it comes down to it, I doubt that utilitarian ethics would override deontological ethics when concerned with immediate family duty. There are many side effects to the "group effort" which theism promotes, and it's highly arguable as to whether or not it creates a higher advantage than what it sets us back as far as the evolutionary scale goes.

Egoinos

I think (just my humble opinion here) that the reason women are generally more religious than men, is because of the difference between the way men look at the world, and women look at it.

(This is strictly just general - not all women behave this way, neither do all men)

Little girls are - perhaps partly through nature, partly through nurture - more interested in people than in inanimate objects - this is why girls are more mature than boys.
Its quite common to see a little girl talking to people, listening to people, being interested in the world around her, while a little boy of the same age, is quite happy playing with his truck, or whatever.

When those children grow up, they grow up with different ways of looking at things. Men are more likely to go for a principle, an inanimate thing whereas women are more attracted to people than to nonliving things. In later life, men may support issues and causes based on the validity of that issue or cause theoretically or in principle, whereas women tend to view causes and issues in terms of the people involved.

With religion - men are more attracted to the overarching cause or reason why that religion is true. There are not many women apologists (for other reasons just than this, though) and men are more likely to leave a religion based on intellectual reasons whereas women are more likely to leave based on emotion.

There are probably names for these two ways of looking at the world - two bliks - especially as I first heard of all this from my mother, whos a psychologist.

This is not to say that reason is "male" and emotion is "female", but rather that women (in general) lean to the emotion, and men (in general) lean to the reason side of things. But there are no (except possibly idiot savants) people who lean entirely to one side or the other - all people have a bit of both in their nature. There are women who lean strongly to the reason side, and there are men who lean strongly to the emotion side of things - it is just a generalisation to say that women lean to emotion and men, to reason. I know that I myself, for example, have certainly a bit of both in my nature - I am not entirely ruled by reason over emotion, though I do lean that way, there is emotion in my nature too.

I don't say, either, that one side is necessarily better than the other. Our (male-dominated) culture esteems reason over emotion - but there is reason within that emotion anyway. Take "female intuition". Its long been thought to be some 'sense' that women have which has nothing to do with reason - which is a load of crap. Intuition comes from many signals that the body gives out, it is based in reason, but it cannot be identified easily as such, it comes from that interaction with people which little girls show, way before little boys ever do.

As an example, try this test: <a href="http://test3.thespark.com/gendertest/" target="_blank">http://test3.thespark.com/gendertest/</a> which I believe, works on the principle I have just outlined. I predict that the women on this board will, in the main, be told they are male by this test because it works on the idea that women tend to emotion, and men to reason.

See whether I'm right

--Egoinos--

NialScorva

Ender, while I agree with you somewhat, I think that Walrus has a good point. Men, as a general rule, have a tendency to deny the reality of an emotional experience, which is an experience like any other. More intelligent men seem to intellectualize everything such that the reality of their fealings can only be dealt with inside a mental game, which is a way of denying that aspect of the human experience because they cannot handle the full truth of emotional power.

The other side of coin you present is that women are more in touch with who they really are, and see the internal reality for what it really is. Does this make them closer to the ubermensch in a way? They, at least, don't have the false idols of denial.

Samhain

Do you understand what you're saying? It seems quite ironic to me actually. You're saying that by denying emotional experience we are in some way denying our own existence as humans. Sorry, I have to put my foot down and strongly disagree with you here. Humans are not a thing to be defined, manipulated or predicted, our personal experiences are just that, they are personal. Our own existence is defined by how we wish to live our lives. We are not living any less genuine than anyone else if we decide to downplay our emotional experiences, it's a personal decision and no more. If we both accept responsibility for how we act regardless of whether or not we live emotionally or intellectually then we still are both capable of genuine existence. The problem is that living by emotional existence can sometimes* (*I say this in order to attempt to avoid the emotion/intellect argument) lead to adverse effects since some decisions of living in an emotional fashion can be seen as rash and irrational, once again I'll say sometimes*. Also, when one makes a rash or irrational act, one can be seen as more likely to fall into bad faith and point blame on something other than their own responsibility in order to release themselves of the burden. When one makes an act which is logical and reasoned to a fair extent, a lapse into bad faith is less likely, or so it seems IMO.

Just offering a bit of my own modified existentialist viewpoint.

In conclusion, I will state once again, downplaying our emotional existence in order to make room for more rationality and reason is not a denial of our existence as a human, and it does not make us any less "in touch" with our own being. Our own being is defined by ourselves, no one else, and therefore, I find it hard to believe how anyone could say that we deny our existence or reality, when our reality for ourselves is only chosen by us as individuals.

Kip

Studies repeatedly show that an inverse correlation between religious belief and intelligence:

<a href="http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/statistics.html" target="_blank">http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/statistics.html</a>

Studies also prove that women and African Americans are more religious:

<a href="http://www.mma-online.org/mma/news/0108_5_ris.html" target="_blank">http://www.mma-online.org/mma/news/0108_5_ris.html</a>

Also women and African Americans repeatedly score lower on intelligence tests and standardized tests such as the SAT. Although the validity of all of these tests is controversial and the origin of the difference may not be biological, the controversy itself is explainable by the undesirable results and at least suggests some truth.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684824299/qid=1020141879/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-0229112-1599026" target="_blank">The Bell Curve</a>

etc.

Gould (1981, p. 106) also showed that women have absolutely much smaller, and relatively somewhat smaller brains than men.

Considering all of the above, I think the most probably explanation is that African Americans and women are simply not as intelligent as others.

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>