Freethought & Rationalism Archive

selfology · 04-29-2002, 11:48 AM

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Regarding women, we can assume that they are generally more emotional than men, and in many cases (IMO) tend to make quite a few decisions on how they "feel" as opposed to finding logical reasoning to provide some kind of backup. Men, however, seem a bit less emotional in that regard, and so more often think and reason their actions out prior to making an action.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this.

I think as men we write women off too quickly as just making illogical decisions based on their emotions, but I don't think that its so trivial an answer. I believe this may turn out to be another nature v. nurture discussion. Is it the natural tendency of women to appeal to emotion or is it social conditioning.
Your allusions to childbirth may be a factor, I was thinking something along those lines as well, but is there a stronger factor that's envolved. What are your thought?

selfology · 04-29-2002, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ender:
Women confuse thinking with feeling. In general they think truth is an irrelevant trivality that serves as the stumbling block for men.

~WiGGiN~

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]

you might want to strap on some protection below the waist if your gonna continue with that line of posting

selfology · 04-29-2002, 11:56 AM

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Originally posted by Samhain:


<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> THANK YOU! At least I know someone agrees with me, I especially like the latter remark. Sorry, I may have a biased opinion myself, being a male, sometimes I feel like a sexist of late just because I feel there seems to be reversed sexism in the US today. Sometimes I find it hard to give the male perspective when I have the opportunity. There have been many occasions in which I've been labeled as a chauvinist just because I don't agree with the logical validity of some of the remarks which women make regarding certain things. I don't know, maybe this should be more for the RRP, but I feel like I've been labeled unfairly on some occassions just because I disagree with a remark that a woman makes, and therefore I must be anti-feminism. It just boggles my mind sometimes.

I get that crap from my girlfriend all the time. If I say something negative about Oprah or I don't agree with some feminist point of view I'm a chauvinist pig and I make her sick blah, blah blah, blah, blah

selfology · 04-29-2002, 12:19 PM

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I have also noticed that women are more religous than men. I personally think this is because women's brains are more wired to have religous experiences than men's are(same with blacks brains being more likely to have religious experiences than average).

But shouldn't all of our brains be wired the same way, why is it that women and African American are more apt to become religious. It can be said that both have been subjected to discrimination, and "in the eyes of god they are on equal footing with everyone else". It can also be said that they're both appealing to their emotions (African Amercians can be a little emotional). How do we account for the fact (if it is one) that mens' brains aren't wired this way

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These are from an article in Newsweek on May 7, 2001:

“In order to feel that time, fear and self-consciousness have dissolved, he reasoned, certain brain circuits must be interrupted. Which ones? Activity in the amygdala, which monitors the environment for threats and registers fear, must be damped. Parietal-lobe circuits, which orient you in space and mark the sharp distinction between self and world, must go quiet. Frontal- and temporal-lobe circuits, which mark time and generate self-awareness, must disengage. When that happens, Austin concludes in a recent paper, "what we think of as our 'higher' functions of selfhood appear briefly to 'drop out,' 'dissolve,' or be 'deleted from consciousness'."

“The scientists recruited Baime and seven other Tibetan Buddhists, all skilled meditators. In a typical run, Baime settled onto the floor of a small darkened room, lit only by a few candles and filled with jasmine incense. A string of twine lay beside him. Concentrating on a mental image, he focused and focused, quieting his conscious mind (he told the scientists afterward) until something he identifies as his true inner self emerged. It felt "timeless and infinite," Baime said afterward, "a part of everyone and everything in existence." When he reached the "peak" of spiritual intensity, he tugged on the twine. Newberg, huddled outside the room and holding the other end, felt the pull and quickly injected a radioactive tracer into an IV line that ran into Baime's left arm. After a few moments, he whisked Baime off to a SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) machine. By detecting the tracer, it tracks blood flow in the brain. Blood flow correlates with neuronal activity.

The SPECT images are as close as scientists have come to snapping a photo of a transcendent experience. As expected, the prefrontal cortex, seat of attention, lit up: Baime, after all, was focusing deeply. But it was a quieting of activity that stood out. A bundle of neurons in the superior parietal lobe, toward the top and back of the brain, had gone dark. This region, nicknamed the "orientation association area," processes information about space and time, and the orientation of the body in space. It determines where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. Specifically, the left orientation area creates the sensation of a physically delimited body; the right orientation area creates the sense of the physical space in which the body exists. (An injury to this area can so cripple your ability to maneuver in physical space that you cannot figure the distance and angles needed to navigate the route to a chair across the room.)

The orientation area requires sensory input to do its calculus. "If you block sensory inputs to this region, as you do during the intense concentration of meditation, you prevent the brain from forming the distinction between self and not-self," says Newberg. With no information from the senses arriving, the left orientation area cannot find any boundary between the self and the world. As a result, the brain seems to have no choice but "to perceive the self as endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything," Newberg and d'Aquili write in "Why God Won't Go Away." The right orientation area, equally bereft of sensory data, defaults to a feeling of infinite space. The meditators feel that they have touched infinity.”

They noticed the same results from Catholic nuns and other religious people. Usually, people interpret these depending on the culture they are from(Buddists would have a Buddist interpretation, Christians would think it was Jesus telling them something, etc.).

These experiences are more likely to occur in women and africans than other groups and they feel very real(for example, this might not be an exact analogy, but your senses tell you that there is a computer in front of you; the only way you would doubt if there really was was if they did tests and found that people who did not have computers in front of them occationally still thought they did). These tests above are one of the reasons I personally became an atheist, because they basically said that you could not trust your senses on this issue and that different cultures interpreted them however they wanted too. But, these could modivate someone to believe in God if they have been brought up all their life being told that this was “God talking to them” and they are ignorant of the scientific tests done on these experiences.

Also note that, when a theist tells you that they have "felt God" or to "just pray and you will find God," some of them probably arn't lying and really do feel things when they pray and such.

Just my opinion

Karen

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Karen M ]

I read some of these articles, and from what I understand they are basically saying that what we call religious experiences (or getting the holy spirit, like what my grandfather calls it) is nothing more than a chemically enduced experience caused naturally by our brain, which is what I've always thought was the case. It doesn't give any information as to whether this is more likly to occur in women, which is what I would like to know. Do you know of any research done on this? African Americans would also interest me.

Ender · 04-29-2002, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by selfology:you might want to strap on some protection below the waist if your gonna continue with that line of posting

Heh. You might want to quit doing philosophy and shuffle off to the political forum where convenient beliefs in PC equality will be better received.

~WiGGiN~

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]

The Lone Ranger · 04-29-2002, 12:40 PM

As I recall, Carl Sagan addressed the issue of why women tend to be more religiously inclined than men in The Demon Haunted World. If I recall his argument correctly, he argued that since we live in a more or less male-dominated society, women are more likely to turn to religion as a source of consolement and/or power. (Which, he argues, is why the overwhelming majority of "psychics," "mediums," etc. are female.) Men, as a rule, are less likely to feel the need for the sense of power or consolement that religion offers, or so Sagan argues.

He also notes that African Americans are much more religious, on the whole, than are most other ethnic groups in our society. He argues that the reasons are the same -- religion offers them a sense of security, consolement, and power that society as a whole denies them.

Cheers,

Michael

WJ · 04-29-2002, 12:44 PM

Speaking of strapping one on...

ohh sorry, I thought this was a women v. men thread.

Wally
---------
God's tool is bigger than your tool. I know, I've seen his tool.

Ender · 04-29-2002, 12:54 PM

Walrus- I thereby predict you will address to only 3% of my comments in this post. Prove me wrong.

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Walrus: Well, men confuse emotions with rationality too (whatever that means).

Do you even know what you're talking about?

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Walrus: Otherwise, how does one rationalize the act of falling in love?

One could invent theories to account for that kind of thing, or one could state a "one-sided" boundary of the ineffable, which is actually an argumentum ad ignorantum, like you just did. The act of rationalization occurs all the time.
Joe: "Bob, what's so hot about her?"
Bob: "I fell in love with her because of her irresistible eyes, irresolute personality, incisive wit, and a warm sentimentality."
With women, they hold 3 separate reasons on everything she does- the reason she says she has, the reason she thinks she has, and the reason she really has. They also have the propensity of holding contradictory ideas, while men in general abhor them.

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Walrus: The fact is, "thinking and feeling" comprises an illogical mix of pure reason and emotion (again, whatever that means).

Do you know what you're talking about?

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Walrus: Being a man, I personally think that certain men can learn things from women, and women can learn certain things from men. But also, I know women who are just as irreligious as men. The problem of "truth" affects both gender's.

What have you learned, then?

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Walrus: I believe it has more to do with the so-called 'people problem' viz. religion, and has little to do with gender. It is my observation that there are many psychological factors relative to upbringing, sociology, etc. that provide for this phenomenon or impact one's behavior and perspective on this topic.

So all women/men issues are actually problems with religion? Or are you just being true to your theistic self?

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Walrus: I think it is a good question viz. truth. If women are more apt to aquiesce to a some-thing that accounts for the 'phenomenon of mystery' from the human experience, there is nothing wrong with that conclusion. Too me, if those are the primary motivators [mystery], in its essence, it shows that a women is perhaps 'more' intellegent than the male counterpart who can't see past the finitude of this life's mysteries.

Then your arbitrary definition of intelligence is questionable and no longer has any cash value.

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Walrus: On the otherhand, searchng for jewels among the pebbles [absolute truth] is certainly worth the effort; the question is, when does it reach the point of beating a dead horse? In otherwords, no amount of thinking will change the certain inherent mysteries from this life, which have the most basic fundamental impacts on how/why we approach our thinking-relationship to the world the way in which we do [the origins of human consciousness].

The problem is that a belief in any form of religion subscribes to an essentialist theory of man and has been and will always be done in "bad faith."

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Walrus: The similarity to this I find stems from the world being a man's domain.

It takes two to turn the woman into a sex object. Not one.

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Walrus: While some may resent that, other's embrace it. In a world of conscious metaphysics and human sentience, if there exists a 'thought process' that is beyond comprehension or understanding or not worth the contemplation to begin with, because it won't matter anyway, then how should the responsibility of pursing the [a] "truth" be apportioned according to gender? Should men be the thinker's and women be the feeler's? And if so, in the end, who wins?

Depends on whoever value system evaluates whichever higher.

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Walrus: I say learn to be both.

And what exactly have you learned?
~WiGGiN~

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]

WJ · 04-29-2002, 01:03 PM

Ender!

I hereby predict you will answer less than 1% of my questions and concerns. Now, do you want to play nice, or do I have to deconstruct you.

Wally
--------
For the death of atheism

selfology · 04-29-2002, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ender:


Heh. You might want to quit doing philosophy and shuffle off to the political forum where convenient beliefs in PC equality will be better received.

~WiGGiN~

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]

hey I agree with your previous statements, I don't think its so cut and dry though.

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04-29-2002, 12:40 PM	#16
The Lone Ranger Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Eastern U.S. Posts: 1,230	As I recall, Carl Sagan addressed the issue of why women tend to be more religiously inclined than men in The Demon Haunted World. If I recall his argument correctly, he argued that since we live in a more or less male-dominated society, women are more likely to turn to religion as a source of consolement and/or power. (Which, he argues, is why the overwhelming majority of "psychics," "mediums," etc. are female.) Men, as a rule, are less likely to feel the need for the sense of power or consolement that religion offers, or so Sagan argues. He also notes that African Americans are much more religious, on the whole, than are most other ethnic groups in our society. He argues that the reasons are the same -- religion offers them a sense of security, consolement, and power that society as a whole denies them. Cheers, Michael

04-29-2002, 12:44 PM	#17
WJ Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 812	Speaking of strapping one on... ohh sorry, I thought this was a women v. men thread. Wally --------- God's tool is bigger than your tool. I know, I've seen his tool.

04-29-2002, 01:03 PM	#19
WJ Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 812	Ender! I hereby predict you will answer less than 1% of my questions and concerns. Now, do you want to play nice, or do I have to deconstruct you. Wally -------- For the death of atheism

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