My theory is that women have less power and control in society and thus seek ways to compensate for that with “hidden” knowledge or sources of power. It’s reminiscient of the fact that many religions are founded/adhered by downtrodden peoples; turning the tables on the wealthy and powerful being a common theme. “God’s justice will come in the next world or the afterlife”.
Dammit TVAA, your post is just useless, we’re trying to have a proper debate to try and enlighten people about the dangers of spiritual and supernatural beliefs and what do you go and do! You forget the link!
I’m surprised this is even considered a debate. I am assuming fessie is a woman, because her comments reaffirm everything I’ve experienced regarding the various women in my life so far and everything I’ve learned: women aren’t logical.
Women make no sense, rely on their emotions, and generally don’t use logic very often (or very well when they do). Why is simple, they are more right-brained, and thus more spacial and less linear in their thinking, and they have a vested interest in having an elevated emotion level, in order to develop the necessary bonds with children and mates in whom they must invest a great deal of time.
I’m sure most of the men on this board have been in or currently are in relationships. Individual experiences aside, tell me you didn’t slap your forehead more than once because of your significant other.
(Incidently, this may seem inflammatory, but to be fair I respect women and will fight to my death to defend their rights. Let’s call a spade a spade, though)
Women are by far more spiritual…the kingdom of heaven will have more women than men…they have a softer nature and are often time more in tune with the spirit of God…Men are more likely to harden their hearts on matters of the spirit
Since when are women more spacial then men? On average, this most certainly isn’t true.
And please don’t start the right-brain/left-brain duality stuff again.
Sounds like the Isle of Lesbos then, Isabelle.
So the kingdom of heaven will be located in Oprah’s show’s studio?
Hooey.
There is a certain Western bias involved, not one that encourages women to be more spiritual, but that actively discourages men to do anything perceived as remotely emotional, unless it involves team sports or something similar. Outside of Westernized countries, I’ll bet the belief in all kinds of hokey things run about equal between the genders.
I made this point in another thread a while back. If anything, evolutionary roles suggests women should be less susceptible to pseudoscience, since the mundane burdens of childrearing and tedious scut work has routinely fallen to them. The men can run off and waste time worshipping idols or sun gods or studying sheep entrails and any number of pointless activities, but if the women don’t do the basic childrearing and household duties, they ain’t getting done.
Not so. I was merely noting that the poll, if you follow the link and look at one of the tables further down the page, indicates that belief in the eleven supernatural/spiritual concepts does indeed decline as education level increases. That can be reconciled without reference to superior/inferior sorts of knowledge.
We’ve been all around the issue of differing epistemologies here in GD. Spiritual and supernatural knowledge, if one can indeed possess it, would be no different than knowledge of the material world provided the knowledge was obtained by testing, experimentation, and inference. Even so-called “intuition” is not really a sixth sense. When people act upon intuition, they are picking up on little clues and relating the present experience to a similiar previous one subconsciously. Intuition isn’t a supernatural sense, it just operates with information you perceive but are not actively aware of, and allows you to skip several logical steps and arrive at a conclusion. Note that when people tell you an idea “seems” wrong intuitively, they usually have somewhere inside them a very good reason why they think it’s wrong, and if you work them through it step by step they find the complete logical path that got them there.
What I think higher education does do is to teach people to acquire knowledge of the world by observing it and making inferences from those observations. This is the basic epistemology on which the scientific method is based. If it should be the case that spiritual/supernatural knowledge cannot be acquired through that method, then it is likely that however it can be acquired is not a method of acquiring knowledge in which students of higher education are trained. This would be the interpretation explaining the poll’s results in the light most favorable to spiritualism, if we are to leave ranking the validity of differing epistemologies to the other threads in which we’ve discussed them.
At any rate, I don’t think the effect of higher education can adequately explain the male/female difference, for the reasons I stated in my OP.
Well, you sound like you might enjoy the writings of Ray Bradbury, the only science-fiction author of which I know who harbored an intense distrust of technology and felt much like you do about humanity. Personally, I do think that once we have everything “figured out” the world will be a better place. After all, in order to prosper, to suceed at life, you need as much accurate knowledge of the world as possible that is relevant to your existence. The better we understand the world, the better we can manipulate the things around us to serve our ends. There may be “more to being human” than simply making factual observances about the world, but I’d say that is nevertheless an indispensible tool for improving our lot in life, and giving us the time to find those things like love and self-actualization that let us enjoy our all too brief existences. I don’t drive to school in the morning in a truck powered by love. Those things may be very human ends, but they can’t supplant the means by which we gain the luxury of pursuing them.
Anyway, nice little hijack, it’s my thread and I don’t mind 
Prepare to resume normal broadcast in 5, 4, 3…
That is a very interesting argument, and one that I cannot help but notice has little basis in logic. It does, however, rely very heavily on stereotypes, intuition, “common knowledge”, personal experience, and even, yes, emotion. Are you sure you aren’t really a woman?
It’s an extremely interesting argument. Will a woman who puts great emphasis on non-logical means of knowing accept a non-logical argument that puts women in a bad light?
Will fessie’s sense of pride in her gender prove greater than her intellectual (perhaps “intuitional”) integrity?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
I think there may be a lot of factors. Some of the possibilities include the sense of powerlessness someone mentioned (which should also appear in minority populations, though), social programming that pushes men toward non-emotional/spiritual pursuits, more alone/housebound/child socializing/leisure time, or parents/society not forcing girl children to be rigorous thinkers rather than feelers?
I know more women than men who seem to have an abhorrence of debate or self-challenging their thoughts. (On the other hand (aside from this thread), I know more women than men who will actually change their minds when faced with a superior argument.)
Discarding some beliefs can only come about through upbringing or a dedication to challenging beliefs. It’s hard to get into a compelling discussion with a two year old?
Obviously, the point of this post is: I don’t know.
Julie
Don’t have much to add to the debate. Did just have a brief conversation with two (female) acquaintances, who went on for a while about how undeniably accurate astrology is, then, somehow, segued into how evolution has been discredited as a conspiracy (I think one of them said “People used to think we came from monkeys”). Educated women. Not wanting to get “into it,” I nodded politely and backed out of the room.
I really agree with this statement, I think you’ve explained intuition beautifully (logically, even!). That’s what I meant when I said, somewhat facetiously, that women are smarter. My Hubby is a brilliant man, but I’m always having to go back and explain the steps that led me to my conclusions, which were to me an obvious part of a patterned whole that he could have seen for himself if he hadn’t been distracted by some little nymphet in short-shorts! Perhaps I shouldn’t try to discuss things with this man while we’re driving.
To stay on-topic; one could attribute female intuition and male logic as simply yin/yang. You can’t have one without also having its opposite. If you guys are going to insist on being logical/empirical, well then someone’s got to be in the intuitive/spiritual position.
I also agree with Mr. Ekkers about women’s practicality - I was just talking with two women yesterday about how men are far more romantic than women. You guys grab onto notions (albeit seemingly logical ones) far more than we do. You’re prone to cerebral flights of fancy, which do accomplish some worthwhile things along with the destructive ones. Women are more grounded, more in touch with ourselves, the world and each other, which is IMHO the basis for our greater tendency towards spirituality.
And I think that the creativity and non-verbal communication required for successful child-rearing help explain why women don’t rely on words alone to gain and express meaning. We have to be able to nurture these little illogical creatures.
An interesting corrollary is women’s stronger verbal skills (as shown on the data provided on earlier link). Perhaps that’s related to our ability to sense patterns and thus use grammar intuitively? Or maybe because our ancestors were stuck at home and had to learn to talk to one another, while you guys were out hunting and conquering (and drinking prehistoric beer, no doubt)? I dunno.
Isn’t it also interesting that in fiction (and some philosophy) you’ll find men being instructed by more enlightened mentors to let go of their logic - “Trust your feelings, Luke”.
One more contradiction - if it weren’t for the logic-based technological advances that have enabled women (in American society anyway) to move beyond our traditional role, there wouldn’t be any point in trying to have this conversation. I loved Stephen King’s statements regarding that in The Stand.
Quite certain. Though perhaps I would be better off, since statistically speaking I would likely live longer, be less likely to die a violent death, face fewer diseases and get more compliments. Also, I wouldn’t have to feel angry every time I see an idiot beer commercial supposedly aimed at me and fellow men, because it wouldn’t be aimed at me anymore. I could also rely on intuition more and logic less;)
I will not try to defend my argument, one because I don’t care enough, and two because I am speaking from personal experience and from my own education. Never for a second am I attempting to say that women are inferior, and I agree with fessie that it is likely that women think the way they do because it is necessary to complete the species. But lord help me if I try to get into a logical argument with a woman.
(As an aside, I am well-versed in logic, as in symbolic logic - if-then, either-or, that stuff - so I know very well how to frame a logical argument. I have a knack for that stuff. Fortunately, most people here seem to know it too, which can make for enlightened discussion. However, too few people in general, male or female, are at all aware of how to logically structure an argument so that it is sound, never mind valid. That’s probably the main reason for my facetious post. If it had been about men, I would have likely said something along the same lines but about buffoonery and pack-animal mentality. My basic assumption is that most people are idiots. But then I’m just a cranky old man).
Until we have a society where women are believed to be the logical ones and everybody “knows” men are intuitive, we won’t really know how much influence social pressure/expectation has on the way we think. I believe it’s a lot.
Certainly “the universe is stranger than we can imagine” and there may be reincarnation, ghosts, miracles (have to define that one tightly if we’re gonna talk about it) and so on. Astrology…no. And “intuition” as defined above–sub-conciously putting together clues to come to a conclusion–is the ONLY way to make decisions when we don’t have enough specific data, or we have too much data to analyze.
But the Logical Thinking Male gets a nice living from being able to think like a computer so that’s reinforced behavior (of course, he then wants to hang with the chicks and gets the door slammed in his face, but he’s already, well, programmed). The Intuitive Acting Female has no problem working with the “little illogical creatures” and even the aforementioned LTM (should she choose to do so) but just let her try to get a computer to function!
The real problem in this type of discussion is how to show one type of thinking is better, or “right.” The LTM wants logical proof, the IAF wants an answer that “feels right.” There isn’t any intersection (that I can see) that satisfies both sides.
PS I’m glad we’re keeping this light–it looked like it might get ugly there for a while.
PPS My wife is smarter than I am, too. But I’m OK with that.
Until we have a society where women are believed to be the logical ones and everybody “knows” men are intuitive, we won’t really know how much influence social pressure/expectation has on the way we think. I believe it’s a lot.
Certainly “the universe is stranger than we can imagine” and there may be reincarnation, ghosts, miracles (have to define that one tightly if we’re gonna talk about it) and so on. Astrology…no. And “intuition” as defined above–sub-conciously putting together clues to come to a conclusion–is the ONLY way to make decisions when we don’t have enough specific data, or we have too much data to analyze.
But the Logical Thinking Male gets a nice living from being able to think like a computer so that’s reinforced behavior (of course, he then wants to hang with the chicks and gets the door slammed in his face, but he’s already, well, programmed). The Intuitive Acting Female has no problem working with the “little illogical creatures” and even the aforementioned LTM (should she choose to do so) but just let her try to get a computer to function!
The real problem in this type of discussion is how to show one type of thinking is better, or “right.” The LTM wants logical proof, the IAF wants an answer that “feels right.” There isn’t any intersection (that I can see) that satisfies both sides.
PS I’m glad we’re keeping this light–it looked like it might get ugly there for a while.
PPS My wife is smarter than I am, too. But I’m OK with that.
As a WAG I’d say that many (not all) women are mentally hardwired to intuit the status of primary and secondary interpersonal relationships by interpreting a web of finely grained subtle behavioral clues and cues present in their social environment. For a variety of practical evolutionary reasons it’s simply part of their cognitive plumbing.
It’s not hard to see how this onboard predispostion toward intuiting the lay of the surrounding social and psychological landscape (often correctly) from an insubstantial web of fleeting cues that are often barely visible to men, could easily be turned toward a belief in, and acceptance of, supernatural phenomena, as the cognitive and contextual mechanisms in doing this would be very similar.
Good post astro, that gels well with my experience and education on the subject.
Mentally hardwired, astro, or socially programmed? Because I geniunely believe it to be the latter.
Would there be any possibility for proof either way? I can’t think of a way to control.
Julie