How the Church has Emasculated Men
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tristan Emmanuel', 'H')ave you ever wondered why Christian men are so emasculated? Or why most normal red-blooded men find it absolutely impossible to relate to today's clergy?
You're not alone.
I use to think the problem was me; that I was old fashioned - at least that's what I was told.
But then I had an epiphany.
PeakOil is You
How the Church has Emasculated Men
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How the Church has Emasculated Men
by Schadenfreude » Thu 07 Feb 2008, 09:51:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m not the only one to say this.
Author David Murrow has written a very important book on the subject: Why Men Hate Going to Church. He confirms my theory. Men don't feel welcomed in churches anymore because Christianity has been feminized.
Murrow relates several important statistics in his book:
- The typical U.S. congregation draws an adult crowd that's 61% female, 39% male. This gender gap shows up in all age categories.
- On any given Sunday there are 13 million more adult women than men in America's churches.
- This Sunday almost 25 percent of married, churchgoing women will worship without their husbands.
- Midweek activities often draw 70 to 80 percent female participants.
- As many as 90 percent of the boys who are being raised in church will abandon it by their 20th birthday. Many of them will never return.
- More than 90 percent of American men believe in God, and five out of six call themselves Christians. But only two out of six attend church on any given Sunday. The average man accepts the reality of Jesus Christ, but fails to see any value in going to church.
What a beaut of thread title, huh? Couldn't resist. But (oh!), how many ways can you kick this perspective hard in the groin? This guy who wrote it has really drunk some heavy Kool-Aid.
I think religion is a scourge. I agree with Christopher Hitchens who has lately written a very entertaining book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything". What rational person could believe such crap as various religions around the world spew, I ask? It's just pre-medieval bullshit! Turns out, lots of people can.
And also, who has any reasonable definition of a "real man"? I certainly don't. The human male, IMO, is subject to a greater degree of variability than is the female for basic species survival reasons. If freed up from the burden of bearing the brunt of reproduction, the male is more likely to explore any off-beat behavioral or survival niche than is the female, whose strategy is more likely to include strong community bonds and mutual support. It just basically works that way with mammals. All it takes is for one weirdo to actually hit the one-in-a-billion survival jackpot and there is a ready and willing crowd of risk-averse females waiting to share the booty. And he can fix them ALL up with little weirdos of their very own.
If the predominant religion in the Western world were Buddhism (by some chance historical quirk), then the women of the world would flock to meditate and chant together in front of candle-strewn altars. And everyone would try to divine his/her past lives and try to jump off the Great Wheel Of Life. And THAT would be the societal norm, the group behavior that would be considered LEAST DEVIANT. That's the way women are - they flock to community(statistically speaking, that is). And so do men, but less so - or men may exhibit a tendency to flock in more militant, disruptive, non-communitarian ways if they are somehow frustrated in their lives - much moreso than women.
But as regards religion, thanks to events at the end of the Roman Empire, the religious belief that is considered least deviant in the Western world is Christianity which says that the creator of the universe chose a virgin woman to bear his only begotten son so that the son could be sacrificed on a cross, an event which would somehow appease the vicious diety and provide for a medium of communication between Man and God (who apparently is completely disgusted to the point of nausea with his own creation). But despite being completely revolted by Man, God deeply loves him. Or something like that... It's all complete codswallop. But it's the norm, so women like it.
I would like to able to claim that men, in general, simply do not believe this idiotic flap-doodle. And that women generally DO believe it is good reason for why they haven't overtly ruled the world in any in-your-face way - EVER! But I can't claim that because men seem to have been chiefly responsible for the fabrication and promulgation this immense and stunting lie, often at the point of sword!
That men were chiefly responsible for the Enlightenment and the advent of the Scientific Revolution tends to prove my point that the male is the behaviorally, ideologically more variable gender. Now why can't the women of the world follow along more earnestly with that more recent male invention? Could it be because it's easier to flock together in the Baby Jesus tent?
And those men that DO join them there - could it have something to do with a similar (but less probable) tendency to flock amidst friends and family? And, let's not forget, that where security of sexual congress is too - that's probably a big part of it.
It's too bad that there can't be a flocking together of humanity under a banner of Science or Reason or whatever you want to call it - even if that means a return to pagan-style traditions and the negation of any idea of an eternal human soul. Must people only flock to a place where they are going to continually swallow a huge lie?
It's always interesting to hear a woman's definition of a "Real Man" - because their definition invariably could apply to anyone - male, female, boy, girl, young, old... They just want someone with Heart and Character... preferably enough heart and character that it gets them some bucks too. But anyone can have heart and character. If all males were erased form the Earth and human sperms were grown in special lab rats, there would still be plenty of Heart and Character left amongst humanity's remainder. Women generally feel safer with a more standard, predictable, less-variable package. Something you'd find in a church. Statistically speaking, it makes sense that there are fewer men attending.
It's takes a "Real Man" to reveal the purpose of his less sturdy XY chromosome - to get really deviant and find some new survival niche to be exploited. It was probably just such a deviant individual way back in the mists of human time who first discovered that people could be completely controlled through their irrational beliefs to do unimaginably awful things to each other - for the chief purpose of helping that very same deviant male to prosper and procreate.
- Schadenfreude
Re: How the Church has Emasculated Men
by killJOY » Thu 07 Feb 2008, 10:12:00
One problem is that the reigning deity, Jesus, is a pussy:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')I am telling you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer your other cheek as well. If anyone grabs your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone takes away your belongings, do not ask to have them back. As you want people to treat you, do the same to them."
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even tax collectors love those who love them, do they not? And if you embrace only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Doesn't everybody do that? If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even wrongdoers lend to their kind because they expect to be repaid. Instead, love your enemies, do good and lend without expecting anything in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of God. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good; he sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')I am telling you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer your other cheek as well. If anyone grabs your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone takes away your belongings, do not ask to have them back. As you want people to treat you, do the same to them."
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even tax collectors love those who love them, do they not? And if you embrace only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Doesn't everybody do that? If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even wrongdoers lend to their kind because they expect to be repaid. Instead, love your enemies, do good and lend without expecting anything in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of God. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good; he sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
Peak oil = comet Kohoutek.
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killJOY - Intermediate Crude
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Re: How the Church has Emasculated Men
by mos6507 » Thu 07 Feb 2008, 14:40:54
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', 'O')ne problem is that the reigning deity, Jesus, is a pussy
Until you get to revelations.
- mos6507
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