I came across a page on Chivalry and Courtly Love the other day. It appears to be lecture notes from DePaul University, and is dated 1998.
What nearly all conservative Christians now falsely believe to come from Christianity (chivalry) is of course a mockery of Christianity (emphasis mine):
Chivalric or Courtly Love (known in medieval France as “fine love” or fin amour) originated with the so-called troubadours of the late eleventh century. Promoting a suave new form of paganism which they called Gai Saber (literally, “the happy wisdom” or “gay science”), these colorful figures from the Provence region of southern France effectively challenged and sought to redefine traditional Christian ideals of love, marriage, manhood, virtue, and femininity. Under the sponsorship of powerful nobles like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie de Champagne, their influence gradually spread throughout France and eventually into England and Germany. By the middle of the 13th century, the troubadour philosophy had become practically institutionalized throughout the courts of Europe, and “fine love” had become the basis for a glamorous and exciting new style of life.
Courtly love (what we call chivalry) is a tempting game for conservatives of all stripes to play with:
Couples engaged in a courtly relationship conventionally exchanged gifts and tokens of their affair. The lady was wooed according to elaborate conventions of etiquette (cf. “courtship” and “courtesy”) and was the constant recipient of songs, poems, bouquets, sweet favors, and ceremonial gestures. For all these gentle and painstaking attentions on the part of her lover, she need only return a short hint of approval, a mere shadow of affection. After all, she was the exalted domina–the commanding “mistress” of the affair; he was but her servus–a lowly but faithful servant.
It’s intriguing to consider chivalry as a form of paganism. That explains so much: the worship of the feminine (a sleeker, more civilized version of the old fertility goddesses), the submission of masculine will to the mystical, moody vagaries of fickle femininity, etc.
I’ve written about the attraction that magical, spiritualistic thinking holds for women (and men) before: https://theportlypolitico.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/the-desperate-search-for-meaning/
Astrology, Tarot cards, and the like are easy to dismiss as New Age foolishness (although they are catnip for women). What makes chivalry so dangerous is that it has successfully embedded itself inside Christianity.
Sobering stuff, Dalrock. Thanks for sharing.
Don Quixote was a warning, not a how-to guide.
I know very little concrete information about the Pagan fertility cults that worshipped women and sexuality, but it seems likely that they were similar to Chivalry and modern gynocentricity.
Note the source for the info on the bottom of this article
https://www.medievaltimes.com/teachers-students/materials/medieval-era/marriage.html.
This article attributes chivalry to 12th century french poets
http://www.thefinertimes.com/Middle-Ages/marriage-in-the-middle-ages.html
@Charles B
It goes back to the beginning of civilization and before. It’s an effective conversion religion function. Asherah and all that.
That right there shows why Christianity in its non-rational forms is extremely vulnerable due to the conversion versus organic growth (i.e. transmission by family and birth) dichotomy. Conversion relies on emotion, but a traditional growth path relies on law or rules.
I’m surprised conservative Christianity hasn’t come up with a modern-day rendition of Tannhäuser with soft rock.
What good has ever come from the south of France? The Muslims subjugated it in the eighth century allowing Jewish traders to sell the French women they took as slaves abroad for coin to the point that tough orthodox non-liberal Christian Franks had to move in there with a disciplined army to stamp it out beginning with Martel at Tours. Then later the southern French were possessed with Gnostic Catharism in the 12th and 14th centuries (simultaneously spewing forth this non-Christian fin love). It took the Albigensian Crusade to finally bring their gibberish to an end. Unfortunately, fin love survived.
@The Portly Politico
Interesting. The common belief is that women are more spiritual than men. I’ve always believed that women aren’t spiritual, but superstitious. Women lack the ability to deeply reflect (like Saint Ausgustine) but are prone to believe in supernatural forces. I’ve always believed that while men worship God, women worship themselves. They merely project their narcissism into the divine thereby seeking a divinely sanctioned self validation. The female of our species will go to any length to seek validation while disposing of accountability.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s one –
(Dalrock could you please insert the image into the post if possible?)
You said “Christianity is of course a mockery of Christianity”. I think you meant “chivalry is of course a mockery of Christianity.”
[D: I’ve modified the sentence to make it more clear.]
…and now we are reaping the benefits of a chivalry that is out of control, also known as feminism.
This makes so much sense: There is a marked absence of chivalrous or romantic love mentioned in the Bible, the Song of Songs notwithstanding. by and large there are 2 states for people: married or single.
The pagans, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans worshipped fertility. Marriage in ancient Egypt, anthropologists tell us, didn’t exist: couples who liked each other simply moved in together (sound familiar?). The writings of the pagans included Sapphic love, from the Isle of Lesbos, that was shared between women. Such writings have been exploited to push a ”modern” agenda, since the young women of lesbos would eventually grow up and pair off with men, a necessity in the ancient world.
This would lay the groundwork for ”courtly love / chivalry” that emerged in the 1100s. It is said that every good lie has a thread of truth running through it. The thread of truth running through courtly love is that it feels right: Men want to protect care for and nurture women, among other things. that is men’s side of the equation. Women’s side of the equation is that they honourably returned those attentions.
What surprises me is that women’s side of the equation had been dismantled, not in the 1960s as previously thought, but nearly a millennium ago.
Great cartoon, @Dota. I think your articulation—“women aren’t spiritual, but superstitious” rings true in our secular age, and this cartoon illustrates that distinction hilariously. I’ve known many women who are devout, traditional Christians, but they are almost always firmly grounded in the sacrament of marriage to a godly, God-fearing man. There does seem to be a strong flavor of “conditional Christianity” at play in many churches, with distinct feminist undertones.
@spike
Even the Song of Solomon was only romantic not chivalrous.
Dota, over the past several decades I’ve met soooooo many women in Los Angeles who talk just like that.
Great conversation
This just in, only slightly off-topic:
https://freebeacon.com/issues/report-religious-couples-have-happier-marriages/
@ The Portly Politico and Red Pill Latecomer
The reason I say women worship themselves is because they are genuinely unable to grasp principles. They feminize everything and make it about themselves, and this isn’t just in Christianity. Take Yoga as another example. Yoga emerges from the philosophy of the Upanishads that state that the world is an illusion and that seeing the world for what it is leads to liberation. Yoga is supposed to aid one in purging their desires and material attachments to aid in their quest for liberation. Women have taken the anti materialist philosophy of Yoga and turned it into a billion dollar industry – Yoga mats, Yoga pants, etc… Because women can’t grasp principles, the only religion that comes naturally to them is self worship.
I Googled “Game of Thrones racist.” Wow. SO many articles bemoaning the “racism and misogyny” in GoT. Major sites slurring GoT as “white, white” and “struggling with whiteness.” Etc.
God forbid that any American or European TV show not have MANY characters of color. Of course, no one requires that African TV, or Chinese TV, or Indian TV have a vast array of white characters.
Yoga is supposed to aid one in purging their desires and material attachments to aid in their quest for liberation. Women have taken the anti materialist philosophy of Yoga and turned it into a billion dollar industry – Yoga mats, Yoga pants, etc…
Another example:
The Spartan workout. Don’t those idiots know it’s about the principles and not physical conditioning? Come back with your shield or on it!
Red Pill Latecomer,
I thank you for commenting and posting links. You have your finger on the pulse of American culture and thus your perspective and comments are valuable. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Finally, something about the chivalry debate here that makes sense.
Chivalry has pagan origins. It grew out ancient goddess and fertility cults–hence it puts women on pedastals. It is at odds with Christian philosophy.
https://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/tlove/courtlylove.html
>from the dull routines and boring confinements of noble marriage
So the christian tradition of marriage started failing at its weakest point: fake marriages. Marriages of convenience, no doubt in many cases associated with a father’s imperial ambition.
Also, though not mentioned above, where the woman outranked her secret-admirer socially. A direct incentive for woman-worshipping.
More and more people started copying them, because ambitious people imitate their ‘betters’. The contagion was spread and abetted by the troubadors, an early form of mass media.
@Dota
Milo said some interesting things about yoga:
[contains profanity]
@ Dota
Men are prone to the same temptations. The difference is that women are more prone to it than men. By contrast, men are more prone than women to over-intellectualize faith. Note all the sparring on this forum over the minutest doctrinal details.
If you think of it in terms of the family, this makes sense. The man is supposed to be the head. He’s supposed to be the ultimate decision maker in all aspects of life – financial, educational, spiritual, etc. The woman is supposed to be the heart. She’s supposed to temper the man’s more hard-edged decision-making, and he’s supposed to prevent the woman from straying into excessive sentimentality.
For example, in my observation, families seem to work best when the husband is just, but tempered by a wife that is merciful.
Of course, as we see an increasing number of men raised by women, we naturally see more men who behave like women. That’s why our culture is becoming increasingly feminized, and therefore more chaotic. The heart is, after all, capricious.
@ Ron Tomlinson
I’m not sure if what Milo said about the Swedish origins of modern day yoga is true, but I will say that the way in which Yoga is taught in India vs North America is like night and day. If you step into any reputable yoga ashram in India, like those that were run by swami Ramdev (before he became a corporate sellout) you’d immediately notice that Yoga was serious business. The people dressed in plain clothing, no fashion statements and the lessons were free. Some yoga retreats, like those organized by the late Goenka (Vipasna) were even more hardcore where students weren’t even allowed to make eye contact with one another let alone speak. American yoga, by contrast, has evolved exclusively to cater to the shallow and vapid mind of the narcissistic American female. If Indian gurus completely surrendered Yoga to Indian women, I have no doubt that the latter would destroy their own traditions just as their American sisters have collectively defecated on Christianity.
@ Oscar
The reason that men are less prone to self worship is because men have to prove their worth. A man is born not with worth, but with potential. He uses that potential to discover his worth. No such demands are made of women who are gifted their assets (their sexuality) by nature. Since women are born at the finish line they tend to think highly of themselves and look down on men who have to struggle from the very beginning.
Not everyone wants to embrace a religious philosophy when they take on an exercise for the physical health benefits. Yoga is very good exercise. It’s also one of the cheapest.
Excellent insights, @Oscar. I make this point about over-intellectualization/hyper-rationalism in the post linked to above in my original comment, although I argue therein that its primary influence has been to increase atheism among men. I think you’re correct, though, that hyper-rationality leads men to delve more deeply into contentious theological debates that often boil down to minutiae (important debates, to be sure, but perhaps missing the forest for the trees—Christ’s saving grace).
I’m thoroughly enjoying this discussion.
This woman worship occurred almost right after the Crucifixion. Read “The Shephard of Hermas”, which was almost included in the Bible.
In this popular work, the narrator most grievous sin is looking lustily at his spiritual guide, men are to take back all their adulterous wives, etc.
If the Church fathers didn’t realize that it wasn’t written by an apostle, it more than likely would have been included as canon.
@ Dota
Maybe. I’m not sure. I see a lot of men – especially young men – who behave and think like women, and are therefore as prone to self-worship as women. And the reason why – I think – is that they were raised by women (single mom, daycare workers, teachers, etc.). Those young men were just as much born with potential as you and I were. They lack the gifts that women are born with, but they behave and think like women because those patterns of behavior and thought are what they know.
This is all another reason why the NT instructs women to obey her husband in the same way as God. He is God’s representative in the flesh for her because she can’t worship the intangible; it turns into self worship or worship of creation if she doesn’t have something tanglible to follow.
@ The Portly Politico
Thanks for the complement. The reason I’ve made that observation is that I’m very prone to over-intellectualization/hyper-rationalism.
I’m an engineer. I have an engineer’s personality, which I inherited, and absorbed from my father, who was also an engineer. I have an innate need to know how things work, including spiritual things. It’s taken me until my 40s to finally accept that there are some spiritual things I’ll simply never understand, either because God hasn’t revealed them to us, or because I’m as incapable of understanding them as my 2-year-old is of understanding calculus.
Either way, I have to trust that God has everything figured out, and will work all things together for my good, if I love Him, just as my 2-year-old trusts me, even though he doesn’t understand nearly anything I do. That’s what it means to have faith as a child.
That brings me to the other side of the equation. My mom was (still is) a lot better at trusting God than my dad was (he’s deceased). Whereas my dad was a lot better than my mom at searching the scriptures.
I observed that balance of the masculine and the feminine in the spiritual realm in my parents, and I that did me a lot of good.
Me too. It’s necessary, and very old. For example, keeping in mind that Paul wrote his letters to Timothy, in part, to instruct his protege in how to govern a body of believers, let’s look at…
Who taught in the early church? Men did. What were those men tempted to do? Stray into false doctrine by preoccupying themselves with “fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes”, i.e., debates.
Now let’s look at the other side.
Doesn’t that sound like the situation we have today?
@ Gary Eden
Bingo! It’s also why both the Old Testament and New are so dead set against believers marrying unbelievers.
@ The Portly Politico
I meant “compliment”, not “complement”.
It is always amusing to watch leftists turn on each other. It’s to be expected, as purges, labor camps and ideological purity tests are par for the course with them.
I am no expert on the show, as I have never watched it, but from it’s wikipedia entry I gather that many of its main protagonists are women, including some very important and powerful characters, so the misogyny accusations seem strange, but then again, since when is logic an issue with SJW’s?
From the wikipedia article I gather that the show’s locale is some sort of icy and northern setting. Not the kind of place one associates with “people of color”. Of course that never stopped the BBC from casting black people to play characters that are historically white, so I guess that’s what the SJW’s are moaning about, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they portray historical English monarchs as blacks (if they haven’t done it already).
Ha! I know exactly what you mean by “an engineer’s personality.” That’s not my personality type (despite some Hank Hillian elements), but I know the type well, and have worked with engineers frequently.
Thank you for the excerpts from Timothy. I’ve often reflected on 2 Timothy 3:1-7. The “gullible women” verse (verse 6) leaps off the page even when it’s not emphasized.
I am no expert on the show, as I have never watched it, but from it’s wikipedia entry I gather that many of its main protagonists are women, including some very important and powerful characters, so the misogyny accusations seem strange, but then again, since when is logic an issue with SJW’s?
I also didn’t watch it. I read the first book, about halfway through, before the series even began on TV and tossed it — was really just a cynical, world-weary take on fantasy literature. Kind of an anti-Tolkien, and trying to be.
The reason why there was such an outcry of misogyny is that they took a very popular female character, who many fans especially the female ones idolized as a kind of “good, strong woman leader” and had her commit a war crime that basically made her a genocidal dictator-in-waiting. Basically they had their feminist hero taken away from them, so they whined about the plot twist being misogynist, due to the writers wanting to avoid having a strong female leader at the end (yeah, right … I’m sure that was the motivation).
Doug Wilson’s letter to a trapped husband, in which he differentiates between responsibility and blame:
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/letter-to-a-trapped-husband.html
@Spike
There is a marked absence of chivalrous or romantic love mentioned in the Bible, the Song of Songs notwithstanding.
It’s even better than that; On more than a few occasions you’ll even see the Bible present both teachings and practices that are downright anti-chivalric, along with a demand that true followers of Christ must learn to draw wisdom from them.
Just one example: Against my better judgement, I was listening to some podcast that bills itself as “complementarian” on my drive home yesterday. A female interview guest was discussing the parable of the ten virgins that Christ tells his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew, and as she described the wedding party that provides the background for the story I couldn’t help but be struck by how little resemblance it bore to what you would see at a modern-day marriage ceremony, and how much it did align with a Red Pill approved view of how relations between the sexes should be run.
So what’s in this story that makes it so different from what you’d find in a modern wedding? Just consider:
1. Nothing starts until the bridegroom shows up, and he will only do so when he decides that he’s good and ready for the ceremony to begin. No one knows when he’ll arrive, not even the bride herself. But in the meantime, both she and everyone else in the wedding party are expected to prepare themselves for his arrival and to be ready at a moment’s notice when they hear he is coming. This is in keeping with Jewish traditions that existed at the time the story was first told, in which weddings usually had no set date after a betrothal was made, and the bride was expected to possibly spend months getting herself ready as she waited for her future husband to finish making arrangements for the new life he had asked her to begin with him. She accommodates herself to his plans and his life, and not the other way around.
2. When the bridegroom does show up, he comes accompanied by an entourage of his friends and admirers who blow trumpets to announce his coming and shout his name loudly so that anyone within earshot will know he is on his way. The local community greets him with the acclaim and fanfare that is due a neighborhood hero, and they follow him as he whisks the bride away from her childhood home into the new residence he has prepared for the both of them and then leads the party into a celebration banquet that could sometimes last as long as a week. He is the prize, and he makes sure to surround himself with both people and ceremonies that will acknowledge him as such. His marriage is not an act of submission to the woman but rather a demonstration of his high value.
3. The bridegroom takes care of his people, but that also comes with the expectation that they have to fulfill some of his expectations too. When they don’t, any bond they might have had is dissolved. How does the parable of the ten virgins end? With five of the virgins in the bride’s wedding party locked out of the celebration banquet because they were not prepared for him when he arrived (specifically, they didn’t bring along any lamp oil so that they could follow his party if he arrived during the night, which he did) When they take the step of trying to get the attention of the bridegroom inside the party by yelling for him and identifying themselves as women in need, he chooses to unchivalrously reply that he doesn’t even know who they are, and by extension that he is too busy enjoying himself to see if they are being honest. These women are left alone in the cold and the dark to fend for themselves. Why? Because they were fools, and their foolishness is not the bridegroom’s responsibility to fix.
Maybe you might be tempted to respond to all this by saying that what we see in this story are only the archaic practices of an older world that we have thankfully evolved past. But if you do so, keep in mind that pretty much every interpretation of this parable has acknowledged that the bridegroom is meant to represent the figure of Christ Himself . . . . and the churches still tend to instruct Christian men that they should model themselves after Christ.
So given that, do you think there’s any chance we might ever see a modern-day pastor advocate for a marriage ceremony that looks less like a worship session directed towards the bride and a bit more like this one, which the Bible not only describes but also compares to the Kingdom of Heaven? Or are they more likely to duck their heads and blush when the female section of their congregation hears Christ’s parable of the ten virgins and starts screaming, “That sounds like PATRIARCHIIEEEEEEE!!”
Women are more emotional rather than being spiritual. That seems more spiritual to some, but is only a show put on for spectators, though it makes them feel good.
I used to attend our local Comic Con before it became pozzed and SJW’d. The character you mention (I believe her name is Daenerys) was very popular with female cosplayers. Many put a great deal of effort into the costume or maybe they purchased them. I know there is a cottage industry for intricate cosplay.
SAHM asks her husband for a 3K/month salary.
@Hmm
This fits with every other explanation I’ve seen of federal headship:
Got it.
Wait! Stop! All this enmity between the sexes has all been the cause of not turning the heat up like your woman asked you:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/warm-offices-women-productivity/589966/
If they think setting the thermostat to 70F is a productivity killer, they haven’t seen (or should I say heard) the mosh pit that is the current fad of the open office.
Men are prone to the same temptations. The difference is that women are more prone to it than men.
The even bigger difference is that women are indulged in this and allowed to get away with it. Men seldom ever are.
Frank K – “I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they portray historical English monarchs as blacks (if they haven’t done it already).”
Well they’re already outraged, outraged I say, by the Scots having the temerity to portray their hereditary aristocracy and clerisy as disgusting Dead White Males.
You might need a wee drop o’ the stimulants after viewing this keech.
It regrettably must be mentioned that this was probably not the capering blackfellows’ (there’s more than one) idea.
The group has a Controlling Mind, a fellow white person. Although all 3 are hated by certain interests due to their advocacy of the BDS movement. He’s apparently Scots, from the next scheme over to Irvine Welsh’s one. The others are West Africans who had the misfortune to be educated as ‘Burries’ (a well-regarded state school, up Marchmont way. Very, very un-ghetto, just across the road from Miss Jean Brodie’s former haunt. Uniforms (Black blazers, Black trousers, Black shoes (no trainers), stripey ties, the lot )).
Maybe you might be tempted to respond to all this by saying that what we see in this story are only the archaic practices of an older world that we have thankfully evolved past. But if you do so, keep in mind that pretty much every interpretation of this parable has acknowledged that the bridegroom is meant to represent the figure of Christ Himself . . . . and the churches still tend to instruct Christian men that they should model themselves after Christ.
By which they mean that, like Jesus, all men should burden themselves with the sins of the world, but, unlike Jesus, they are not to expect anything in return. Otherwise, yeah, anything that Jesus spoke about via a parable is irrelevant to the modern world because, dontcha know, the examples were all based on attitudes, practices, and customs belonging to now-long-dead cultures. That is, until one of them serves the modernist imperative, in which case they again become lessons that cannot be ignored.
@Bee (IT)
I happened across a John MacArthur Beatdown. And by that I mean a classic, hard Beatdown to match any I’ve ever heard. Haven’t found the original date if the sermon.
https://www.gty.org/broadcasts/radio/recent
Go to May 17, “God’s Pattern for Husbands Part 2.”
@Bee (OT)
You mentioned the smug snark of complementarianism a few posts back.
This picture captures it pretty well when captioned with what you said:
No, no, we don’t mean you as the husband are to blame, we mean it’s your fault.
The wilson article shows the consistent deliberate cruel way they treat divorced men. Blames him for not loving his wife to the point it cures her cluster b personality. Then telling him to leave his own home give her massive alimony with out her having to work for it. And she may love you.
And this is how wilson treats a divorcee woman who personally told his wife off over the phone. If your wife is sweet and personable in public he will relish basically telling you to commit suicide.
The troubadors weren’t really pagans; they were poets/musicians who performed for aristocrats They were bright guys who were educated in the church (otherwise they would have been illiterates), and most were either directly employed by some noble or noble themselves. A lot of their songs are pretty Roissyesque, consisting of attempts to seduce beautiful shepherdesses and the like. One particular genre – “maldits” – is openly contemptuous of women (often former lovers in particular).
They were immensely popular in their time, but they didn’t really create the contemporary ideal of chivalry. The real culprits came after Gutenberg, when printing allowed the mass production of chivalric romances, which were the romance novels of the early modern era. These romance publications sold like hotcakes, and tended to draw on the medieval themes that the troubadors sang about, so they’re often linked even though they were much newer and appealed to a different audience (I think you can guess to whom).
Don Quixote was written as a spoof of these early romance novels, which in the novel had driven the titular character insane, causing him to plunge into a fantasy world that bore no resemblance to reality.
The appeal of the romance genre is universal (it can be found in non-Christian cultures, including Islamic and Buddhist among others) and ever a nuisance, but not credibly linked to paganism. In fact, much of what passes for Christian teaching today is similar to chivalric romance because it sells well with women. It really is the female equivalent of pornography, and preachers who resort to it should be called out on it.
The real problem with American Christianity here is that it is run as a business, and because women are the primary consumers of the product their desires are indulged and their faults cultivated so long as they return a monetary (as opposed to spiritual) profit.
@ locustsplease
I’ve never been divorced, so I’m not an expert in these matters, but these guys are.
https://cordellcordell.com/
Here’s what they have to say.
https://cordellcordell.com/ebooks/#10stupidest
As far as women being more ‘spiritual,’ I’d rather say that women are more believing. After all, many of the first helenic Christians were women. And every missionary, no matter what denomination, knows that the first one to convert is usually the wife. This is why the NT gives more than one instance of instructions for wives of unbelieving husbands, but not the other way around.
However, I don’t think this is at all the same as “more spiritual”. Spiritual implies more than just believing, but rather a way of life. A believing heart is more likely to believe anything – thus, horoscopes, babby-tier socialism-lite, and so on. A woman is likely to believe whatever the nearest, strongest authority figure says – whether that’s her husband (good!), her dad, her teacher, her pastor, the president, a celebrity, or the alpha bitch in her harpy pack. That doesn’t lead to spirituality, and doesn’t necessarily lead to anything besides following her solipsism.
@ oscar anything you agree to give a woman during the divorce sets a standard that does not include child support or property division. The only way you can legally recive an illegally unfair divorce is if you follow wilsons advice. This is what the family court does every day every person in that building knows the secret. She can ransack that house and wont lose a dime in cs and alimony judge wont say a word.
After my divorce i couldnt believe there were not tent citys in my area. I flirted with am i actually going to b homeless? I owed so much of my income that if i get behind im never coming back then everything has interest. It took a lot of work to build my life in the first place i had several setbacks. How many people can say hey ill b fine with out 60% of my income? Your reward for paying child support is everyone hates you you are a dead beat.
Presented without comment:
https://www.odditycentral.com/news/man-charged-with-reckless-driving-says-he-would-rather-go-to-jail-than-home-to-his-wife.html
Spiritual implies more than just believing, but rather a way of life.
I think the modern use of the term arose with the 1980s New Age movement.
In theory, to be spiritual means to be “connected” with your true dreams and desires (i.e., your True Inner Being), to the Earth, to all living beings on it, to the universe itself, to its “godhead,” that great source of power and love and oneness. It means to feel love for, and feel loved by, all life forms and powers in the universe. To feel at peace, to feel good about yourself (affirmed, validated, accepted), no guilt, no shame, no worries.
Yet it’s odd how so many spiritual people in Los Angeles are full of hate for, well, the usual targets of the left. Apparently, it’s okay to hate “haters.”
I suppose you could then say that in the old days it meant reflection and contemplation, but today it means validation ever since women hijacked the term.
@ Darwinian Arminian
Your elaboration of the wedding party from the Gospel of Matthew is superb. What a contrast with most weddings I have witnessed. The differences between that and the courtly love/chivalry marriages of present day America, with focus entirely on the Queen-Bride, could not be more stark.
Just back from the Polling Booth where we are voting representatives for a political Union which we agreed to leave three years ago, such are the interesting times in which we live, my landline rings and picking up the receiver I say hello. A woman in an authoritative voice replies to me that she is Dr M—–, to which I respond that I have never heard of her. She replies that she must have the wrong number and so I enquire as to whom she wishes to speak. That can often assist. The female Doctor replies that this is information she cannot give out. This strikes me as absurd for she surely needs to know to whom she is speaking and really the unexpected knowledge that a medical practitioner whom I have never heard of has a patient with an English (or for that matter Indian) surname hardly gives away any material information. These are rules not for protection of patient privacy but for the sake of self-importance. More than that I resent a female assuming professional responsibility for what I wish I had then said to her was (and this would be in the assumed voice of Yia Yia) why you not looking after your children/ why you deprive a man of career/ why you wish be a man, especially when we know she is a beneficiary of affirmative action and likely to benefit from being married to someone on a salary even higher than hers. For a woman to deny my reasonable suggestion that she advance the name of the person to whom she wishes to speak is to assume the privileges of Aristocracy. As a man I find that humiliating and presumably intended to be so. The medical profession strikes me generally as far too full of its own self-importance and even excluding the murder of those in the womb bury as many as they cure.
Slightly related – a former cast member named Souad Faress is a false rape accuser. You think SJWs will do anything to support the poor chap she nearly destroyed?
It also strikes me that if the medical profession unlike the rest of us failed to give away their line of work by always failing to announce themselves as Dr so-and-so then one having no idea what the other person on the end of telephone did for a living one would have no idea that the person they were asking for might just be a patient of the said unnamed Doctor.
Opus, it’s pretty clear by now that we do not live in democracies. An oligarchy of international bankers, NGOs, elite academics, globalists, media barons, tech giants, and yes, the Israel lobby, pretty much control all Western governments. What the indigenous peoples of Europe want doesn’t matter. Our voices are censored, our votes nullified. We aren’t even allowed to regard ourselves as the indigenous peoples of Europe.
Bill Price? Welmer? If that’s you, great to see you’re around. Loved loved loved The Spearhead.
Cool temperature is sexist: https://psmag.com/education/the-battle-of-the-thermostat-women-perform-better-on-tests-when-rooms-are-warmer
Colleges and universities are grappling with various debates involving gender and fairness. New research points to the next potential flash point: the disadvantage that women and girls face when forced to compete in a chilling environment.
“Chilling,” in this case, is not a metaphor.
A German study finds that women generally perform better in math and verbal tests when the exam is taken in a warmer room. Conversely, men do better in cooler conditions.
The results suggest that “ordinary variations in room temperature can affect cognitive performance significantly, and differently for men and women,” write co-authors Tom Chang of the University of Southern California and Agne Kajackaite of the Berlin Social Science Center.
The hand that controls the thermostat has more power than you might think. …
I guess the reason women don’t perform as well in STEM fields is because sexist men keep turning down the thermostat.
I guess the reason women don’t perform as well in STEM fields is because sexist men keep turning down the thermostat.
Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that women are generally more sensitive to cold than men. Maybe one of the the reasons why there are so few female sysadmins in IT is because of freezing server room temperatures?
I have yet to meet a self described “spiritual” person who isn’t a hedonist.
I wonder if they hire market research firms, complete with focus groups, to find out what sells?
This certainly explains why governments have policies that harm its citizenry, to the point that the absurdness and stupidity of laws and court rulings don’t surprise me anymore. We have learned to expect idiotic nonsense such as exporting all our good paying jobs is good for us, or that a man is a woman simply based on his word and nothing more, biology be damned.
I understand that Bruce Jenner will be posing nude in the coming Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, along with a land whale and a woman wearing a beach burka. It’s like they don’t want anyone to buy it. And we will be expected to praise Jenner’s feminine beauty,
OT for this specific post but not overall:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-for-republican-women-to-speak-up-for-reproductive-rights/2019/05/23/698779a8-7b18-11e9-8bb7-0fc796cf2ec0_story.html?utm_term=.6b7269243594
Just the most recent example of why the “conservatives”, “Republicans”, “Trump Administration”, self-described “Christians”, and so on are NOT on our side and will NOT save us. Push comes to shove? It’s all about team woman. It’s just the “Team Woman that prefers lower taxes and likes corporations” rather than the “Team Woman that is pro socialist”. Bottom line is this: Team Woman trumps everything for most women, period. Regardless of political affiliation, ideological bent, or religious belief.
One topic we have discussed in the past is which subjects women lag behind men in to what degree.
Engineering, while high, was not the area where female underperformance was the greatest, as without AA, about 10-15% of legit engineers would still be (Asian) women.
My vast experience led me to believe that three subjects stand out as ones where women have virtually zero competence, curiosity, or even awareness :
Economics
Investment Portfolio Management
Astronomy
These are the three subjects where there will almost certainly never be any true female achievement in a free-market sense.
I strongly suspect that most women (and many men) who claim to be pro life, have a list of exceptions to allow abortion as long as a basketball players arms. Or as it has been pointed out in this blog before, they oppose it but also keep it available in case it comes in handy.
It is my understanding that over 1 billion children have been aborted around the world.
Women aren’t more spiritual, they don’t believe more, nor are they more emotional. They are weaker and so they WANT more and more often. Christianity is a good thing, and it is good to want good things, but it does not follow that women as a group are in any way superior to men as a group.
I wonder if they hire market research firms, complete with focus groups, to find out what sells?
I don’t doubt for a millisecond that many of the larger megachurches do exactly that.
Of course. Some of that is not necessarily bad, but focusing on the marketing instead of the core message and faithfulness to the Scriptures is a serious underlying flaw.
I would say that is not correct. They cry more, tend to be more expressive in worship, etc. They can certainly be cold and hard, but they tend to be looser with showing their feelings. A man will tend to lump it far more.
This does ignore the inner emotional state of course, but I will use myself as an example and note that I am rarely the really expressive one, outwardly, even though I attend mostly charismatic and such churches. I don’t think I am a special snowflake, but I raise my hands a lot less, though I have a deeper spiritual connection to God than many in the congregation, especially the women. That and a stronger desire to do what He wants rather than my own will, which I would define as a true Christian spiritual base.
The really indented part in the last reply was mine. I mistyped something.
@BillyS
The examples of emotions in your comment are limited to the ways women tend to show it. It’s not with only the inner emotions where men’s emotions are discounted, but in the high fives, fist-bumps, fist-pumps, arguments, and in a breadth of displays.
It is true that men’s emotions are widely discounted. It is also true that men are taught to have self-control over our emotions unto suppression, but I have seen no evidence that women have more emotion or capability for them.
https://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/tlove/courtlylove.html
>Promoting a suave new form of paganism which they called Gai Saber (literally, “the happy wisdom” or “gay science”)
Heh. Didn’t notice the first time: ‘Courtly love’ is literally gay.
@Frank K May 22 10.41
As we know, there are three groups of people who comprise a modern-day aristocracy and so the BBC has no hesitation in fact rather prefers it to cast women as men, blacks as whites (but never the other way round – cos that’s waaaycis) and to worship anyone who ‘comes out’. It is not however just the BBC. At the time of Operation Enduring Freedom The National Theatre produced Henry V (the one about Agincourt) in modern dress, set in the sand-dunes of Mesopotamia and with a black (not mulatto) Henry giving his famous speech on top of a jeep. Outside the Royal Festival Hall is a bust of a man who did not I think ever visit London and was once described by Prime Minister Thatcher as a terrorist but is better known as that secular saint Nelson Mandela. Inside the RFH you can on the lower ground floor most afternoons find Break Dancers. This is how we treat London’s premier and indeed beautiful concert hall (for whose very existence we have once again to thank The Luftwaffe). And so it goes on: I was complaining last week about a certain new Opera which now I wish I had taped. What I failed to mention was as one could see from the on-line photos that although the opera was set in Whitechapel in 1888, Whitechapel was in those days supposedly a community of black and white people and indeed so far as I could tell one of Jack”s victims was also black. It is not that there might not have been black people in Whitechapel then (Wordsworth in that part of his The Prelude set in London refers – this was 1803 – to the elegant negro ladies near the docks in their crinolines), but it was not the norm (as one can see from any old newsreel footage – I never saw a black face until I was eleven – the privilege of attending an English boarding school) and on stage gives a very false impression; one cannot ignore it. I saw Koanga and recently there has been a Porgy and Bess but there was not one white person in the Koanga chorus any more than I would guess a white face in the Porgy and Bess chorus. Double standards.
Having said that certain roles do seem to suit black people very well. Sir Willard White (who is black) is always superb in roles such as mythogical emperors. I saw Jesse Norman as Ariadne at the Met and Grace Bumbry as Salome at the Garden and both were of course amazing, but Sandra Browne (rather Mulatto) as Sophie in Rosenkavalier at the Coly seemed all wrong and unbelievable. Art would not have gained veracity had the Murder in the Cathedral I saw in Rochester’s cast the real Bishop of Rochester as his Canterbury forbear any more than would putting Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong on the Starship Enterprise.
@Frank K said: I wonder if they hire market research firms, complete with focus groups, to find out what sells?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barna_Group
https://www.barna.com/
Off Topic: You can’t make this stuff up! Now we can blame the fact that “offices are too cold” for women’s underperformance.
Atlantic: “Frigid Offices Might Be Killing Women’s Productivity” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/warm-offices-women-productivity/589966/
Dalrock says:
May 22, 2019 at 2:11 pm
Yup, Moscow Doug effectively states that the sin of Eve was Adams FAULT, not simply his responsibility [as Paul clearly states in 1 Tim 2:14].
The bastard, just one of the many ‘shitfaced priests’ identified by the Lord.
Darwinian Arminian says:
May 22, 2019 at 1:12 pm
Excellent Darwinian Arminian: marriage is ALL about the bridegroom.
@Frank K
Women that are pro-abortion are simply exercising their solipsism. They might say they would never abort their own child, but they want to be able to terminate their own child if it’s conceived in violation of hypergamy.
It’s also about power. How dare some evil baby control a woman’s (my) life? The mere thought that she (I) would have to be bound to something she (I) could not get out of is horriffic!
Replace any “We” or “they” or “she” in a woman’s statement with “I”, because that’s what is really meant.
It’s that collective solipsism that has corrupted anything it has touched, from Eve on down. It has a great deal of biological utility, but only when in a dangerous environment. With the lack of danger, as in the Garden, the utility is actually harmful.
I have hope, though. Women will drop Western Civilization into danger again, and Western men will clean up the mess after much bloody struggle. The key learning that must survive is that women cannot have any vote in civilizational governance. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Frank K @ 11:34 am:
“I strongly suspect that most women (and many men) who claim to be pro life, have a list of exceptions to allow abortion as long as a basketball players arms. Or as it has been pointed out in this blog before, they oppose it but also keep it available in case it comes in handy.”
That’s also why the pro-life crowd always targets abortion providers but never the mother consenting and paying for the infanticide. That hardline law that Alabama just passed? The second sentence on Page 1 was a promise to never hold the mother accountable.
https://legiscan.com/AL/text/HB314/2019
“This bill would provide that a woman who receives an abortion will not be held criminally culpable or civilly liable for receiving the abortion.”
She just “receives” the abortion, you see. Not “demands it”, “pays for it” or “authorizes it”.
@Cane Caldo
Women aren’t more spiritual, they don’t believe more, nor are they more emotional. They are weaker and so they WANT more and more often.
This is a good point. You could even link this idea to one of the observations that Rollo has made about how women as a group often like to invade a space that often starts out being primarily masculine (or dictated by principles unrelated to sex) only to end up subverting it so that its new mission will be to serve their will and their purposes. If women do want more, it’s only natural that they will ask for it from both men and the institutions they built. It was inevitable that they would have seen the Christian church as a potential target for this, although we certainly could have wished we had leaders that weren’t afraid to tell them no.
I’ve always found the claim that “women are more naturally spiritual” to be a strange endorsement for the idea that women make better Christians. Beelzebub is technically a spirit, but if a member of a church is openly saying that we should be worshipping him, consulting him and enacting his will then I’d say that counts as pretty solid evidence that whatever else they might be, they aren’t Christian. And it’s not like there isn’t a long history of women doing stuff like this already. I’ve seen more than a few females in the internet evangelisphere point out that in the early days of Christianity, Roman authorities like Fronto used to sneer that the Christian religion was composed primarily of “conspirators and foolish women” and that this is some kind of historical verification that it was the ladies who have always been the ones that recognized and practiced the true faith. What they leave out is that both church leaders and Roman authorities from the same period also reported that women were overrepresented in many of the assorted offshoot cults that the church eventually condemned as heretical, with prominent examples including the Montanists and the Gnostics (who share some key similarities with modern feminism). And that’s to say nothing of the dominant Roman state religion of the same era, which featured female deities like Artemis and Demeter that ranked among the most popular objects of worship, and whose temples were often run by women who served as both priestesses and (ahem) ritual prostitutes. St. Paul the Apostle even makes an offhand reference to this is in his first letter to Timothy, a book which which, not coincidentally, also contains his much-hated command that women should not be permitted to instruct men in the faith.
But for some reason, the modern church isn’t allowed to consider any of that when when it makes statements about what the spiritual nature of women truly is.
@vfm7916
>The key learning that must survive is that women cannot have any vote in civilizational governance. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
A husband simply has to *insist* that his wife votes (or refrains from voting) in accordance with his preference. Done properly this is actually a source of honour for women.
Dalrock,
I am not surprised, but am still disappointed at the failure everywhere, not just here, to understand the relationships and differences between fault, responsibility, and blame. (Spoiler alert: None of these are equivalent.)
Surely someone here has studied this and can attempt to explain the differences for others. I especially think that Scott and Novaseeker have probably studied these concepts extensively and could help others to learn (or at least verify that these terms are indeed unique and often conflated).
O’Rickety-
So, there have been a number of experiences for me professionally that have been the impetus for fairly detailed explorations of such things.
In the army, I spent half of my career enlisted, and then was commissioned later. That meant I was exposed to the army education system from both sides, where there are thousands of pages of regulatory guidance on concepts like authority, responsibility, accountability, and so on. Later, when I was a field grade officer, I conducted several 15-6 investigations, and when you tagged for that, the JAG lawyers load you up with all of that stuff PLUS another batch of on-the-job training on concepts like the various levels of causality (immediate, proximal, distal, and so on).
In may capacity conducting forensic psychological evaluations, I have also been immersed in the subtle fine tuning of moral culpability, fitness to proceed or competent to stand trial, insanity as an affirmative legal defense against responsibility and mental disorders of such severity that they mitigate, (which only matters in the penalty phase) rather than remove total responsibility which is determined as a procedural point of contention at the very beginning of the trial.
Strangely, Orthodoxy, (in particular as opposed to Catholicism and western thought) is much less refined and dogmatic in its approach to these matters. Converting to Orthodoxy is much more than just changing your belief in certain doctrines. Eastern faith is a completely different worldview and the challenge to synthesize a lifetime of upbringing where every term and concept is clearly defined with precise left and right limits to “economia” and so on is pretty tough mental work, to be honest.
These matters get pretty complex rather quickly. I can chime in here, just not sure where to begin.
Also, when I write “pretty tough mental work,” I only mean me personally. I do not consider myself to be particularly bright, nor do I possess a flair for abstract thought.
It’s just that in every path I have taken, it has required me to really stretch out beyond what I would normally even contemplate, let alone master.
Scott isn’t wrong. It was very strange when I realized how different Eastern thought is from Western thought. The example I like to use is that there is no Eastern concept of man being a body being separate from the mind and that separate from the spirit or soul.
The term “responsibility” is really a kind of *legal* term — one is legally “responsible” if the law deems you to be so, even if you are personally not “at fault” or “to blame”. So, for example, you may own a pizzeria and employ a few delivery drivers. If one of them gets into an accident while delivering a pizza when working for you, you are, legally, “responsible” for the damages that are done by the accident (barring exceptional circumstances where, say, the employee was doing something that was not a part of the job, like a personal errand mixed in or something like that), even though clearly you are not personally “at fault”. The “fault” would be with the employee, if there is any fault (many accidents present hard cases to discern real fault), but the legal responsibility lies with the employer (this is a legal doctrine in the common law of torts called “respondeat superior”). Whether the employer is “to blame” as well depends on how the employee was trained and so on, but that is a social judgment and not a legal one.
It appears to me that Wilson is making this kind of distinction — the husband is like the employer of the wife, and everything she does he is therefore “responsible” for, even if it is not his personal “fault” and he is not “to blame” for the acts she commits. It seems to me that the concept of “federal headship” draws heavily from, or is at least running parallel to, the common law doctrine of “respondeat superior” in spirit, if not in letter.
Cane,
I think we have different definitions of what being emotional is. You seem to indicate inner things, possibly even compassion. I would agree that women lack that. But I see emotions as more outward things. Men suppress that far more. Some may fist bump, but even that is not necessarily an easy thing for many men. “I love you man” was a joke in a commercial, not a way of life for most men.
I am likely quite biased by the fact I am generally very firm with my emotions (except anger at times). I have never seen a woman like that. Even my harder mom was much more emotional underneath.
Though perhaps this is getting too much like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.” Women are definitely more expressive with things (in general at least) in most church services where that is part of things. At least that has been my clear experience.
@BillyS
I think this kind of worship is more conducive to men:
No journalist asks … If a testing room or an office is too cold, why doesn’t the woman just put on a sweater?
Also, I hear that heavy layers of fat is good insulation. In which case, most Western women have no excuse to under perform.
@BillyS
I do find a lot of charismatic worship songs pretty cringy. I prefer this kind of worship:
@BillyS
Homophobia and transphobia to be crimes in Brazil: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48391926
A majority in Brazil’s Supreme Court has voted in favour of making homophobia and transphobia crimes.
Six out of 11 judges voted to consider discrimination against gays and transgender people equivalent to racism. …
“Homophobic crimes are as alarming as physical violence,” Supreme Court Vice-President Luiz Fux said on his vote, citing “epidemic levels of homophobic violence”.
Wait. So, when we’re talking about “homophobic crimes” we’re not talking about “physical violence”?
For almost 20 years there have been efforts to make homophobia a crime in Brazil, but legislation on the matter has faced resistance among conservative and religious groups in Congress, the BBC’s Julia Carneiro in Rio reports.
The decision at the Supreme Court means that offences are to be punished under the country’s racism law until Congress approves specific legislation to protect LGBT people, our correspondent adds.
So the judges are reinterpreting an existing law, changing it, until Congress passes the law that the judges want.
@Darwinian Arminian
Thanks; you made a great addition.
@BillyS
It occurred to me tonight that, because the Men’s Sphere is mostly introverts, and because introverts tend to avoid extroverts, most men reading this might truly think that men are less emotive. Also, introverts tend not to play sports. They don’t tend to hang out with men in groups while women are absent because they are only in groups when necessary, and in those cases women are often around. Also, you should have heard me back when I played MW2, shouting into my headset to nobody in particular: “OH MY LORD, THAT GUY IS CAMPING OUR SPAWN AGAIN!”
I would wager that the difference between your perception and mine (apart from the introversion) is that you more heavily weight the softer emotions when you think about the word emotions than I do. Often times, women are trying to drum up emotions within themselves. That’s not always bad. We could do with a bit more of that in service to contentment and happiness from women.
There is a clear difference between emotions and being emotional.
Women are more emotional than men, however, this isn’t the same as having more emotions than men, merely that men seem to have more control over their emotions or avoid displaying them in the open.
We know that men are more idealistic sex, sticking more to the principle and not being swayed purely by emotion. Seeking to weigh up a decision based on more than what he merely feels is right.
Being stoic in the face of danger doesn’t mean a man lacks fear and thus cannot feel the emotion but that he is in control of his fear and doesn’t let it control him.
Divorce Corp.
“The single biggest reason for divorce in this country is marriage,” he said.
@Cane
It’s more simple than that. “Women are more expressive” is just yet another lie we have been taught to believe. Observe, in any social setting, how fast “women are more expressive” evolves into “Women have better intuition” turns into “women have innate morality/better discernment on moral issues”.
@Scott
Maybe you can clarify, but I find your explanation of the differences between converting to orthodoxy and converting to Catholicism somewhat strange. Granted, I did not personally convert to Catholicism, but I did have a reversion.
The claim that converting to Catholicism involves a simple change in belief in doctrines without a corresponding change in worldview and synthesis of beliefs with one’s life and upbringing seems dubious at best. I think that it’s more obvious in the East because it hasn’t suffered a catastrophic loss of identity like the West has in the last 50 years; in addition, the Roman Church’s liturgy (and therefore it’s distinct character) has always been marked by its sobriety.
Being Catholic is very rigorous, very technical, and very regimented, but that doesn’t correspond to just a simple change in beliefs as if such a faith could come without a shifting worldview in the believer. And it definitely doesn’t mean it comes without its own pastoral complexity.
Emotions or expressiveness often have specific context for men.
Tim —
The difference, which I think is hard for Catholics in particular to understand, is that Orthodoxy is not embedded in Western thought … at all. No scholasticism, no renaissance, no enlightenment. None of that worked its way into anything in the Orthodox Church. So when one becomes Orthodox (I was a cradle Catholic and was received by the Orthodox about 20 years ago), one must gradually adopt a worldview, a way of seeing the world, a way of experiencing the world and oneself, that is alien to Western thought and conceptions — both the “religious” strain of Western thought and the “secular” strain of Western thought. Orthodoxy is completely different in mindset. No doubt that the Catholic mindset is distinct from the current secular Western one — that’s clear. Yet it still shares many, many common roots, which makes sense, because Catholicism is “of the West” and was for a long time the core of Western culture — Orthodoxy is not of the West and is not a part of, nor has it partaken of, Western culture, during its formative period.
I think this can be hard for Catholics to understand (I know I never properly understood it until I had been Orthodox for a while), because to Catholics Orthodoxy looks quite similar to Catholicism, particularly when compared with Protestantism (which is post-Reformation Catholicism’s “other”), so these differences in worldview/mindset (what Orthodox call “phronema”) is most often overlooked. That’s understandable — as I said, I didn’t get it fully until I had been Orthodox for a while myself — I certainly didn’t get it when I was Catholic, and even when I was an Orthodox catechumen.
It appears to me that Wilson is making this kind of distinction — the husband is like the employer of the wife, and everything she does he is therefore “responsible” for, even if it is not his personal “fault” and he is not “to blame” for the acts she commits.
This is a very military model. Ship’s captain, regimental commander, etc. The commanding officer is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do.
The standing watch runs the ship aground while the captain is asleep in his cabin, and the captain losses his command. He is unlikely to get another ship, ever.
The regiment meets strong resistance moving along an assigned route and isn’t making its timelines. The regimental commander is replaced mid-battle. He is unlikely to get another command of any kind, ever.
Off Topic and in spite of Lost patrol’s 07.41 post on emotions
The votes will not be counted until Sunday but Prime Minister May – who has to have been the absolutely most useless P.M. since the last one – has resigned, and what intrigues me from a Manosphere point of view is that just like the previous female incumbent to hold the office she has been crying – publicly. I cannot think that any man on losing power ever wept. Frankly, that fact alone shows that women are not suited to governing. Clearly, a man must be to blame and in this case all the men in her party who elected her to lead in the first place.
@Nova
Just to make sure I understand, you are saying that the difference in the experience of conversion is not a categorical or universal difference but one for those in the West. In other words, the required shift in mindset would be as dramatic for an Easterner converting to Roman Catholicism as it was for you as a Westerner to convert to Orthodoxy.
If that’s the case then that is where I got tripped up; it read to me as a more universal statement. I appreciate the clarification.
In other words, the required shift in mindset would be as dramatic for an Easterner converting to Roman Catholicism as it was for you as a Westerner to convert to Orthodoxy.
Not for an Orthodox living in the West, no, because eve n a cradle Orthodox living in the West is steeped in Western culture and Western ways of seeing the world, which, though secular, “rhyme” with Catholicism in many ways. So it’s generally a bit easier going in that direction for an Orthodox growing up and living in the West, than it is for a Catholic going East. In terms of ecclesiastical specific ways of thinking, yes, there is a mindset change required. Most of the Orthodox I have known who have gone that route did so, at least in part, because of the difficulty they had having “divided loyalties” in their heads — being culturally Western and spiritually Eastern has its challenges, even for those who grow up as Westerners in the Orthodox Church.
Tim-
Yes, it appears that my description of conversion to Orthodoxy was inadequate in the context of your comment.
There are a couple of things going on here. First, you are correct that Catholicism has undergone a sweeping destruction of its identity. In America, most protestants, not understanding fully what the church IS or why the liturgical life and the sacraments are so crucial, are content to understand RC as just another “denomination.” And it appears, in order to get along and not make too many waves, they have been resigned to be thought of that way. This contributes to that destruction.
But lets be honest. The roots of the western thought process come from Catholic teaching. Catholic theologians, for example gave us concepts like “remote formal cooperation” (and so on) and even though they won’t usually admit it, most Americans think according to a framework like that.
The Orthodox have no such thing in our understanding of sin, nor do we generally care what Americans think about our weird practices.
Also, it might be useful to imagine a continuum with very low church at one end and very high church at the other. A protestant, converting from a small “o” orthodox liturgical traditions like some lutherans and presbyterians would not find it very difficult to make the change. A big box attendee who had never encountered vestments, missals, clergy ranks, censers, and so on would feel like they had entered some kind of satanic pagan ritual (and sometimes actually do say stuff like that).
I just scrolled up and realized the Nova answered way better than me.
I just scrolled up and realized the Nova answered way better than me.
Oh, not better, just differently, which is good.
Is it possible for a person in the West truly to become Orthodox? or Hindu? or Muslim? Is it any more possible to become Orthodox than to become Russian or Greek? or if a man, to become a woman? or if white, black? I am not suggesting insincerity but no matter how sincere would it ever become second nature and as if it is something to which one had been bred?
Americans seem to see becoming American as a matter of choice or will and I wonder therefore whether that American attitude might influence thinking on adoption of Orthodoxy and may I also note that although people do change their beliefs and thus their religious adherence, ‘forum shopping’ seems to be more American – sometimes changing ones religious adherence with the speed that one might change ones automobile – than it is elsewhere.
That’s some touchy ground right there, Opus.
Talk like that in certain circles, even mentioning that you are kind of in to the ethnic piece will get you labeled “phyletist” which is a fancy word for racist.
Mostly by American Orthodox Christians
It is verboten in western thought for one to hold constant a connection, no matter how subtle, innocuous or sublime a connection between ethnicity, culture and faith.
The Catholic Church values reason very highly relative to the Orthodox Church. I think this is because the Orthodox Church can’t theologically settle anything as dogma without the Catholic Church(per the view of the Orthodox Church a valid ecumenical council requires representation from both groups while the Catholic Church only requires our own plus Papal ratification).
As a consequence, debate has little purpose for the Orthodox since the question can never be settled. This may be why the tradition is more mystically oriented and inward looking. Catholic Church finds God in nature and with reason(reason and science essentially), Orthodox Church finds God by looking inward and meditating. Hesychasm for instance. The most comparable Western meditation tradition is found with the Jesuits.
If the RC is so rational/reasonable why do they allow the hard left social justice wing to exist and ultimately become pope? Totally unable to read his own catechism and rationalize the difference between a legal and illegal immigrant?
@Novaseeker
Can confirm. I’ve heard even SSPX Catholic women insist that men be “chivalrous”. These women cover their heads at Mass and are under heavy pressure to marry and have children, yet they clearly think chivalry is an unmitigated good.
Chivalry seems to be an interesting divider between East and West, given that it cropped up after the Schism but before the Reformation.
Separating mysticism from reason seems to be problematic at the outset. The Greatest minds that the West has to offer, Augustine and Aquinas, were both mystics, along with other great minds like Francis de Sales, Bernard of Clairveaux, Albert Magnus, etc.. They were wise because they contemplated the Divine; their reason was illuminated by God through their meditation and contemplation. It’s been a fairly recent development that theologians were not also mystics, and I think that our theology has suffered because of it. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, one of the most outspoken against the modernism of the 20th century especially as it pertained to hi fellow Dominicans, was also a mystic, and it shows in his writing.
Being a mystic isn’t some special calling, it is the ordinary (even though uncommon) development of the Christian life. And if reason suffers, then mysticism also suffers; John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila knew firsthand just how important it was to make sure that meditation and contemplation were in accord with proper theology.
Scott, it’s because concupiscence and demonic influence are real. Just because we highly value reason does not mean that it will always be properly applied; our intellects can be darkened and tricked, and it is not new that God might punish His disobedient children with confusion, even from the heights of the hierarchy, by allowing the darkened reason to spread, by protecting the Church less from demonic influence than He has in the past. One day we will know why God has allowed this, but for now we just have to accept the Divine rebuke for what it is.
Internal control mechanisms and emphasis on reasoned debate for theology are two entirely different things. The Inquisition is the Church’s internal control mechanism and is close to not being in operation anymore. Yes, there have been bad Popes, even Popes that were later anathematized. That has precisely zero relevance to philosophical and theological approaches to questions.
Literally read any famous Catholic theologians and the reliance on logic is obvious. It is a particular way of thinking about and talking about things. Natural law is a logic based system.
As has been observed though, this undergirds so much of Western thought it is difficult for Westerners to comprehend the existence of other systems.
@TimFinnegan
It is not an absolute divide between East and West. One is more mystical, the other more rational, but they are not irrational or unmystical respectively.
It might be best understood through the frame of outward looking or inward looking, with Hesychasm being a great example. Catholics tend more to look outwards to find God, Orthodox tend more to look inwards. Again these are tendencies and not absolutes.
If all Popes appeared to be paragons to us that would also create its own problems.
Submission to Church hierarchy teaches humility(which is not something only women need to learn). It is easy enough to obey when you think someone is right, or to love those who are close to you. But that’s not all that is asked of us.
I guess we know where our next stop is.
Interesting to see what some countries focus on. Brazil’s hugeand endless crime wave and faltering economy seem to be bigger issues for most Brazilians, hence why Bolsonaro was elected, but for Brazil’s secular upper middle class, who no doubt live in gated communities, homosexual rights seem to be more important.
Novaseeker,
If I understand correctly, you are saying that the concept of “federal headship” used by Wilson and others is essentially the same one used in our legal system. If so, then the complaints about Wilson’s writings on the subject are likely due to a misunderstanding of the terms “fault”, “blame”, and “responsibility”. In other words, the problem is primarily with the reader.
Vandicus,
I simply don’t think that’s the case. If you read the Confessions or the life of Thomas Aquinas, I think it becomes quite apparent that what they knew of God was primarily attained through meditation and contemplation, through an inward looking process. When Aquinas was struggling with a question he invariably turned to fasting and prayer, and his knowledge of God made massive strides when he was locked in a tower with nothing but a breviary and a Bible.
Maybe I’m still just misunderstanding you, but I simply don’t see that Catholicism is primarily outward looking. I can see it being more outward looking than orthodoxy while still retaining primacy of meditation and contemplation, but I can’t see it as being primarily outward looking.
TimFinnegan,
It’s a hard thing to articulate, but I’m not trying to portray Catholics as scientists. The differences are relative and indicate a tendency. There is a common way of thinking that pervades writing such that Catholic and Orthodox approaches are meaningfully different but often in subtle ways.
Teleology for instance is more Catholic than Orthodox, though there is nothing preventing an Orthodox person from studying and understanding teleology.
@Novaseeker
This is Wilson’s misdirection. He claims to be making this distinction, yet in the example he made up to teach this distinction he deliberately blurs the lines. To borrow from your legal analogy, he states that the husband created an environment where the wife’s sin was likely to occur. He really is laying blame on the husband, all while supposedly teaching that responsibility isn’t blame.
This muddying the waters is classic Wilson, which is why the classic defense of Wilson is that he is really bad at explaining things with the written word.
He claims to be making this distinction, yet in the example he made up to teach this distinction he deliberately blurs the lines. To borrow from your legal analogy, he states that the husband created an environment where the wife’s sin was likely to occur. He really is laying blame on the husband, all while supposedly teaching that responsibility isn’t blame.
Ah. Well in that case yes he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth — not edifying to say the least.
@ Red Pill Latecomer on May 24, 2019 at 12:07 am
So the judges are reinterpreting an existing law, changing it, until Congress passes the law that the judges want.
Not unlike US Courts.
I don’t believe (as is asserted above in some of these comments) that women can’t worship God just as truly as men do. It’s simpler and more insidious: partly because they’re wired to their emotions more than men and less than men to their rational processes (on average) they’re more spiritually gullible, as Paul points out, Eve having been deceived rather than Adam.
I get frustrated by Trained Spiritual Leaders and Ordained Ministers and the like telling me (directly or indirectly) that it’s “bad theology”and a misreading of the scripture to take it at its word when it says that (we) men are to be heads of– and, fetch the smelling-salts, over— our wives and households. There’s no difference in moral value between man and wife, any more than between a Captain and his First-Sergeant. But the First-Sergeant takes her orders from her Captain, not vise versa.
CORRECTION TO THE ABOVE:
I get frustrated by Trained Spiritual Leaders and Ordained Ministers and the like telling me (directly or indirectly) that it’s “bad theology” and a misreading of the scripture to take it at its word when it says that (we) men are to be heads of– and, fetch the smelling-salts, over— our wives and households. There’s no difference in moral value between man and wife, any more than between a Captain and his First-Sergeant. But the First-Sergeant takes her orders from her Captain, not vise versa.
@Dalrock said: This fits with every other explanation I’ve seen of federal headship:
No, no, we don’t mean you as the husband are to blame, we mean it’s your fault.
God told Eve that Adam would rule over her. That is the model for marriage that God established. We see that reflected in the fact that Christ (Bridegroom) rules over the Church (Bride).
I think Wilson could have used better words. I think he could have constructed better paragraphs to describe what he was saying. Consider the following:
Christ rules over the Church. That is the model for husbands to rule over their wives.
Does this mean that Christ makes folks behave? I think the Bible presents evidence that he does not (ignoring the argument that the Reformed folks make for the moment). I am thinking specifically of the image we are given where Christ says to a particular body of believers “because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth”.
Q1: Is Christ responsible for that group being lukewarm?
A1: No
Q2: Is Christ responsible for whether the lukewarm stay in his mouth?
A2: Yes.
I think this is the distinction that Wilson was making. As the one “ruling over”, the husband cannot make the wife behave. Except for in very limited circumstances, no one person can make another person do anything. However, the husband CAN do something about allowing the situation to continue. As the one who is “ruling over”, in the way that Christ rules over the Church, the Bible implies that the husband cannot force his wife to behave, but that he is responsible for allowing the wife to continue on in relationship with him.
The example for the husband to discharge this “responsibility” is given by the Old and New Testament men who “put away” their wives, and Christ, who spewed the lukewarm folks out of his mouth. Neither the men who put away their wives, nor Christ, were responsible for the behavior of the folks in question. But they were, as the “rulers over” their kingdom, responsible for allowing the disruptive situation to continue.
Short version: The Bible does make it clear that husbands are not responsible for the misbehavior of their wives. But they are responsible for allowing that misbehavior to continue to disrupt the family. The husband is responsible for whether he allows her misbehavior to continue to disrupt the family, but the law allows little if any recourse for the husband to follow in stopping the disruption. Note that the distinction is between stopping the behavior (he cannot) and stopping the disruption (he can, by the “putting away” or “spewing out of mouth”).
Unfortunately, in this legal climate, the husband has very few options for dealing with a wife who seriously disrupts the family. I understand Wilson’s desire to give the fellow an example of something he could do to short-circuit the wife’s disruption. But I agree with what was said upthread about that not being a good idea, in terms of the legal predicament it would place the husband in.
Somehow I missed Novaseeker’s comment and Dalrock’s response a few posts up. My response basically parallels that exchange, using different words.
Dalrock,
First, responsibility is not blame (so Wilson is correct if he does say that). Blame is defined as “assign responsibility for a fault”.
Second, in your quote of Wilson, he is correct to say there is a difference between fault and responsibility.
Again, “fault”, “responsibility”, and “blame” are each unique but related concepts. Understanding them and using those words correctly would improve communication and relationships.
My Thought for the Day: It is my understanding that one or more studies have found that we humans subconsciously adjust our perceptions to reinforce what we expect to see. If we expect to see agreement, we are more likely to find agreement, and vice versa.
I was reading some about Eleanor of Acquitane a couple days ago and could not believe my eyes. When I read through her history, she is the perfect example of what Dalrock describes as getting all the feminist merit badges and following their preferred life script. The only difference is that she did it almost perfectly whereas modern women usually miss a landing and go crashing into the ditch.
I read most of what I will write on the following two websites. There is a lot there, so I have probably forgot several of the juiciest stories and am not red-pilled enough to catch all of them because the modern telling of the story filters everything through an Eat Pray Love lens.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine
https://britishheritage.com/eleanor-of-aquitaine
The biggest part of her story is that she was extremely beautiful. She married about as high status of a guy as she could find–the crown prince of france. However, he was very religious, nice, kind, caring and a big pushover–extreme beta bucks. As she was nearing the wall she shut off the sex spigot, had a scandalous affair with her uncle that everyone knew about, and asked the pope for an annulment. Her husband didn’t want to let her go, so the pope forced her to sleep with him. She had a baby girl. Because the girl could not be the heir, her husband gave up and allowed the annulment to go through.
At this point she was pursued by a bunch of hunky handyman millionaires (kings/noblemen in antiquated language), she ended up turning cougar and picking a known bad boy womanizer 12 years younger (30 vs 18). Everything seems to have gone relatively well until her body began showing her mileage and her husband either started having mistresses or started being more open about them.
Now, she murdered one of the mistresses and convinced her children to revolt against their father the king. The kids lost I think a couple revolts and the king put her in confinement until he died.
More info in the next post.
More about Eleanor of Aquitaine
When she first married the King of France she was not popular. People were very happy with her, it seems she dressed provocatively, used bad language, seemed to have bad behavior and was considered a bad influence. Her husband was head over heels with her and gave into her every whim.
She nearly destroyed the second crusade. Her husband allowed her to come on crusade and she brought so much luggage that it made it very difficult on the army. When the army was going through a mountain pass the army could not get through in one day because she brought so much luggage, so it was supposed to camp in the middle for the night. She insisted that she continue through the pass herself with a lot of the good soldiers leaving the rest of the column behind. The Muslims then made a surprise attack during the night and caused tremendous casualties on the people still in the pass. The King seems to have escaped because he was dressed in pain clothes due to his humility so the Muslims did not make a big effort to catch him thinking he was a commoner. From reading a different source it appears that after this incident the Kings Templar took control of the column and instituted military discipline on everyone which is credited with the French army actually making it to the holy land.
She had an affair with the father of her second marriage. It is unclear if this was before, during or after her first marriage. I think in one place this says that this caused the father to recommend her to the sun and in another it says the father told the son to stay away from her.
I will wrap it up with this quote from the britishheritage website:
“Eleanor found court life as queen of France stultifying. Her timid, sweet-tempered and devout husband exasperated her. Formed during her childhood at the court in Poitiers where she was rarely disciplined and always admired, her strong ego impelled Eleanor to create a lofty royal vision for herself, one that did not encompass the subordinate role as queen of France.After a decade of marriage she was as beautiful and capricious as ever, but even more headstrong and domineering toward Louis. “
A protestant pastor that is as far off as the Pope is would be met with charges that it was due to the faults of Protestants and that they need to repent and return to the real church. But it is just part of “God’s Will” when it is in the RCC?
That is more than a bit of a double standard.
Info,
I do not like “Jesus is My Boyfriend” songs much either, but I still prefer a modern style over church music like you note or even what people think Paul sung (hymns in stuffy churches). I don’t really care what people listen to though, it is the content that I pay more attention to.
Right now I am listening more to allworship.com’s Instrumental Channel more than most, because some of the words are in their traditional channel are idiotic from a Scriptural viewpoint, but I am sure some here would agree with the concepts. (No blessings don’t come through raindrops, curses or any such thing.)
I used to like oldies (mostly 70s) because that was when I was growing up, but I can’t handle the sexual themes so woven in, including the blue pill ones that are so common.
I find quite a bit of flexibility for music in Christ, as long as the ultimate focus is on Him. Many modern songs are certainly fluffy at best and church is unfortunately often a performance where I would attend, but I can’t control that in the slightest. (Ironically, many in those circles don’t have any clue what they are really doing.)
Cane,
I get far too annoyed when I play a game and that is one thing that will probably keep me from ever streaming that. I haven’t completely figured out the difference between expressions of anger and those of happiness however. I am much more limited in the latter and I have been since I was very young, so some parts of it are likely innate, even if many would blame a non-existent tragedy in my life. The anger does seem to come more out of frustration, which I have had to deal with a LOT in the past few years.
@BL
She was a thot and one doesn’t marry thots. The King could have married a woman more beautiful than her that didn’t act like she acted.
@RichardP
So if your wife does ANY sin, you should divorce her? This federal headship stuff is quite weird.
@BillyS
“I do not like “Jesus is My Boyfriend” songs much either”
Its not just an opinion I believe. Because Romance whether in music or lyrics is inherently erotic:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/romance-is-sexual/
Despite people pretending otherwise Romance is erotic. It is inappropriate in a worship context. It makes worship of Jesus even homoerotic. Whilst women at least on the emotional level have that experience:
http://podles.org/church-impotent.htm (Start in Chapter 6)
The nuns who applied this in their worship had erotic experiences of Jesus as a result.
One would be hard pressed to find Romantic Psalms to God in the Old Testament.
Wilson’s advice in that article to the husband is “you’ll have to move out of the house”.
Worst. Advice. Ever.
“Flight equals guilt” is deeply embedded into the American legal system, and western civilization.
Why?
Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
I cannot tell if Wilson is simply ignorant and stupid, or if he is malicious and wishes to harm men. Either way the effect is the same – disaster.
Careful readers will note that Wilson chides his imaginary husband more than once for lies, what does he say about the lies of the imaginary wife?
Nothing.
What conclusion can be drawn from this conspicuous silence on Wilson’s part?
As Oscar linked above, when a woman has declared war upon her husband, he must stand and fight, and that means he does not vacate the house, she must put him out. That is one part of the war path she has chosen…
Novaseeker
The term “responsibility” is really a kind of *legal* term — one is legally “responsible” if the law deems you to be so, even if you are personally not “at fault” or “to blame”. So, for example, you may own a pizzeria and employ a few delivery drivers.
I can fire a driver who is acting badly. Wilson would never allow a husband to “fire” a wife who is acting badly, with the possible exception of infidelity. Therefore the analogy fails.
OKRickety
If I understand correctly, you are saying that the concept of “federal headship” used by Wilson and others is essentially the same one used in our legal system. If so, then the complaints about Wilson’s writings on the subject are likely due to a misunderstanding of the terms “fault”, “blame”, and “responsibility”. In other words, the problem is primarily with the reader.
If these concepts are so easy to explain, it should be trivial for you to do so.
Howver, there is no way to take terms used in legal employment contracts and apply them to marriage. The problem lies (heh) with Wilson and his double-talk.
The old shell game involves three walnut shells and a dried pea. The con artist shows the sucker where the pea is, then shuffles the shells around and invites the sucker to point to the shell with the pea. A few bets later the sucker is cleaned out, because the con artist is always not just re-arranging nut shells, he’s palming the pea.
“Fault”, “blame” and “responsibility” are the shells. “Authority” is the pea. Wilson plays his shell game routinely, showing “authority” then shuffling shells and promising it’s under one of them. Rubes, marks and other suckers remain fixated on the shells. A discerning observer watches where the pea goes. Because the pea of “authority” is constantly moving, and never found by the sucker. This is not an accident.
Wilson has two sides to his mouth and a vat of squid ink to squirt around.
Ironically, in a true Red Pill / The Glasses sense, a woman’s behavior is the responsibility of her man. “Change her mood, not her mind” , “Woman is like water that takes the shape of what it is poured into”. “He invites her into his life, not the other way around”.
But this is seen via;Game which shows women as they are; not TradCon pedestalization which “sees” women only as they ought to be, in the eyes of Romantic men.
Wilson inadvertently shows the utility and reality of Game..y
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