kevin_strom on Nostr: Revilo Oliver on religion and the differences between the sexes: There is a great ...

Revilo Oliver on religion and the differences between the sexes:

There is a great difference in the incidence of religiosity in men and women and a correspondingly great difference in the sexes’ attitudes toward their deity, when both recognize the same one.

In The Uses of Religion, pp. 34 f., I mentioned the opinion of a venerable bishop whose observations had convinced him that “in every congregation there are always two religions, since the two sexes have in their inner consciousness conceptions of their deity so different as to be reciprocally unintelligible or, at least, unacceptable.”

Furthermore, I am sure everyone has observed that almost invariably in our society males who show a strong emotional attachment to a god have grown up under predominantly feminine influence, whereas women who have emancipated themselves from superstition have been strongly influenced by a man to whom they were emotionally attached, usually a father, but often a lover or husband.

And when a husband and wife are both strongly religious, there is a very marked difference in their credulity. Of this a perfect illustration is provided by Elizabeth (Barrett) and Robert Browning. Both attended a séance with a rather clever confidence man named Home, who exhibited to them his ‘spiritualistic’ tricks accompanied by his best patter about immortal souls, divine purposes, and the rest of the then fashionable hokum.

The lady, although a poetess of some distinction and a highly intelligent woman, was completely taken in, revered the ghost-raising wizard, and looked forward to the glorious time when she could start hovering invisibly and impalpably in drawing rooms, rap tables on her own, and send silly messages to her survivors.

Robert Browning, although himself given to sprees on metaphysics and warmly religious speculations, saw that the charlatan was merely performing parlor tricks in the dark with rather crude apparatus. Browning registered his opinion of Home in his well-known poem, “Mr. Sludge, the Medium.” This difference of opinion lasted throughout the rest of the Brownings’ life together, tempered by a forbearance enforced by their devotion to each other, and since both were essentially religious persons, they provide a neat example of the innate difference between the feminine and the masculine mind.

(from "Is There Intelligent Life on Earth?" by Revilo P. Oliver, https://nationalvanguard.org/2019/05/is-there-intelligent-life-on-earth-part-15/ )