Featured Men who perhaps aren't accustomed to discussing the Bible with women ....

It's not exactly "special" to not be able to relate to the majority of people around me and not have much in common. It's lonely and frustrating when they are talented and can fix their own clothes and be involved in ministries where they're making stuff with their own hands for poor people when the only thing I can do with a knitting needle is put an eye out.

Women being different than men is not a disability or something to look down on, but it is a reality. It gives us an advantage in some areas, just as men have advantages in other areas. There are a small number of men and women that do not fit the norm, but they are just that. Not the norm. It doesn't make them better or worse, just different from the norm. The problems seem to come in when this minority is not accepted for who they are and people try to push them into normal societal roles and expectations that don't fit them, rather than accept that they just don't belong there.

Men and women may be equal intellectually, but the majority are equal in different ways. It's pretty awesome. Males and females compliment each other because of this. Why fight it? It's a beautiful thing.

 

I suspect there are far more women around you able to discuss deep intellectual and spiritual subjects than you will give credit. There is no dearth of intellectually deep spiritual women who can carry on a conversation about the Bible, particularly to the extent you, Zenas and others seem to want to proclaim.

Of course not. But being a woman doesn't mean you are limited to what and how you can discuss and learn, either. You are the one making it a handicap, not me.

No one is stuck in a mold unable to break out of it. Any woman, any man, can overcome the "limitations" of their gender. It's like physical exercise. The more you try it, the better you get at it. The differences I listed earlier are not set in stone, and any woman can make use of her limitless depths of their intellectuality to any extent they want. Any man can explore his limitless emotional expanse. We are not imprisoned in our shortcoming, because we have none. We are only limited by our own perceptions.

On the contrary, any man, any woman belongs in any intellectual or emotional realm he or she desires. There is no excuse for a woman not to expand her intellect and knowledge as greatly as she wants. There is no excuse for a man not to explore the emotional depths of his soul and discover who he is inside. Thinking there are limitations in either of these venues is narrow-minded.

I don't fight it. But I don't encourage anyone to be enslaved to stereotypes, either. Difference is wonderful. Limiting one's self because of preconceived false gender shortcomings is not.

 

It's not an argument TND, nor are differences "shortcomings." Nobody should be told to reach further simply because they're being what they are. There's nothing wrong and nothing that needs to be changed about the differences between men and women and neither needs to reach into themselves to try to be more like the other.

When I said "Women being different than men is not a disability or something to look down on, but it is a reality. It gives us an advantage in some areas, just as men have advantages in other areas," you responded by saying "Of course not. But being a woman doesn't mean you are limited to what and how you can discuss and learn, either. You are the one making it a handicap, not me."

Why did you say that? I never said it was a handicap. I, a female, made a positive statement, saying that being different gives both advantages. You, a male, turned it around to mean being different means women are limited in what they can discuss and learn and this is a handicap. I find that very interesting from a psychological standpoint. Can you explain what made you jump to that conclusion?

For the record, I don't believe differences to be shortcomings. They're just differences. I strongly believe that marriage between a man and a woman was based on much more than anatomy. It was based on also being able to complete each other in the emotional/psychological realm too.

 

Yes, I do see and your conclusion here made me sit and chuckle because it completely shot down the fallacious reasoning that’s been attempting to boxed-in thinking patterns as if this is easily figured out while you logically recognize that there are other factors to consider. I absolutely agree and would contend that the matter is much more complex than some would attempt to make it out to be. What made me laugh is how much more logical you were being than those trying to box-in certain limitations that would seem to suggest you shouldn’t be thinking like this. :laugh::thumbs:

 

It's amazing how you leap to conclusions about simple statements. NOWHERE did I say they should be "told to" do anything. But if I have clients who believe they are limited to what they can do because of their gender, of course I'm going to tell them that is not a limit.

I would enjoy seeing you point out anything I've said that would contradict that.

When you said, "... but it is a reality." Many will take that as a statement of fait accompli that requires them to remain limited by their self-perceptions and not realize they don't have to accept those limits.

You didn't use the term. You did close the door on it being anything but a reality.

:laugh: I'm not the one who is conclusion-jumping around here. Your language, your sentence structure, everything about your post implies that you believe men are stuck being stoic intellectual jerks, and women are stuck being emotional train wrecks. Maybe you didn't mean it that way. I don't know. But it comes off that way, whether you see it or not.

I don't know if you think I have implied that marriage is based on more than anatomy, or of if that's just a random unrelated thought you threw in there. It isn't relevant to anything I've said. A marriage is primarily a spiritual relationship sanctioned by God. While the man is the spiritual head of the household, the woman should not feel limited by what many have said on here the last few days is her "lot in life": That she is not intellectually deep, she is primarily emotional, and as such tends to shy away from deep spiritual/intellectual discussions. That's hogwash, and while your post doesn't address any of those arguments -- which makes me wonder how you wandered into the discussion in the first place, since it's mostly off-topic -- it does support the limited thinking that creates those erroneous perceptions.

 

In all earnestness, I implore you to step aside and examine your heart and mind and why such ideas and assumptions would enter into them, why one would assume my words held such values when one just as easily could have assumed they held very different values.
It was your mind alone that came up with that interpretation of my words and came up with negative meaning when I said that men and women have differences and those differences have advantages for both.

And now I'M DONE! J/K, not done if you really have any need for further discussion. Guess I got a little...emotional. :tongue3: (come on, smile...)

 

In all earnestness, I implore you to realize that everyone is an individual and unique, and is the top quality that trumps by light years any common elements that might bind the differences between men and women.

It was your mind alone that came up with the interpretation that Numbers was in any way degrading the role of women in their depth of spiritual maturity. Each person is a unique creation of God, and that is the basis of relating to that individual.

As far as your last comment, it reminds me of someone who hits themselves with a hammer, because it feels so good when one stops.

 

Saturn, this is his to answer, as my question has to do with what his actual thought process was, which means nobody has the answer to that but him.
He used the words "men are stuck being stoic intellectual jerks, and women are stuck being emotional train wrecks" so no, that's not me or my mind coming up with that, lol!

As for my last sentences, it's a bit of a joke based on a line he's used before, meant to add a little levity.

 

You're either intentionally misrepresenting what I said, or you just don't have the cognitive ability to follow my posts. I'm not sure which, but either way, you have embarrassed yourself here by either being disingenuous in your comments, or just too dense to know what you're talking about. Here's the context of those comments:

I have nothing to answer for, because I accurately characterized what you said. If you can't follow a discussion, don't participate.

 

TND, you crack me up! I wrote something positive, said it was positive, yet the words and my intentions, simply based on some odd "sentence structure" concept of yours, take on terrifyingly opposite meaning. That's powerful sentence structure. Then, after you engage me in a conversation you started by responding to me, you tell me to join in if I can't keep up with you. :laugh: I do find some of your conversations interesting, but at times like this, you are just plain confusing. Funny, but maybe you're like me and have this horrid sense of humor...hrm.

 

Maybe if you stopped self-medicating, it wouldn't seem so odd to you.

 

My only medications are doctor prescribed and until yesterday, included ONE.

However, if I lived in Colorado, I'd self medicate since it's legal there. I don't live there and it's not legal here, so I don't, but that's for the Josie thread. :wavey: Even if I don't agree with the laws, I do tend to follow them. Even when I did live where it was legal medically and had a doctor that would prescribe, I didn't, since it would cause people like you to stumble.

 

Then what is you excuse for being the only one on the thread who couldn't understand what I was saying, or that you were not saying what you thought you were saying?

 

Gina B..., perhaps he truly is disconnected? Either that, or he's posted on the wrong thread? :laugh:

An old saying..., "Just because you think it doesn't make it so".