This is absolutely spot on – and I have seen the terrible consequences of fatherlessness, and the lack of male leadership and healthy role models, in so many of the young people with whom I have worked.
You are right to call men back to responsibility, yet the renewal ahead may not be a climb back into hierarchy but a turning toward harmony. The absence of grounded fathers has left a void in families and in faith itself. Gentle note, the 38 percent effect you cite tells a more nuanced story however.
It isn’t proof that men are spiritually leaders; it shows that children internalize faith when it is rooted in structure. The father, archetypally, bears that structure. When he lives it publicly, it becomes real. Here, faith stops being only an emotion and becomes the framework of life itself.
The feminine and masculine were never meant to compete. They are distinct expressions of one divine order, complementary gifts through which creation finds balance. The feminine current is wisdom, compassion, and intuitive knowing — the inner flame that gives life its warmth and meaning. The masculine current is structure, protection, and moral clarity — the vessel that allows that light to endure.
When each awakens the other within, balance replaces rivalry and spiritual authority becomes partnership. Then the home becomes a living temple: the mother bearing light, the father giving it form. Faith is transmitted not by decree but by presence. Hope this helps clarify. Thank you for the article.
"The feminine current is wisdom, compassion, and intuitive knowing — the inner flame that gives life its warmth and meaning. The masculine current is structure, protection, and moral clarity — the vessel that allows that light to endure."
It's true that those trait cluster under categories we understand to be masculine and feminine forces or energies. However they do not necessarily cluster cleanly in men and women as implied by the notion that the male in a heterosexual couple/family should be the "leader". As other have pointed out, the loss of respect for "feminine" traits coupled with the notion of innate male authority has lead to a world of pain from many women and children. It would be good for adults to understand that families require all of the listed traits.
NB: One does not have to look far into historic record to see that "moral clarity" is hardly the domain of husbands and fathers solely.
Religion has little to do with human morality. It is just a way to deceive and force dependence on people. It has caused more harm and violence than wars. It strengthens religious authority and dispels human empathy and intelligence. It is deplorable that someone as brave and intelligent as Hirsi Ali has fallen victim of deception. My condolences and wishes for her to break free of authoritarianism.
I think there is a difference between the perversion of religion that has caused so much suffering through the ages and true belief, in which "service is perfect freedom".
It is also very hard to have a moral framework without being answerable to something beyond ourselves. What we currently think of as universal 'human morality' is actually deeply rooted in Christianity. It was Christianity which brought an end to child sacrifice, bestowed dignity and intrinsic worth on women and children, opened hospitals and schools across the globe and it was the Christian west which ended the slave trade (at least within the western sphere of influence – it continues elsewhere to this day).
Many Christians have behaved totally contrary to Christian teaching over two millennia – but that doesn't mean the teaching is wrong. If we all lived in accordance with Christ's teaching, the world would be a much better place.
It’s true that religion, when reduced to authority or fear, can strangle freedom. History gives us many examples. But faith in its living form is not obedience; it is the awakening of the conscience.
The great tragedy of modern times is that we’ve thrown out spiritual knowing because institutional power misused it. Spiritual life at its core is not belief imposed from outside, but a path of inner experience — learning to perceive meaning woven into the world, to see spirit within matter. When this awakens, empathy and intelligence deepen together, not oppose one another.
Restoring the West’s turn to faith need not be a submission to authority. It can mark the next stage of human freedom — discovering truth through love rather than through force. Religion degenerates when it forgets this; it heals when knowledge and reverence become one.
The men are allowed to get away with really nasty things and scriptures are quoted. Such men are not fit to be fathers. Women hoped like they evolved the men would too. But obviously there is no need for the male to change. It lead to fatherlessness. Now that women have understood and accepted that fact they are choosing 4B childfree to avoid the consequences the kids have to bear. And we have the male loneliness epidemic. The men want women to go back into slavery for them to feel good again. Maybe MAGA too is about a return to slavery of the less equal men
We have always said that we get our sports teams and our religion from our fathers. That said, the sports teams are usually harmless; not so much the religions. On an individual basis, faith can nourish and the soul can inspire acts of wondrous generosity. On a collective basis, how can we ignore the role of structured religion in our unrelenting history of horror. Clearly, human beings have a need to worship which usually leads to the worst forms of idolatry - the worst bring the charismatic leader who usurps divine authority. What troubles me most is the wholesale retreat from modernity whose prophets are Darwin, Freud, Marx, and Einstein. Taken collectively, they free us from subservience to ideologically (religiously) driven authority and place life’s possibilities within our grasp.
Exactly. Ayaan got ill she got scared mortality and rushed towards religion. One wonders was she truly convinced about atheism all those years or thats the side her bread was buttered then. Pragmatism
I wonder if Hirsi Ali would have taken to a religion if she had a daughter. She escaped from Islam but now apparently realises she needs the structure/oppression. She can't go it alone with other enlightened human beings. No wonder women are not taken seriously. Her only goal apparently like most other women was a husband and sons. Quite a disappointment.
Much compassion for the pain you express here. I understand why you feel disappointed, but I don’t think Ayaan or Daisy are seeking oppression. It seems they’re looking for a steadier center, something beyond fear and resentment.
Note that when either the masculine or the feminine turns dark, it breeds harm on both sides; wounded power can potentially create more wounding.
The task now is not just to restore the West but perhaps to renew it, that is to say, bringing freedom and spirit together in a way that heals both women and men. (Sharing this in case it adds another angle)
They will not get oppression but the women lower on the food chain will be oppressed. Ayaan basically is I am fine I dont have a daughter. Other's daughters are not my problem. Like FGM in Islam there are horrific practices to control women in every religion even Christianity. So apparently we cannot be good decent honest compassionate people without relying on a fictitious god and the promise of a fictitious heaven and eternal afterlife. Its a real shame. And expecting the common male to evolve is like flogging a dead horse. It has been tried and it failed. Its never going to be. He has voted against womens right to choice over their own bodies now he doesn't want them to have a vote or get highly educated or become financially independent. Healing in the way you want is a woke concept which has failed. The male does not want gender equality. He feels insecure abd emasculated. And since there can be no win win the women have chosen the lose lose option. Why should it be bright only for the male let it be dark for him too. Why only have the female wounded let the male be wounded too.
Basically Ayaan has climbed the ladder and now is destroying it so that no further young women have access to climb out of their oppression. Not right.
You insult women by denying females have full agency.
The human race is a sexually dimorphic primate species down to every cell in every body. There is not now and never will be equality of the sexes. It is a stupid idea from shallow neomarxist origins and absurd Hegelian dialectics.
Have you never realized that ASKING to be GIVEN equality is an absurdity?
Exactly. Women asking for equality just means they are not equal. Just like the coloureds or minorities or even workers asking for equality just means they are not equal. Just as there can never be gender equality there can never be equality of the more equal and less equal men. Marxism and even religions have fed us these untruths that all men are equal. How can it ever be possible. It goes against nature where it is survival of the fittest
What a shame about your daddy issues. You need to work them out one-on-one with your parents and relatives - finding out who failed you and what were the circumstances.
Meanwhile, the women of the world continue to use attractivity, proceptivity and receptivity to establish bonding with their chosen male and so far have produced more than 8 billion little babies which survived.
All the daughters all the sisters all the mothers all the wives have been failed. The only reason there are so many babies is because women had no other option for survival. Then they thought arranged marriage is bad love marriage is good. But they discovered the problem is the entitled male. So today finally they choose to go 4B and childfree. Those who need the sex and the alimony and cs take it up up as a career good bad ugly boss as long as no fault divorce is there. Without that even the current number will drop.
Who discovered the connection between fucking and babies could sometimes be avoided - condoms, pulling out, oral contraceptives which were invented, tested for safety, manufactured them and distributed them? Men.
Who invented, manufactured, distributed and supplied and used anaesthetics - Opium, Morphine, Nitrous gas, Trilene, Pethidine? Men
Who established the entire discipline of modern obstetrics to deal with breech, shoulder dystocia, POP, twins, placenta praevia, eclampsia? Men.
Who is conquering female cancers with PAP and surgery and vaccines against the HPV that causes them? Men
Who through history die in battle defending homeland safety and security for their women and children? Vastly, vastly men.
I cannot see any difference between asserted claims like, "We must allow men to step fully into the role God has given them," in this article and, "Sharia law is God's law, we don't write the law; God writes the law," by an Ayatollah convinced women like Inglese have no equivalent rights as men and are 'improper' and deserving of punishment for even asking any questions of holy men.
This is the problem assuming religiously inspired assertions have any merit especially assuming greater church attendance - and what is taught there - is magically a net good BECAUSE it's religious. How can we differentiate when belief, but not reason and compelling evidence, plays no central factor? The West cannot be restored to enlightenment's liberal values through religion. But the Dark Ages can certainly succeed.
Ahhh! I understand the concern. Thank you for this. History certainly shows that religion becomes dangerous when it demands belief instead of understanding. But note genuine spiritual life is not obedience to rules; it is the awakening of conscience through inner experience.
When Daisy speaks of men stepping into the role God gives them, it can be read as finding one’s purpose within a moral order, not submission to decree.
True faith and clear reason can work together. The Enlightenment began that task by freeing reason, but the reunion remains unfinished.
What we may need now is not less reason, but a much deeper form of it, one that remembers the spirit within the human being. That is where living discernment begins. (Hope this helps)
Is that the same spirit that indicates gender, perchance? Just kidding... but kinda not. 'Spirit' is one of those esoteric terms that usually acts as the kindly motte before the authoritarian bailey makes its presence known. It's a red flag term because it is at best very loosely defined and used not to reveal but obfuscate inside some other framing other than seeking what's independently true. In this case, it's "awakening of conscience"... that, if understood in respectful moral preference for others, is indicated by infants long before any religious sensibilities are introduced and not some close reading extracted from some specific scripture or a necessary condition obtained only from religious belief. The idea of differentiating between belief of the religious kind and understanding as justified true belief of the evidentiary kind is similarly slippery; look how you so easily define 'understanding' as discovering one's 'purpose' - a 'discovery' that you already presume has to align with what you believe in religious terminology is the same one God gives to the man (as if this justifies the assigned role!) and not the purpose to lay waste to nature (or some similar morally questionable undertaking). Some other 'morality' in already in play long before religious sensibilities makes an appearance. And the obvious one is biology... not just in human biology but shared in degrees with many other related species.
But look at me, presuming that to 'understand' anything about morality means it has to be 'revealed' by behaviour that I define as favourable to the welfare of others and not just one's self. See? We're all full of such biases as all individuals are but religious belief (or 'understanding') is not any kind of precursor or revelatory framework to examine these meanings. In fact, at best, such imported religious sensitivities merely makes the undertaking to 'understand' more not less complex. Unnecessarily so. And, to recall Feynman's warning, we are the easiest people to fool. I think religious belief greatly augments this risk.
It seems to me in the articles I see circulating these days about the resurgence of Christianity, that there is a tacit assumption that without some form of patriarchal monotheism, one cannot lead a spiritually observant life or a life of striving for moral integrity.
It also seems to me that to be unable to envision a deep spirituality that isn't centred on subservience to the authority of a supernatural male human figure belies a lack of imagination and a lack of attention to the miracles manifest in the ordinary world around us each and every day.
I appreciate your comment. Ummm…progress isn’t measured by how far we drift from the past, but by how consciously we evolve its truths. What looks “regressive” can sometimes be restorative, remembering principles we abandoned before we understood their depth.
The renewal of the sacred feminine and masculine, the re‑centering of family as a vessel of meaning, these are not steps backward but forward through integration. Important to note real evolution doesn’t reject tradition; it spiritualizes it. Moral freedom and reverence can grow together when we act from consciousness, not convention.
If we call every return to wholeness “regression,” we risk mistaking alienation for progress.
Very well put, The W's. But if some of those "truths" we're evolving are based on beliefs in supernatural occurrences and ancient mythology then that's not progress. That's holding us back in so many ways.
Thanks, William Mount. I’m grateful for your thoughtful comment. If you’re open to a gentle philosophical challenge, here goes.
The next step in human evolution is not abandoning reason but enlivening it. Natural science arose when thinking detached itself from spirit so it could observe nature objectively. That separation was necessary for knowledge but only temporary. The task now is to reunite precision with depth and to cultivate a spiritualised thinking that perceives reality as both measurable and meaningful.
This next evolution of consciousness has been described as spiritualised thinking — or, in Rudolf Steiner’s terms, the individual development of Imaginative, then Inspirative, and finally Intuitive cognition: a kind of thought that perceives spirit directly rather than reducing it to matter. Steiner also noted that humanity as a whole lives in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, but not everyone will develop it. Each person must awaken this faculty in freedom; it cannot be imposed, only cultivated through moral clarity and inner discipline.
There are already people beginning to live from this mode of awareness, and some of us are somewhere along that journey of developing the quality of thought that reveals the new consciousness.
if you have time and keen to explore, look into the Origins of Natural Science by Rudolf Steiner.
I have to end here though because of my workload, but please know I appreciate the exchange. Bless you!
You make an interesting point. What passes today for faith often carries the same emptiness as the secular ideologies it resists. In spiritual terms, nihilism is the shadow left when materialism takes hold of religious language. It replaces inner transformation with moral slogans and turns living truth into social dogma.
From an Anthroposophic point of view (I’m a student of spiritual science), both Marxism and fundamentalism are symptoms of the same illness: they separate the spirit from real life. The task may not be to fight one ideology with another, but to re‑ignite the direct experience of the divine within thought itself (this is an urgent topic in itself). In this, when knowledge and reverence reunite, the forms of belief can heal which can lead to faith becoming creative again.
I can't resist: is belief in the reality of transubstantiation a product of spiritual science? Or does the sciencey bit only work during the Eucharist?
But what mechanism are we using in order to determine such 'evidence' that is related by demonstrable connection between claimed cause and claimed effect? Without that, these are very different observations that lead us nowhere. What possible explanation(s) might yield a possible answer or answers? It seems to me just the suggestion alone means who cares? It seems to suggest we can stop any and all inquiries about these observations and claim a 'miraculous' event! Less likely, we can follow this logic and claim this 'evidence' of similar fibre as the interior of the heart and the most common human blood type found in exactly one studied example for each in wafers is that the Eucharist may indeed be cannibalism (but only sporadically... whew!). But who wants to go there?
No, no, no... stick with the claim that maybe it's evidence for actual transubtantiation (pesky skeptics) and slap that label of 'miraculous' on them before anyone's brain can engage (which we know religious thoughts activate completely different parts of the brain outside of executive function).
Neither. Transubstantiation is sadly a misplaced materialization of a real spiritual truth. The Catholic view turned an inner, supersensible event into a physical one, which was “superstitious materialism.” In spiritual science, the change happens in consciousness and in the spiritual world, not in chemistry. I have to point out the Catholics didn’t invent material transubstantiation out of stupidity; they institutionalised it out of necessity so as to guard the mystery in an age that had lost spiritual sight.
See? You pretend to know this. But you have nothing from the 'science' side to work with. It's just a word you've thrown in to make the 'spirit' side seem somehow more informed, more independent, of what you have imported through your religious sensibilities to the meanings. That's why I say importing this kind of nebulous language doesn't reveal; it obfuscates. And when it comes to fathers, there are excellent reasons based on independent and compelling evidence to be far more and not less involved with healthy childhood development. Religious belief doesn't add to this; it imports the very kind of God-sanctioned rules you pretend are independently brought forward from some vague spiritual aka religious 'conscience'.
I considered any religious ideas repressive in college in the 70’s. 50 years ago. It was a common way of thinking, and likely “taught” by my liberal professors. So glad to be out of that trap!
Nailed it. Really succinct and emphatic here, Daisy. How do you think we go about inspiring the next generation of fathers?
To offer my two cents, I think the most powerful impact comes from storytelling. Whether it’s round a campfire with a scout leader, at the Odeon, in a penguin classic, in the changing rooms before the big game, or in the history classroom, I’m sure it’s the stories of great heroes - not mere ideas but fleshed-out characters like Odysseus, King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Ian Botham etc. - that sear the heart with an insatiable longing for greatness, adventure, nobility. Stories of exploration; of, at times, lonely struggle; of battle against forces of darkness; and of eventual triumph for the good, honest man. This stirs the soul of a boy (no matter his age) and give him the strength to do the daunting challenges in his own story.
Ultimately, this longing has to find its home in the centre of all things, the author of the Great story, in whom we find our perfect rest (restoration…). But there is always a struggle first, a wrestling with the enemy, with the self, and with God. Ask Jacob, Peter, Augustine. For goodness sake, ask anyone who’s been following Jesus for a few years! So until full maturity is reached, boys becoming men need stories of substance to be a shield in times of serious testing.
An important question for the Church today: how do we deliver these heroic stories in far-reaching and impactful ways to boys today?
DAISY MAE INGLESE article opened up a flood of emotion Memory and reality for me.. related to AYAN HIRSI ALI ..AHA ! restoring the WEST America is NOW not only Fatherless but Motherless and taken against Her Will into the ORPHANAGE glorified by The Broadway Play
ANNIE The SUN (SON) will come out Tomorrow ! Bet your Bottom Dollar..SHE will find her family again RESTORED to the God Given DIVINE BEAUTY LOVELINESS TRUTH shining through !
If "SHE: Lady Liberty remains One Nation UNDER GOD ! I was born missed married in The Indian Ocean all major SEAPORTS crucial in WAR with Sultans Mullahs Maha Rajahs Tribal Chiefs ..etc
Has it never occurred to so many devout believers of any religious persuasion that the primary belief supposedly revealing some god's primacy seems inexplicably linked to geography - to one's place of early childhood? What a strange impediment to a divine being.
You declare "When men are visibly present in worship, they bring a moral weight and public seriousness that signals faith is a matter of consequence." To whom do they bring "moral weight" to and to whom is it a signal? Women's attendance is null, inconsequential and only what - "privately" serious? I was reminded of Francis Spufford's neat reply to Nietzche's famous claim that Christianity is a religion for women and children; he said he took that as a compliment.
Hi Daisy! I seek to argue that they bring this moral weight to their children - the stats show that children are more likely to take the faith on for themselves when it is modelled by the father. So, why does this matter for society? If we follow the stats that men are more likely to set the religious tone for their family, it seems that this would in turn have a generational impact. This is not to say that women are inconsequential at all! In fact if both parents are practicing and attending church regularly the results are even higher, but not women doing this on their own. Women have the unshakeable role of primary nurturer, especially for young infants, and must be educators of the faith.
The report states that the "revival" is most visible in Pentecostal and Catholic traditions. What is being framed as a "revival" (a spiritual awakening of the secular population) is just a demographic shift caused by immigration from the Global South. If a church grows because 50 people moved from Lagos to London, it is "growth" for that parish, but it is not a "revival" in the sense of a secular culture rediscovering faith. My prior point still stands Daisy.
' bottom up authority for individual liberty comes from a tribal religious model'
My previous response was only a touching on what is a very large question.
Another perspective on this is the difference between Christ and Christianity (religion). Christ fulfilled the arrival of the messiah prophesied and looked for in Judaism. For the first time a god incarnated as a man, lived a morally exemplary life and died as a man in humiliation and pain so that humanity could be saved, saved from sin, the permanent darkening of consciousness of the spiritual (Adam and Eve left paradise, the spiritual world, on Eve committing the sin of eating the apple). Christ laid out in the example of his life a moral template for the succeeding ages. This is Christianity. Part of that template was the birth of the individual: Christ encouraged people to follow inner moral law (conscience) guided by personal relationship with God; said that each individual soul bears infinite worth in the eyes of God (“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)); etc.
Also, Christianity during the Middle Ages preserved learning in the monasteries; which became the source of the first Western universities; where clarity in thought - scholasticism - was taught that became clarity in physics under Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler a few centuries later.
YES ! sadly .. "women stepped into the role left vacant" by 2 World Wars- loss of fathers.." I came to the USA 1974 when most household were beginning to try out the "equal In Marriage" By 1990 children began their Sooner/earlier "Teen rebellion revolt /revolution". I daresay there was NO MOM in the home but a CO Partner earning a paycheck "Breadwinner" "Bringing home the bacon" Hence the complete Break down in Society followed..Boys n Men trying to fill the Vacant role and be come Mothers and sister ! Using dramatic drasstc means -AKA Sexual revolution in full swing 1990- date Full bloom Fruit bearing "TREES" 100 years in the making
the more I thought about this... The more I see my self and all my age 84 .. caught in the GREAT SWITHCHEROOO ..Upheaval
The internal REVOLUTION in each and every Home in the UPPER CASTE UPPER CLASS UPPER CRUST homes beginning with That of Then Princess Elizabeth born to a next in line stuttering Prince. His Brother who then abdicated was the HEIR to the Throne of ENGLAND- the KIngdom which gave us the MAGNA CARTA..Sharing power with NOBLES and LORDS
BUT NOW here in the USA we have the NATIONALOrganization of Women .NOW!
No more Kings kings sons or cousins.. Meghan Markle Oprah Winfrey Gloria Steiinham Hillary Rodham .. and yes Kamala Harris - have made their presence known they OWN their own networks without the help of sons an brothers.
Most men are entitled whoring male sluts. They have never made good fathers. The only reason the family survived was because the wife could not do without a husband and when things got bad she was trapped with no way to escape. To save her sanity and life today there is an option. And it leads to fatherlessness. Those men were never fit to be husbands and fathers. So today she is preferring 4B childfree so that the kids dont have to bear the consequences of fatherlessness.
This is absolutely spot on – and I have seen the terrible consequences of fatherlessness, and the lack of male leadership and healthy role models, in so many of the young people with whom I have worked.
Thanks @Lucy Beney! Agreed…
You are right to call men back to responsibility, yet the renewal ahead may not be a climb back into hierarchy but a turning toward harmony. The absence of grounded fathers has left a void in families and in faith itself. Gentle note, the 38 percent effect you cite tells a more nuanced story however.
It isn’t proof that men are spiritually leaders; it shows that children internalize faith when it is rooted in structure. The father, archetypally, bears that structure. When he lives it publicly, it becomes real. Here, faith stops being only an emotion and becomes the framework of life itself.
The feminine and masculine were never meant to compete. They are distinct expressions of one divine order, complementary gifts through which creation finds balance. The feminine current is wisdom, compassion, and intuitive knowing — the inner flame that gives life its warmth and meaning. The masculine current is structure, protection, and moral clarity — the vessel that allows that light to endure.
When each awakens the other within, balance replaces rivalry and spiritual authority becomes partnership. Then the home becomes a living temple: the mother bearing light, the father giving it form. Faith is transmitted not by decree but by presence. Hope this helps clarify. Thank you for the article.
"The feminine current is wisdom, compassion, and intuitive knowing — the inner flame that gives life its warmth and meaning. The masculine current is structure, protection, and moral clarity — the vessel that allows that light to endure."
It's true that those trait cluster under categories we understand to be masculine and feminine forces or energies. However they do not necessarily cluster cleanly in men and women as implied by the notion that the male in a heterosexual couple/family should be the "leader". As other have pointed out, the loss of respect for "feminine" traits coupled with the notion of innate male authority has lead to a world of pain from many women and children. It would be good for adults to understand that families require all of the listed traits.
NB: One does not have to look far into historic record to see that "moral clarity" is hardly the domain of husbands and fathers solely.
Religion has little to do with human morality. It is just a way to deceive and force dependence on people. It has caused more harm and violence than wars. It strengthens religious authority and dispels human empathy and intelligence. It is deplorable that someone as brave and intelligent as Hirsi Ali has fallen victim of deception. My condolences and wishes for her to break free of authoritarianism.
I think there is a difference between the perversion of religion that has caused so much suffering through the ages and true belief, in which "service is perfect freedom".
It is also very hard to have a moral framework without being answerable to something beyond ourselves. What we currently think of as universal 'human morality' is actually deeply rooted in Christianity. It was Christianity which brought an end to child sacrifice, bestowed dignity and intrinsic worth on women and children, opened hospitals and schools across the globe and it was the Christian west which ended the slave trade (at least within the western sphere of influence – it continues elsewhere to this day).
Many Christians have behaved totally contrary to Christian teaching over two millennia – but that doesn't mean the teaching is wrong. If we all lived in accordance with Christ's teaching, the world would be a much better place.
It’s true that religion, when reduced to authority or fear, can strangle freedom. History gives us many examples. But faith in its living form is not obedience; it is the awakening of the conscience.
The great tragedy of modern times is that we’ve thrown out spiritual knowing because institutional power misused it. Spiritual life at its core is not belief imposed from outside, but a path of inner experience — learning to perceive meaning woven into the world, to see spirit within matter. When this awakens, empathy and intelligence deepen together, not oppose one another.
Restoring the West’s turn to faith need not be a submission to authority. It can mark the next stage of human freedom — discovering truth through love rather than through force. Religion degenerates when it forgets this; it heals when knowledge and reverence become one.
The men are allowed to get away with really nasty things and scriptures are quoted. Such men are not fit to be fathers. Women hoped like they evolved the men would too. But obviously there is no need for the male to change. It lead to fatherlessness. Now that women have understood and accepted that fact they are choosing 4B childfree to avoid the consequences the kids have to bear. And we have the male loneliness epidemic. The men want women to go back into slavery for them to feel good again. Maybe MAGA too is about a return to slavery of the less equal men
That’s a strange conclusion! Seriously haha adding political slogans is confusing.
We have always said that we get our sports teams and our religion from our fathers. That said, the sports teams are usually harmless; not so much the religions. On an individual basis, faith can nourish and the soul can inspire acts of wondrous generosity. On a collective basis, how can we ignore the role of structured religion in our unrelenting history of horror. Clearly, human beings have a need to worship which usually leads to the worst forms of idolatry - the worst bring the charismatic leader who usurps divine authority. What troubles me most is the wholesale retreat from modernity whose prophets are Darwin, Freud, Marx, and Einstein. Taken collectively, they free us from subservience to ideologically (religiously) driven authority and place life’s possibilities within our grasp.
Exactly. Ayaan got ill she got scared mortality and rushed towards religion. One wonders was she truly convinced about atheism all those years or thats the side her bread was buttered then. Pragmatism
I wonder if Hirsi Ali would have taken to a religion if she had a daughter. She escaped from Islam but now apparently realises she needs the structure/oppression. She can't go it alone with other enlightened human beings. No wonder women are not taken seriously. Her only goal apparently like most other women was a husband and sons. Quite a disappointment.
Much compassion for the pain you express here. I understand why you feel disappointed, but I don’t think Ayaan or Daisy are seeking oppression. It seems they’re looking for a steadier center, something beyond fear and resentment.
Note that when either the masculine or the feminine turns dark, it breeds harm on both sides; wounded power can potentially create more wounding.
The task now is not just to restore the West but perhaps to renew it, that is to say, bringing freedom and spirit together in a way that heals both women and men. (Sharing this in case it adds another angle)
Do you not think there is anything other than "fear and resentment" without compliance to male authority? Surely you don't think so little of women?
The path to a steady centre comes through maturity and spiritual growth. Not by clinging to a male authority.
They will not get oppression but the women lower on the food chain will be oppressed. Ayaan basically is I am fine I dont have a daughter. Other's daughters are not my problem. Like FGM in Islam there are horrific practices to control women in every religion even Christianity. So apparently we cannot be good decent honest compassionate people without relying on a fictitious god and the promise of a fictitious heaven and eternal afterlife. Its a real shame. And expecting the common male to evolve is like flogging a dead horse. It has been tried and it failed. Its never going to be. He has voted against womens right to choice over their own bodies now he doesn't want them to have a vote or get highly educated or become financially independent. Healing in the way you want is a woke concept which has failed. The male does not want gender equality. He feels insecure abd emasculated. And since there can be no win win the women have chosen the lose lose option. Why should it be bright only for the male let it be dark for him too. Why only have the female wounded let the male be wounded too.
Basically Ayaan has climbed the ladder and now is destroying it so that no further young women have access to climb out of their oppression. Not right.
You insult women by denying females have full agency.
The human race is a sexually dimorphic primate species down to every cell in every body. There is not now and never will be equality of the sexes. It is a stupid idea from shallow neomarxist origins and absurd Hegelian dialectics.
Have you never realized that ASKING to be GIVEN equality is an absurdity?
Exactly. Women asking for equality just means they are not equal. Just like the coloureds or minorities or even workers asking for equality just means they are not equal. Just as there can never be gender equality there can never be equality of the more equal and less equal men. Marxism and even religions have fed us these untruths that all men are equal. How can it ever be possible. It goes against nature where it is survival of the fittest
What a shame about your daddy issues. You need to work them out one-on-one with your parents and relatives - finding out who failed you and what were the circumstances.
Meanwhile, the women of the world continue to use attractivity, proceptivity and receptivity to establish bonding with their chosen male and so far have produced more than 8 billion little babies which survived.
All the daughters all the sisters all the mothers all the wives have been failed. The only reason there are so many babies is because women had no other option for survival. Then they thought arranged marriage is bad love marriage is good. But they discovered the problem is the entitled male. So today finally they choose to go 4B and childfree. Those who need the sex and the alimony and cs take it up up as a career good bad ugly boss as long as no fault divorce is there. Without that even the current number will drop.
You made you point before.
You are on the far extreme of the sexism spectrum and proud of it.
Hatred must bring you great satisfaction.
Cant love such realities no
Who discovered the connection between fucking and babies could sometimes be avoided - condoms, pulling out, oral contraceptives which were invented, tested for safety, manufactured them and distributed them? Men.
Who invented, manufactured, distributed and supplied and used anaesthetics - Opium, Morphine, Nitrous gas, Trilene, Pethidine? Men
Who established the entire discipline of modern obstetrics to deal with breech, shoulder dystocia, POP, twins, placenta praevia, eclampsia? Men.
Who is conquering female cancers with PAP and surgery and vaccines against the HPV that causes them? Men
Who through history die in battle defending homeland safety and security for their women and children? Vastly, vastly men.
Who set your moral compass and what were the settings founded upon?
My guess is you practice situational ethics. No absolute boundary set on any behaviour or activity.
That failed so long ago it is lost in the mist of time.
You have my sympathy at being a dupe of modern decadence.
How accurate. Thank you!
This is foundational. Thank you for writing this.
Thanks Esther!
God bless Western father’s and grandfather’s everywhere. We will be the one to carry our cross uphill. This terrifies tyrants everywhere.
I cannot see any difference between asserted claims like, "We must allow men to step fully into the role God has given them," in this article and, "Sharia law is God's law, we don't write the law; God writes the law," by an Ayatollah convinced women like Inglese have no equivalent rights as men and are 'improper' and deserving of punishment for even asking any questions of holy men.
This is the problem assuming religiously inspired assertions have any merit especially assuming greater church attendance - and what is taught there - is magically a net good BECAUSE it's religious. How can we differentiate when belief, but not reason and compelling evidence, plays no central factor? The West cannot be restored to enlightenment's liberal values through religion. But the Dark Ages can certainly succeed.
Ahhh! I understand the concern. Thank you for this. History certainly shows that religion becomes dangerous when it demands belief instead of understanding. But note genuine spiritual life is not obedience to rules; it is the awakening of conscience through inner experience.
When Daisy speaks of men stepping into the role God gives them, it can be read as finding one’s purpose within a moral order, not submission to decree.
True faith and clear reason can work together. The Enlightenment began that task by freeing reason, but the reunion remains unfinished.
What we may need now is not less reason, but a much deeper form of it, one that remembers the spirit within the human being. That is where living discernment begins. (Hope this helps)
Is that the same spirit that indicates gender, perchance? Just kidding... but kinda not. 'Spirit' is one of those esoteric terms that usually acts as the kindly motte before the authoritarian bailey makes its presence known. It's a red flag term because it is at best very loosely defined and used not to reveal but obfuscate inside some other framing other than seeking what's independently true. In this case, it's "awakening of conscience"... that, if understood in respectful moral preference for others, is indicated by infants long before any religious sensibilities are introduced and not some close reading extracted from some specific scripture or a necessary condition obtained only from religious belief. The idea of differentiating between belief of the religious kind and understanding as justified true belief of the evidentiary kind is similarly slippery; look how you so easily define 'understanding' as discovering one's 'purpose' - a 'discovery' that you already presume has to align with what you believe in religious terminology is the same one God gives to the man (as if this justifies the assigned role!) and not the purpose to lay waste to nature (or some similar morally questionable undertaking). Some other 'morality' in already in play long before religious sensibilities makes an appearance. And the obvious one is biology... not just in human biology but shared in degrees with many other related species.
But look at me, presuming that to 'understand' anything about morality means it has to be 'revealed' by behaviour that I define as favourable to the welfare of others and not just one's self. See? We're all full of such biases as all individuals are but religious belief (or 'understanding') is not any kind of precursor or revelatory framework to examine these meanings. In fact, at best, such imported religious sensitivities merely makes the undertaking to 'understand' more not less complex. Unnecessarily so. And, to recall Feynman's warning, we are the easiest people to fool. I think religious belief greatly augments this risk.
There are a lot of good reasons to do good things. "Because God says..." is not one of them.
How do the men know what role "God" gives them?
It seems to me in the articles I see circulating these days about the resurgence of Christianity, that there is a tacit assumption that without some form of patriarchal monotheism, one cannot lead a spiritually observant life or a life of striving for moral integrity.
It also seems to me that to be unable to envision a deep spirituality that isn't centred on subservience to the authority of a supernatural male human figure belies a lack of imagination and a lack of attention to the miracles manifest in the ordinary world around us each and every day.
It's depressing to see such smart people advocating such regressive ideas.
I appreciate your comment. Ummm…progress isn’t measured by how far we drift from the past, but by how consciously we evolve its truths. What looks “regressive” can sometimes be restorative, remembering principles we abandoned before we understood their depth.
The renewal of the sacred feminine and masculine, the re‑centering of family as a vessel of meaning, these are not steps backward but forward through integration. Important to note real evolution doesn’t reject tradition; it spiritualizes it. Moral freedom and reverence can grow together when we act from consciousness, not convention.
If we call every return to wholeness “regression,” we risk mistaking alienation for progress.
Very well put, The W's. But if some of those "truths" we're evolving are based on beliefs in supernatural occurrences and ancient mythology then that's not progress. That's holding us back in so many ways.
Thanks, William Mount. I’m grateful for your thoughtful comment. If you’re open to a gentle philosophical challenge, here goes.
The next step in human evolution is not abandoning reason but enlivening it. Natural science arose when thinking detached itself from spirit so it could observe nature objectively. That separation was necessary for knowledge but only temporary. The task now is to reunite precision with depth and to cultivate a spiritualised thinking that perceives reality as both measurable and meaningful.
This next evolution of consciousness has been described as spiritualised thinking — or, in Rudolf Steiner’s terms, the individual development of Imaginative, then Inspirative, and finally Intuitive cognition: a kind of thought that perceives spirit directly rather than reducing it to matter. Steiner also noted that humanity as a whole lives in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, but not everyone will develop it. Each person must awaken this faculty in freedom; it cannot be imposed, only cultivated through moral clarity and inner discipline.
There are already people beginning to live from this mode of awareness, and some of us are somewhere along that journey of developing the quality of thought that reveals the new consciousness.
if you have time and keen to explore, look into the Origins of Natural Science by Rudolf Steiner.
I have to end here though because of my workload, but please know I appreciate the exchange. Bless you!
The Marxxxist religion is Nihilism. A final step from alienation. It has infiltrated & controls many Christian churches & The Church.
‘Were you expecting a different answer from Alter AI?’
Where is he wrong? You don’t like Alter because he’s not woke, tells the truth, offends leftist prejudice?
You make an interesting point. What passes today for faith often carries the same emptiness as the secular ideologies it resists. In spiritual terms, nihilism is the shadow left when materialism takes hold of religious language. It replaces inner transformation with moral slogans and turns living truth into social dogma.
From an Anthroposophic point of view (I’m a student of spiritual science), both Marxism and fundamentalism are symptoms of the same illness: they separate the spirit from real life. The task may not be to fight one ideology with another, but to re‑ignite the direct experience of the divine within thought itself (this is an urgent topic in itself). In this, when knowledge and reverence reunite, the forms of belief can heal which can lead to faith becoming creative again.
I can't resist: is belief in the reality of transubstantiation a product of spiritual science? Or does the sciencey bit only work during the Eucharist?
May I draw your attention to the Eucharistic miracles?
The tools of science have identified human cardiac muscle fibres intertwined with the polysaccharide fibres in consecrated hosts.
Also, in others, blood has been tested consistently as human, always type AB
All the data is in the public arena.
But what mechanism are we using in order to determine such 'evidence' that is related by demonstrable connection between claimed cause and claimed effect? Without that, these are very different observations that lead us nowhere. What possible explanation(s) might yield a possible answer or answers? It seems to me just the suggestion alone means who cares? It seems to suggest we can stop any and all inquiries about these observations and claim a 'miraculous' event! Less likely, we can follow this logic and claim this 'evidence' of similar fibre as the interior of the heart and the most common human blood type found in exactly one studied example for each in wafers is that the Eucharist may indeed be cannibalism (but only sporadically... whew!). But who wants to go there?
No, no, no... stick with the claim that maybe it's evidence for actual transubtantiation (pesky skeptics) and slap that label of 'miraculous' on them before anyone's brain can engage (which we know religious thoughts activate completely different parts of the brain outside of executive function).
Neither. Transubstantiation is sadly a misplaced materialization of a real spiritual truth. The Catholic view turned an inner, supersensible event into a physical one, which was “superstitious materialism.” In spiritual science, the change happens in consciousness and in the spiritual world, not in chemistry. I have to point out the Catholics didn’t invent material transubstantiation out of stupidity; they institutionalised it out of necessity so as to guard the mystery in an age that had lost spiritual sight.
See? You pretend to know this. But you have nothing from the 'science' side to work with. It's just a word you've thrown in to make the 'spirit' side seem somehow more informed, more independent, of what you have imported through your religious sensibilities to the meanings. That's why I say importing this kind of nebulous language doesn't reveal; it obfuscates. And when it comes to fathers, there are excellent reasons based on independent and compelling evidence to be far more and not less involved with healthy childhood development. Religious belief doesn't add to this; it imports the very kind of God-sanctioned rules you pretend are independently brought forward from some vague spiritual aka religious 'conscience'.
Back in the day opposing Communism was considered "regressive".
I considered any religious ideas repressive in college in the 70’s. 50 years ago. It was a common way of thinking, and likely “taught” by my liberal professors. So glad to be out of that trap!
Nailed it. Really succinct and emphatic here, Daisy. How do you think we go about inspiring the next generation of fathers?
To offer my two cents, I think the most powerful impact comes from storytelling. Whether it’s round a campfire with a scout leader, at the Odeon, in a penguin classic, in the changing rooms before the big game, or in the history classroom, I’m sure it’s the stories of great heroes - not mere ideas but fleshed-out characters like Odysseus, King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Ian Botham etc. - that sear the heart with an insatiable longing for greatness, adventure, nobility. Stories of exploration; of, at times, lonely struggle; of battle against forces of darkness; and of eventual triumph for the good, honest man. This stirs the soul of a boy (no matter his age) and give him the strength to do the daunting challenges in his own story.
Ultimately, this longing has to find its home in the centre of all things, the author of the Great story, in whom we find our perfect rest (restoration…). But there is always a struggle first, a wrestling with the enemy, with the self, and with God. Ask Jacob, Peter, Augustine. For goodness sake, ask anyone who’s been following Jesus for a few years! So until full maturity is reached, boys becoming men need stories of substance to be a shield in times of serious testing.
An important question for the Church today: how do we deliver these heroic stories in far-reaching and impactful ways to boys today?
DAISY MAE INGLESE article opened up a flood of emotion Memory and reality for me.. related to AYAN HIRSI ALI ..AHA ! restoring the WEST America is NOW not only Fatherless but Motherless and taken against Her Will into the ORPHANAGE glorified by The Broadway Play
ANNIE The SUN (SON) will come out Tomorrow ! Bet your Bottom Dollar..SHE will find her family again RESTORED to the God Given DIVINE BEAUTY LOVELINESS TRUTH shining through !
If "SHE: Lady Liberty remains One Nation UNDER GOD ! I was born missed married in The Indian Ocean all major SEAPORTS crucial in WAR with Sultans Mullahs Maha Rajahs Tribal Chiefs ..etc
Has it never occurred to so many devout believers of any religious persuasion that the primary belief supposedly revealing some god's primacy seems inexplicably linked to geography - to one's place of early childhood? What a strange impediment to a divine being.
You declare "When men are visibly present in worship, they bring a moral weight and public seriousness that signals faith is a matter of consequence." To whom do they bring "moral weight" to and to whom is it a signal? Women's attendance is null, inconsequential and only what - "privately" serious? I was reminded of Francis Spufford's neat reply to Nietzche's famous claim that Christianity is a religion for women and children; he said he took that as a compliment.
Hi Daisy! I seek to argue that they bring this moral weight to their children - the stats show that children are more likely to take the faith on for themselves when it is modelled by the father. So, why does this matter for society? If we follow the stats that men are more likely to set the religious tone for their family, it seems that this would in turn have a generational impact. This is not to say that women are inconsequential at all! In fact if both parents are practicing and attending church regularly the results are even higher, but not women doing this on their own. Women have the unshakeable role of primary nurturer, especially for young infants, and must be educators of the faith.
Christianity is a dead faith, and the numbers back that up. Its time to move on.
The numbers disagree! 🙏🏼 https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/research/quiet-revival
The report states that the "revival" is most visible in Pentecostal and Catholic traditions. What is being framed as a "revival" (a spiritual awakening of the secular population) is just a demographic shift caused by immigration from the Global South. If a church grows because 50 people moved from Lagos to London, it is "growth" for that parish, but it is not a "revival" in the sense of a secular culture rediscovering faith. My prior point still stands Daisy.
' bottom up authority for individual liberty comes from a tribal religious model'
My previous response was only a touching on what is a very large question.
Another perspective on this is the difference between Christ and Christianity (religion). Christ fulfilled the arrival of the messiah prophesied and looked for in Judaism. For the first time a god incarnated as a man, lived a morally exemplary life and died as a man in humiliation and pain so that humanity could be saved, saved from sin, the permanent darkening of consciousness of the spiritual (Adam and Eve left paradise, the spiritual world, on Eve committing the sin of eating the apple). Christ laid out in the example of his life a moral template for the succeeding ages. This is Christianity. Part of that template was the birth of the individual: Christ encouraged people to follow inner moral law (conscience) guided by personal relationship with God; said that each individual soul bears infinite worth in the eyes of God (“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)); etc.
Also, Christianity during the Middle Ages preserved learning in the monasteries; which became the source of the first Western universities; where clarity in thought - scholasticism - was taught that became clarity in physics under Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler a few centuries later.
YES ! sadly .. "women stepped into the role left vacant" by 2 World Wars- loss of fathers.." I came to the USA 1974 when most household were beginning to try out the "equal In Marriage" By 1990 children began their Sooner/earlier "Teen rebellion revolt /revolution". I daresay there was NO MOM in the home but a CO Partner earning a paycheck "Breadwinner" "Bringing home the bacon" Hence the complete Break down in Society followed..Boys n Men trying to fill the Vacant role and be come Mothers and sister ! Using dramatic drasstc means -AKA Sexual revolution in full swing 1990- date Full bloom Fruit bearing "TREES" 100 years in the making
Fascinating point! Would be so interesting to think of the difference on the faithfulness of generations past if there had been no war..
the more I thought about this... The more I see my self and all my age 84 .. caught in the GREAT SWITHCHEROOO ..Upheaval
The internal REVOLUTION in each and every Home in the UPPER CASTE UPPER CLASS UPPER CRUST homes beginning with That of Then Princess Elizabeth born to a next in line stuttering Prince. His Brother who then abdicated was the HEIR to the Throne of ENGLAND- the KIngdom which gave us the MAGNA CARTA..Sharing power with NOBLES and LORDS
BUT NOW here in the USA we have the NATIONALOrganization of Women .NOW!
No more Kings kings sons or cousins.. Meghan Markle Oprah Winfrey Gloria Steiinham Hillary Rodham .. and yes Kamala Harris - have made their presence known they OWN their own networks without the help of sons an brothers.
Most men are entitled whoring male sluts. They have never made good fathers. The only reason the family survived was because the wife could not do without a husband and when things got bad she was trapped with no way to escape. To save her sanity and life today there is an option. And it leads to fatherlessness. Those men were never fit to be husbands and fathers. So today she is preferring 4B childfree so that the kids dont have to bear the consequences of fatherlessness.