I’m genuinely curious.
The debates continue to rage on at Dalrock’s, Zippy’s one and two, Cane’s, Anarchopapist’s and others even though I believe I’ve accurately described the difference between the two viewpoints.
For years the pro-game Christian manosphere proponents have stated something similar to:
Well, if you’re anti-game (or a natural alpha) why aren’t you teaching these Christian men about how to attract women in a godly manner?
However, professed anti-game Christian manosphere bloggers such as Chad, Donalgraeme, and I (and FN?) have started to post on developing Christian masculinity, and we are summarily dismissed. And I would suspect it is because we profess that our goal is to develop a heart for God first as we grow into masculine men of God, and that attracting woman because of this masculinity is only a side effect.
As noted by Keoni, you could say that many of my posts “comparing” game to godly masculinity may be construed as a toolbox if you’re pro-game (which would satisfy their requirements) even though I’m “anti-game.” Keoni accurately concludes that despite whatever differences we think about “game” that the pro-game Christian manosphere proponents should be in favor of those seeking to develop this “alternative”.
But it is clear that they are not. Both Christian men and women in the Christian manosphere have railed against us.
So which is it?
Do they even want an alternative?
Why do they continue push back on something that they wanted as an alternative?
Isn’t this is a clear and obvious example of the idolization of game?
Christianity and masculinity 
No.
Because they desire the system; the science; the ritual; the law more than they love the truth.
Yes.
Can I send you an email at the address you use to comment?
@ Cane
Sure. Make sure you add the “er” to the “deeper” in my e-mail address because I don’t own the other one.
I want to encourage you not to be discouraged, it is a battle. It’s refreshing to see someone stand for the truth, you’re rare, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Doing a great job Deep Strength!
The beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord….Proverbs 9:10
I think that now it isn’t even the slightest bit about you, Chad and Donal – both antigamers and Christian game supporters like what you do, but it doesn’t really affect their argument, because you are not part of it.
There was their conflict(silent, though) for quite a time and just because you now came up with Christian alternative doesn’t mean it made some change to their main points “game is evil to the roots” and “game is amoral and can be used to both good and evil”. And both sides are set to prove their own truth (because real men don’t back up, I guess).
In my opinion it will continue for some more time and then it will silently die out and hopefully won’t emerge in such strength again, because nobody will need to ask for Christian alternative to game again.
When your logic is internally consistent with basic Christian Theology, externally consistent with Worldly experience and you’re disfavored/disliked/hated for it, it’s normally a good sign you’re on the right track.
It reminds me of my start down this journey. It was 6th grade and I was at a private Christian school. We were in a small group working on a play and someone went fishing for compliments to the group, when compared to a bunch of high school students that were putting on the same play. Well, it might have been a rhetorical question, but I answered it quite plainly: yes, the high school students were better actors. I got some nasty looks and marked down for “citizenship” for that quarter.
I learned very quickly that “honesty” isn’t valued in the slightest by anyone. I thus turned it into something of a weaponized form through high school. Which also ended up in my chaste harem the last 2 years.
People always love their illusions. They love that they don’t have to “work” for things. They love not having to “change” to be “better”. Being a Christian is *always* going to cost you something, even if many millions of Christians worked hard to make it “easier” to be one. There is a cost. Most don’t want to pay it.
From what I’ve seen, a great deal of the continued debate hinges on a fact that neither side accepts.
You, Donal, FN, and I, from what I can tell, believe that “game” works, simply that it promotes pride and sinful actions instead of an obedience to God’s will. Some of us think this can actively be fought, some do not. However, these are the base arguments for each side:
Many anti-gamer arguments are based explicitly on it NOT working
Pro-game arguments are based explicitly on it not being evil, but an amoral tool box
Thus, for most of the people arguing, we simply make no sense to them. That or, as Cane says, many want a system that they can put into affect RIGHT NOW. This comes into conflict with our views, as we counsel growth over time. Our Godly Masculinity is thus shunted to the side by almost everyone involved. People from both sides either disagree with us or they simply lack the patience.
Yes.
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Hang in there man. I know we don’t agree on the usefulness of Game, but I do hope that you guys can come up with a framework that better fits your mentality on the matter. Just hang in there. It’s the internet, it’s either debate or porn, so bring on the debate.
@ JoJ
To be honest, I’m a bit frustrated because this is not exactly what I want to do, especially I’m on the learning path myself in regard to masculinity. LG knows I have other priorities to attend to aside from things like this.
But God has given me a heart to help men, and I seem to be an effective communicator with the written word (working hard on the spoken). Thus, I’m doing what I can.
I just pray that what I do gives glory to God.
“Isn’t this is a clear and obvious example of the idolization of game?”
Of course it is.
Personally, I assume that PUAs and such do have some success; otherwise they wouldn’t be so committed. But bank robbers are sometimes rich, too. Further, how much of the ‘success’ comes from ideas almost unique to “game” (i.e., their theories on psychology and theological anthropology) and how much is due to the generic ‘magic feather’ effect of being confident enough to start building actual experience in talking to women? I mean, I tell my sons ‘just go talk to her and ask her to dance’. It works. Neither I nor they hold to any of the core ideas of “game” (we all believe women have agency; we are not interested in generating lustful feelings; we see overcoming a woman’s temperance and chastity as immoral; we would never lie, deceive, or purposefully induce negative emotions; etc.).
Guys like Deti might very well insist ‘you are teaching your sons “game”‘. I vehemently disagree – I am simply teaching them how to talk to people while explicitly teaching them to reject the core ideas and goals of “game”.
So I do not dismiss “game” because it doesn’t work well – I point out the fact that it doesn’t work that well to support my contentions that its core theological anthropology and psychology are fatally flawed.
Iron sharpens Iron so a man sharped the countenance of his friend, that is what the game/alt game debates stands from my pov. I consider developing Godly Masculinity, with a greater role for the Patriarchs, as developing inner game.
Outwardly, it is a bit like winking in the dark and hope someone notices, which is the role for the pro outward game point of view. Walking with confidence, knowing what IOI’s look like, knowing when she probably is or is not interested regardless of what she is saying, those are not exactly Scriptural areas of instruction. Safe to say the Scriptures are not meant to be a manual of natural history, nor are they well equipped to societies where arranged marriages and close communities are not the norm. In Cappadocia in 150 AD..absolutely.
I don’t know much about game, so I may be wrong about this…
I think they are dismissing your ideas because they want what is easy, not what is good. Most people, Christians included, don’t really want to walk the straight and narrow (Godly masculinity in this case), but would take the wide path (game).
Like someone said upthread, if you get a lot of resistance, that likely means you are on the right track, which I believe you, Donal, and Chad are. 🙂
Wed like less moralizing, more advice that actually works.
Us: “These techniques will help you to take more control over your social interactions and become a more enjoyable social presence.”
You guys: “But you’ve learned these techniques from non-Christians who were applying them to non-Christian ends!”
I mean sure, if you pray maybe God will give you social savvy without having to actually understand how things operate and putting work into it, but some of us are a bit more practical.
The question can be resolved to this: Is there anything a man can do to increase his attractiveness?
If yes, then there is something to learn from game. So far, the proposed techniques by yours have been lackluster if not positively harmful. Something doesn’t work just because you put “Godly” to the front of it. Unless ours is dumb as bricks, our experience thus far has been that game is helpful and that many Christian men would be happier and avoid harm were they to internalize basics concerning how to give women what they really want, e.g. direction. The tendency of “good Christian girls” in the church to sleep around with every unChristian guy seems to indicate, at least, a dissatisfaction with the lack of direction provided by feminized pastors and Christian men.
None of ours are proposing that there are not problems with the intent and formulations of game by the PUAs. Ours is just “What goes by the name of ‘game’ is useful.” Pedantry over the meaning of words or the sources of knowledge isn’t helpful.
It’s past time that I added you to my blogroll.
@ Bryce
I can’t speak for others, but read any of my posts and tell me what doesn’t work. All I’ve heard is “la de dah… what you’ve said doesn’t work” and there’s been no critique from any of the detractors.
Here’s a categorized list:
I’d suggest reading the first couple on the framework first, and then some of the others such as…. Christian nice guys are abused (seems to be popular), Understanding Attraction, Be decisive, and others of the practical ones.
My focus on this blog has been straightforward advice regarding changing the mindset or practical implementation to change from being a Christian nice guy(tm) to masculine man.
I must confess I haven’t read your own in particular, perhaps there is too much hogging of the spotlight by the more vociferous individuals.
But is Donal Graeme really “anti-game?” Back in the summer he was promoting ideas and techniques that, without the explicit articulation that it was somehow unrelated to game, I would group in the overall system of game. He proposes some positive qualifications (e.g. LAMPS vector), and for what it’s worth he was the one who made me seriously consider that women have a less developed moral agency with regards to sexual attraction. (With regards to my earlier, not-so-chaste experience, I really think he’s right on this point.)
@ Bryce
I don’t think Donal is anti-game as he said in JoJ’s blog. He’s sorta more around the middle.
I’m not really “anti-game anti-game” as you would put it.
If you read this post with the graphs I see “game” almost (but not quite) in the same way Keoni sees it as a praxeology, but I break it down into two subsets. The two are for men to unlearn feminine behaviors and mindsets (good because men are not supposed to be effeminate), and learning masculine behaviors and mindsets (which is a mixed bag for reasons I explain in the article):
I’m self professed “anti game” because the ultimate view of game is seduction and fornication, but there is utility in some of the knowledge.
The thing you have to keep in mind, and it is a funny thing, is that for all their alleged social dominance, Alphas are really terribly insecure; they don’t like challenges to their social position, extreme consciousness of which is actually how they came out on top. Heck, many of them get bent out of shape when someone suggests that GOD outranks them. Nothing infuriates them more than someone who breaks out of the hierarchy where they’re on top, and you are doing exactly that, and you are drawing others with you. It’s just not the paradigm they prefer, and it makes them nervous.
The challenge to “find an alternative” was a bluff, DS, a rhetorical device. They thought you couldn’t/wouldn’t do it. Now you are doing it, and it threatens the power structure. If you succeed, Christian men may not come to them anymore and follow THEIR lead. This isn’t about truth. This is about influence and rank–the only thing an Alpha really cares about, at his baseline functioning level.
(Obligatory “Not All Pro-Game Types Are Like That” fluff here. How hypersensitive…)
Knowing that, DS, you just keep on and follow God. I’m ((we’re)) praying for you over here.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
I’m all for Godly masculinity. If it works and produces masculine men who live life the way they want and within God’s will, bring it. Teach it. Explicate it.
I’m self professed “anti game” because the ultimate view of game is seduction and fornication, but there is utility in some of the knowledge.
Sorry for speedy double-posting, but your and Bryce’s comments cropped up while I was writing my previous.
I’ve had it explained to me that the Red Pill and Game itself are not synonymous–that the former is the knowledge of the realities of men and women, and Game is simply that knowledge applied in various ways. Perhaps it is well to distinguish the two, firmly.
(Of course, I’ve then had to turn around and deal with the same people doing that explaining proceeding to make it out like they ARE synonymous, just as they’re doing now, because if you don’t accept Game, you don’t accept the Red Pill, and since you accept the Red Pill then you’re just in denial but you’re actually a Game practitioner yourself!)
“how much is due to the generic ‘magic feather’ effect of being confident enough to start building actual experience in talking to women? I mean, I tell my sons ‘just go talk to her and ask her to dance’. It works.”
As I’ve pointed out many times:
How many fathers even live with their sons?
How many fathers have enough confidence themselves to walk up to someone and say “Hi. My name’s _____________, much less ask them to dance?
How many fathers know enough about human nature to teach their sons anything about this?
If those fathers don’t know it, why don’t they?
If those fathers don’t know it, who will teach them so they can teach their sons?
If their sons don’t learn it from their fathers, from whom will they learn it?
Those questions can’t just be swept under the rug. Those questions are a big part of the reason the manosphere/DE even exists.
“When your logic is internally consistent with basic Christian Theology, externally consistent with Worldly experience and you’re disfavored/disliked/hated for it, it’s normally a good sign you’re on the right track.”
Not so much, the reality is, one is applying logic to the naturally illogical, human attraction and relationships and maintaining them. There is a saying in the PUA community, “Desire cannot be negotiated”, this is a truism.
DS’s approach could work, may not work, the proof is not in the theory, it is in the applications outcome. Until there are positive reports of it working, there is only the argument. To be viable alternative..it has to work in fact as well as in thought.
In the game, anti-game argument perhaps both are wrong because the goal both seek, increasing male attractiveness, is wrong. Gamers ,who are convinced that game works, are not going to adopt Godly masculinity to achieve the same goal that game achieves. Why would they? Anti-gamers convinced (or not) that game is immoral or sinful will seek other ways to ‘attract women’. Why does either group want to attract women? PUA seem to be the most honest about their intent, but that non-judgemental affect is what makes sinners so attractive. Both groups want to attract women so that they can “try them on” and see if any meet their fantasy wife model. Just because you don’t have sex doesn’t mean you didn’t try them on. You knew whether you desired sex with her or not; whether she desired sex with you or not. There was no way that you were going to meet a woman and if you shared mutual desire you would get married and stop looking. If that were true you would all be married.Isaiah 53 “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
@ Bobbye,
The general contention (of this blog) is to develop “godly masculinity” which seeks to serve God first, and may as a result because masculinity is attractive to women lead to a wife. This doesn’t mean that I’m not opposed to searching for a wife (because obviously I am), but to put God first in what I do and let the fruits of that mature.
And you’re right, that’s not what some of the Christian men are looking for. They’re looking to be attractive first (which ultimately puts God second). Game is indeed useful for that, but I would warn them not to idolize attractiveness (of self) over God.
Of course, that is another can of worms that I’d rather not open because I’m tired of debating.
@ Padre
Correct. The proof is in the pudding as they say.
If I am able to serve God to the utmost of my abilities I consider it a success, even if I am not successful in my search for a wife. But we shall see.
@ Sigyn
Correct, the red pill is different from game.
The Scriptures are “red pill” (or rather, the red pill is Scriptures because the Scriptures are Truth) as they describe human nature. The red pill is about taking off the blinders to human nature, while it appears that liberalism, feminism, and churchianity seek to lie to men about women and how to interact with them.
However, the Scriptures are about developing godly masculinity and femininity. Game, for hte most part, tends toward the sinful nature of masculinity and femininity; however, there are to be lessons learned from it.
@ deti
Thanks.
DS, this will be PG, where the purely Game/PUA purveyors run astray is the backbone of their argument/approach is women act in pre programmed ways due to brain wiring and bio chemistry “Science!” as the saying goes.
Fine, fair enough, we all know the “you smile/they smile” effect, what they gloss over is having intercourse, or when the “I like you” reaction happens, those reactions do not go away. The mind is wired to draw into a relationship with the other person and see how things go. Their contention is to then lie/betray/toss away the other person before that reaction subsides as “they would do it to me” ie Dark Triad stuff.
In that sense, they are little better then con men out for sex with lots of women. I cannot conceive of a more amoral approach to interpersonal relationships, which is why I’m hoping your approach bares fruit. My one concern is, and once again PG, is the avg young woman has far far more experience with this then the avg Christian young man. In that way the deck is a bit stacked as having no compunction means having first crack, having compunction means one is usually behind the 8 Ball. It took me a very long time to realize this, ie, the reality behind the Red Pill in practical terms
DeepSTrength:
The point of my comment to AquinasDad yesterday was that you’re taking up the mantle where so many others have failed. Frankly, I’m all for it. If dads and sons aren’t learning it from each other, or from church, or at school, they can come here, or to donal’s or Chad’s or FN, to pick it up.
@ deti
I have a favor to ask.
Do you have a list of compiled lies that men are taught by churchianity and feminism? And likewise, a list of lies that women are taught that men need to look out for?
That would be immensely useful for me to write on.
DS:
I’ll work on it. Send me your email by responding to the email address I use to comment here.
First, DS, keep up the good work. 🙂
On the topic as a whole, I’m a “big picture” type in a way few can be, so I see the issue a little differently. I don’t much care what it’s “called”, as I have zero problems with classical Christian usurpation. We have to reject the Evil and keep the Good. Christians have only been doing that for around 2000 years, so it’s not like its a new idea. (Look up the history of Catholic Saints, they serve a very specific purpose in proselytization and have for 1500 years)
The problem, for the time being, isn’t a “lack” of alternatives to Game, it’s a lack of a practical location to go find the information, people with experience with learning and a solid theological grounding in the *point* and *purpose* of it.
Here’s an analogy that might help. (I seem to save all of my good ones for this comments section) A Man wants to be a surgeon, but the only places that teach surgery teach Heart Surgery. That’s great! But heart surgeons only deal with 1 area, while there is an entire body that needs care. While being a “surgeon” will have cross applications, being a heart surgeon *only* is self-limiting, even if profound to non-surgeons.
To the outsider, what DS and crew are up to doesn’t look too different than putting a “Christian Kosher” stamp on Game or a Christian Version of Dale Carnagie’s “How to Win Friends & Influence People”, just applied to romance. But the intentions matter, even if there’s a 90% overlap. Even if you are doing the physical aspects very similarly, the intentions & applications matter. Further, as Christians, just focusing on the physical is self-limiting and spiritually-limiting.
Non sequitor comment:
I’d be really interested in hearing your thoughts on the similar etymologies of Demon and Democracy. I was poking it with a stick, but I’m a Latin speaker, not Greek , and I know when I’m out of my depth – for one thing, “Demon” seems to have meant something totally different to the Greeks, than it does to us today.
PS: Just discovered your blog, I’ve been going through the archives.
@ Aurini
The word demon in the greek is:
G1142 — δαίμων — daimōn — dah’ee-mown
From δαίω daiō (to distribute fortunes); a demon or super natural spirit (of a bad nature): – devil.
While I had to look up democracy and it seems to come from two words which are “Demos — dêmos — δῆμος” (People) and “Kratos” (force/power).
It looks to me like they are unrelated as the two root words are different.
Demon used to be written “daemon” in English. So, if you knew the old version, it was a give away, as Democracy is from “Demos” (people).
The fun bit is splitting out “casting out demons”, as it would have had two meanings in New Testament times. While I’m doing this off the top of my head, physical afflictions of the eyes and mouth would require “casting out a demon”, even if it would more properly, now, thought of as “healing”. It also means, well, actually casting out demons.