I am an atheist, and most of my male friends are also atheists, or agnostics anyway. I have just as many female friends, and every last one of them professes a belief in God. Not all attend church, but all claim to believe that God exists.
I have noticed the same thing in my dating life. When I am seeing a woman, religion inevitably comes up, and just as inevitably, the woman is distraught to learn that I am an atheist.
Go into any church, and you will see that the majority of church-goers are women.
Why? What is it about women that makes them more inclined to believe? (Or you could turn it around and ask what is it about men that makes them a bunch of heathens? )
I have some thoughts on the subject, which I will share later. I don’t want to do that up front because I don’t want to influence the direction of the debate. I am interested in any thoughts y’all might have on the subject.
I’m a woman. I’m an atheist.
The following is a big pack of over-generalized thoughts that are probably going to be immediately flamed, but, oh well, here goes:
My opinion is that most women are more social than men, derive more support from group situations, and in general, are more pack-animalish than most men. For a lot of women, a church is the perfect place to get a sense of community. In addition, a lot of the religious women I know are more interested in the emotional aspects of religion rather than intellectual theology. In my experience, the religious men I know approach it from more of a “study the history, know the facts” perspective, while the women approach it from a “how does this benefit me and my family now, how does this make us better people” way. For me (and again, this is my opinion) it is easier to reconcile some of the discrepencies in most religions when the “woman’s” approach is taken.
Also, it could be a throwback to Victorian era sensibilities that said that women were the protector’s of society, God’s angels, and that they were responsible for the spiritual health of the men and the children. I’m not sure if this was a common perception then because women were already the ones mostly going to church, or if women were the ones mostly going to church because of this idea.
C3 - I’m not going to flame you. Actually, when you start feeling some heat, give me a ring, because I’ll stand there and take it w/you. I tend to agree with what you’re saying. Besides, I can’t “flame” worth a damn.
Personally, I derive absolutely nothing out of church “gatherings” or that type of group dynamic.
Do I believe in God? I don’t know. Do I believe in evil? Yes, I do. Do I believe in goodness? Yes, I do. Do I believe in the virgin birth, the bible, the preaching, the judgement and all the mind-numbing and psychologically traumatizing nonsense that goes with it? No, I do not. So, where does that leave me? I don’t know.
But I can tell you that the last place you’re going to find me is in a church. What is also kind of ironic, is that as a rule, I don’t get along with (most) women.
I don’t know that I agree with the OP, but if I accept the observation as valid then it seems there are two places to look for reasons: biology & sociology.
I have a hard time dreaming up any biological reasons why women might be more religious than men.
Sociologically, C3 brings up some interesting speculations, though I don’t know how we would test them. In that vein, I observe that religion tends to be passed down from parents to children. I also note that religion has long been used as a means for directing behavior and controlling rebellious tendencies. My own observations indicate that a double standard exists in child-rearing, specifically daughters are much more discouraged from exploring sexual behaviors than men. It seems possible, then, that a tendency exists among parents to press religion more strongly upon their daughters than on their sons, particularly with the idea of discouraging early/promiscuous sexual behavior.
Or, it could be a minor statistical blip of no significance whatsoever.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Missy2U: I don’t really like very many women, either. I also really hate cutesy little poems, sayings to live by, and all those emails you get that have the sappy stories and then tell you to resend it to all your very best girlfriends in the world so they know how much you appreciate them. I think my lack of sentimentality and basic gishiness prevented me from ever really being interested in church as a social outlet. My upbringing basically killed off the desire to pursue the spiritual side of it. Both of my parents are lapsed Christians with definite agnostic tendencies.
The interesting thing in my family is that it’s my brother who’s the religious one out of all of us. He also has a lot of the characteristics that I tend to think of as girly (absolutely no offense to my brother…he’s very much a guy’s guy). But, he’s sensitive, sentimental, VERY socially oriented, very into his community (and I don’t mean neighborhood), etc.
Just a theory. But I think Spiritus is right about there being no way to measure this either way. Who knows. Some people do religion, some don’t.
Please do us this favor: If you attend church this weekend, please take a moment to do a head count of adult attendees. (Children don’t count, because they are not necessarily there of their own free will.) Then please report the results for us on this thread.
I am not attacking you, but would simply like to see some hard numbers from your church. I am hoping it is a fairly large church, so we can get a good sample.
Any other church-goers (or members of any religion) among the teeming millions are invited and encouraged to participate in this little exercise. Please report the numbers as accurately as possible – don’t fudge!
By the way, I am not attacking anyone’s religious beliefs. I am simply reporting a phenomenon I have observed, and asking for some debate on the reasons for that phenomenon.
Am I the only one who has noticed a high female-to-male ratio among the deeply religious? Am I imagining this?
Female, agnostic here (which for the purposes of this discussion, qualifies as non-religious).
I agree with C3, too. Although, like her and Missy2U may not be representative of my sex, since I don’t tend to have a lot of female friends either.
I’d add that women TEND to question authority less then men do. I’d guess they show up in church more often for the same reasons they show up in prisions less often.
Porpentine, you might try church ;0. Or your local skeptics organization. (BTW, a couple of agnostics/athesists can generally be found at a Unitarian church - doing the social/quasi-religious thing).
The above explanations sound pretty good. I would add that religion can be a substitute for power, either consumed by the powerless for solace, or fed to them by the powerful to control them.
Male agnostic here. Another worthless generalization to throw into the fire: women tend to worry less about reconciling their gut feelings and their intellects than do men. I know many women who say they believe in god and who derive some benefit from churchgoing, but who also have no problem with my agnosticism–even tend to agree from a logical standpoint. We men tend to get hung up on having good reasons for everything. I suspect that, if in fact more women than men attend church (something I’ve never observed), it’s not because they don’t deal with the same ambiguities and questions as men, but rather that they just are bothered less by them and have less social ego invested in their “stance” on religion in general.
“I don’t get any smarter as I get older–Just less stupid”
If I were an atheist, I don’t believe I would let that, in and of itself, stop me from becoming a religious leader. In other words, a position of leadership in religion is the perfect place for a politician whether he has any intellectual belief in God or not. Such belief is not faith anyway.
I would not be surprised to learn that any number of religion politicians are in reality atheists. I think God hates religion.
Women spew forth life from their loins!! That in itself should be enough to make any person loonie, so it’s no wonder to me, why more women believe in what they can’t see, if it is, in fact true, that more women are religious than men.
I’ve often wondered how men can make the same bonds with their children without the benefit of the childbirth experience, but I’ve never wondered why women may be more religious than men.
I have often suspected (without any hard evidence to back me up) that women were more likely to embrace paganism (and other non-monotheistic religions) than men, and I usually suspect pagan men of being into it because they think it will get them laid.
Back to Christians. It seems to me that the very vices that churches condemn are more popular among men. While there are women who attend poker games, talk dirty, drink and smoke cigars, most of them are from Indiana. For the rest of the world, though, there is an emnity between men and the church in a way there isn’t between women and the church.
For a long period of history, women were not encourage to improve their minds or educate themselves as much as men have. Since with education comes a propensity to question what you’ve been taught, men would have a greater percentage of atheists.
Since for much of recorded history, women were expected to take on submissive roles, it would be useful to justify their relegation to passive members of society by using religion as a justification. And religion could then serve as a source of comfort to women who would doubtless have much more to suffer than men.
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