Gender divide with religious beliefs

Calibos · 20-07-2010 12:56AM #1

Just noticed that another male member of the extended family is an Atheist. Seems like most of the blokes in the family are Atheist/Agnostic and most of the wimminz are on the 'Spiritual' side. That got me wondering why that is. My theory is that its all to do with childbirth. "There has to be some kind of God because of the miracle of childbirth...you can't understand unless you have carried a life inside you"... yadda yadda yadda.

Of course it is indeed the most amazing biological process from a rational scientific standpoint and the most amazing thing ever for both parents from an emotional standpoint.

However, if the miracle of the creation of life can be used to 'prove' the existence of a higher power why are women the first people in the house to tell the blokes to set the snap traps to crack the necks of the cute little furry house lodgers from gestating any more little miracles?:D

Goduznt Xzst · 20-07-2010 02:28AM

...because men eventually realise that they have no space in their lives for fearing Gods wrath, due to spending all their time fearing the wrath of their wives

fatmammycat · 20-07-2010 06:53AM

Most of the women I know are atheists like me and see childbirth as the LEAST spiritual thing ever. As to rodent trapping, er, makes sense to keep vermin numbers down. A quick glance over in the christian forum suggests it is men who are more trenchant in their woo belief.

Permabear · 20-07-2010 08:12AM

This post has been deleted.

checkyabadself · 20-07-2010 08:12AM

Calibos wrote: »

Just noticed that another male member of the extended family is an Atheist. Seems like most of the blokes in the family are Atheist/Agnostic and most of the wimminz are on the 'Spiritual' side. That got me wondering why that is. My theory is that its all to do with childbirth. "There has to be some kind of God because of the miracle of childbirth...you can't understand unless you have carried a life inside you"... yadda yadda yadda.

Of course it is indeed the most amazing biological process from a rational scientific standpoint and the most amazing thing ever for both parents from an emotional standpoint.

However, if the miracle of the creation of life can be used to 'prove' the existence of a higher power why are women the first people in the house to tell the blokes to set the snap traps to crack the necks of the cute little furry house lodgers from gestating any more little miracles?:D

There`s nothing more natural than reproduction. There`s nothing miraculous about it either. I cant help but find the post deluded and demeaning towards women.

sensibleken · 20-07-2010 08:20AM

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

well of course. what man is going to worship a dude who f*cks another mans wife...and gets her pregnant then says he never touched her, leaving you to raise the kid while the kid calls the other guy his dad.

no wonder jesus had issues.

panda100 · 20-07-2010 09:35AM

It always astounds me how many of my female friends still have a belief in God considering all that organised religion has done to suppress us.

Some of my musings on this.......

Looking at this in a historical and global sense atheism is associated with education, and historically education, and science in particular, has until recently been reserved for men. Of course in many parts of the world still, religion bans women from being educated,kinda a Catch 22.

I think also a factor is the high profile atheists such as Hitchens and Bill Maher, who can come across as quite misogynistic. Many women maybe feel they can relate more to an image of the virgin Mary or Jesus both who struggled in a world that seemed to be against them.
Bill Maher in paticular is woeful in his comments about women. He just see's us as something to be f*cked and like a species from another planet. http://www.feministing.com/archives/008712.html
Considering how high profile he and Hitchens are in the atheist movement, this sort of behaviour is really isolating to women.

I also think another problem with atheism at the moment is a blind faith in science, while ignoring the importnace of social construct. One of the huge areas of 'science' that has grown in the last few years is the who area of evolutionary psychology and the mystique of the caveman is now rooted in fact about how humans behave. For example,many believe believe rape is a completely natural desire for man to act out his nethanderal desires. However, we really know f*ck all about how early man lives and its rooted in fiction not fact that man was caveman,hunter, provider etc. All this of course ensuring that womens role in society as nurturer and home-keeper, as so loved by the dominant religions, remains in modern society.
Whats the point of getting rid of religion when all the same misogynies remain? Science at the moment seems to be more in favour of keeping the patriachal status quo,rather than deconstructing the religious beliefs and customs that led women to have a lesser role in society in the first place. Maybe women feel that they would have more of a chance in life with religion then they do with the new atheism?

Beruthiel · 20-07-2010 09:39AM

Calibos wrote: »

My theory is that its all to do with childbirth. "There has to be some kind of God because of the miracle of childbirth...you can't understand unless you have carried a life inside you"... yadda yadda yadda.

Speaking as a woman, who has given birth and is an atheist, I'd have to say the above is a load of hog wash.

Ever seen that episode in V where your wan was pregnant with an alien baby and when they tried to abort it, found it was attached to all her major organs and she freaked?
I found being preggers a bit like that.

Yours Very Normally,
B

magicbastarder · 20-07-2010 09:44AM

Beruthiel wrote: »

I found being preggers a bit like that.

did you get a craving for eating live hamsters though?

seamus · 20-07-2010 10:13AM

Complex issue and tough to say really.

One possibility I can think of is that women (generally) are given less room to choose when they grow up, even in westernised countries. Male children are given more independence and earlier than their sisters, primarily because it's assumed that males will be better able to handle any problems and are less likely to come to any harm. I know plenty of guys who were roaming the streets and getting hammered at 15 while their sisters were practically locked in a cage till they were 18.

This may lead to women being less sure in their own judgement as adults because they weren't given the opportunity to explore their independence and certainly in my experience women are far more likely to ask for guidance before making a decision, to overthink a particular scenario or to doubt the decisions that they've made. Whereas men will often just make the decision and deal with the fallout later.

When making a judgment on an issue which is inherently complex and several different shades of grey, which the theist question is, it can be easier and more comfortable to simply fall back on the decision that your parents made and go with that because women may feel that their parents' judgement is more reliable than their own.

The first generation of women to be afforded real freedom are those who were born from the mid-seventies on, really. Before that, the women's lib movement was still in flow, so archaic attitudes would still have been in place during the upbringing of women who are in their 40's (and older) today. As these younger women move into motherhood we should see a much greater increase in the number of female atheists through the population.

N.B: Anywhere you find yourself getting offended by the above post and saying, "That doesn't apply to me", remember that I'm talking in general terms. There are no absolutes, just trends.

Dades · 20-07-2010 10:14AM

fatmammycat wrote: »

Most of the women I know are atheists like me and see childbirth as the LEAST spiritual thing ever.

Having witnessed the births of my two children, I can confirm there is no greater reminder that we are just mammals in clothes. :pac:

Ickle Magoo · 20-07-2010 10:29AM

Pretty much everyone in my family are either atheist or agnostic, grandparents included - male and female, alike. On the Irish side most of the religious are men, in fact.

Having suffered SPD (condition where the pelvis splits in pregnancy), pre-eclapsia, one baby taking calcium from me rather than my diet and leaving me with a glass jaw and two emergency section caused by pregnancy related conditions - there is nothing less ethereal and spiritual about pregnancy. It's a complex biological process with a huge array of things that can (and in my case, usually do) go wrong. :pac:

panda100 · 20-07-2010 01:31PM

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Pretty much everyone in my family are either atheist or agnostic, grandparents included - male and female, alike. On the Irish side most of the religious are men, in fact.

Having suffered SPD (condition where the pelvis splits in pregnancy), pre-eclapsia, one baby taking calcium from me rather than my diet and leaving me with a glass jaw and two emergency section caused by pregnancy related conditions - there is nothing less ethereal and spiritual about pregnancy. It's a complex biological process with a huge array of things that can (and in my case, usually do) go wrong. :pac:

I always thought you were a he for some reason

Looks like on boards we have a pretty decent female atheist representation

ChocolateSauce · 20-07-2010 01:40PM

Well I think it's safe to assign the child-birth-makes-women-more-religious-than-men hypothesis to the bin....but this still leaves the question on why men believe less than women unanswered. Any ideas? Because I'm stumped.

thirtythirty · 20-07-2010 01:49PM

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Well I think it's safe to assign the child-birth-makes-women-more-religious-than-men hypothesis to the bin....but this still leaves the question on why men believe less than women unanswered. Any ideas? Because I'm stumped.

Maybe because girls worry more than men in general? Maybe that transcends on a subconcious level to worrying about mortality.......deep, I know!

Ickle Magoo · 20-07-2010 02:15PM

Interesting article on this by the poll conductors, GALLUP...

Why more women are religious

strobe · 20-07-2010 02:45PM

I've often found that women are more likely to believe in the paranormal in general, not just religions. Things like psychics, mediums, ghosts, crystal healing, homeopathy etc aswell as belief in God. If that is something inate to the female brain, or some sort of social environmental effect, I don't know. I'd imaging the former is more likely. Women do also tend to be more romantic in terms of romanticism vs realism. Perhaps there is a societal factor contributing aswell. In that traditionally women had the option of surrendering thier control to a man to come to thier rescue so to speak and so surrendering thier control to a deity to come to thier rescue is a more natural thing for them to do. Where as for men they tend to be raised to believe they must rely on themselves to a much greater extent.

seamus · 20-07-2010 03:31PM

strobe, I also thought of that and it may possibly be linked to the way that we play as children.

There are suggestions that (remember the "in general" thing) women have a less keen sense of "cause and effect" than men do because their playtime as a child was not spent investigating it.

That is, while boys play at football and jumping off and into things and throwing things about, they are interacting with the laws of physics at play, and fine-tuning their sense of these laws. Women are more likely to play house and dress up their dolls and the like - their play involves more emotional and "cultural" aspects - more stories - and less physical play than men.

Thus, men end up better able to predict the outcome of a sequence of physical events and have a better eye when it comes to spatial awareness; Cause and effect.

How is this relevant? Well, if you have a better sense of cause and effect, then it to me it seems plausible that you're more likely to think "Sh1t happens" and less likely to think "God happens" because your experience of the world is one where every action has a preceding action and no divine intervention.
Whereas if you're not quite so attached to the cause and effect nature of the world, then you're more likely to believe that the bump you heard upstairs was a ghost and that everything must happen for a reason other than cause and effect.

It would be interesting to see if atheism varies between different job categories. Are engineers more likely to be athiest than salesmen, for example?

sponsoredwalk · 20-07-2010 03:34PM

checkyabadself wrote: »

I cant help but find the post deluded and demeaning towards women.

Ah I think you knew he was joking at the end

From the Gallup Poll:

"More so than men, women lean toward an empirical rather than a rational basis for faith."

Seriously? I can only guess that they've chosen this sesquipedalian collection of words humorously...

Is this supposed to mean that women base their faith on empirically grounded reasoning
or are they just trying to say that women tend to believe they've experienced god in their lives...
That is hardly a defining characteristic of an empirical judgement...

Classic example of how vocabulary can be destroyed, this kind of misnomer is toxic...

As for the point they're trying to make. Yeah I've known a few women who steadfastly knew that they knew god, or very similar views.

Childbirth is a miracle

You can really feel like you're ruining christmas when you have a conversation about these topics,
like church, childbirth, weird religious events,
it's just best to leave it sometimes :pac:

Greek, Polish, Irish, it just doesn't work anyway

Back to the gallup poll: I don't see how mentioning that women are more open with their problems could lead to a more active religious lifestyle

If you're willing to believe that the stereotypical characterization of women as being more "open" than their male counterparts contains within itself a tendency to religiousity, then this gallop poll is for you.
Otherwise, I think it's safe to classify that point as a correlation does not necessitate causation misattribution on behalf of the gallop poll people.

The point about women being more relational is making the point that based on the way women are more into forming relationships they are more active in religious society.
I would call that a bit of a leap, because it's not like there's a lack of men in religious social activities, but I'm not so sure. I guess I'd agree, what are people's opinions?

Note: This gallup poll was from 2002, I believe atheism has increased considerably since then.

sponsoredwalk · 20-07-2010 03:43PM

seamus wrote: »

strobe, I also thought of that and it may possibly be linked to the way that we play as children.

There are suggestions that (remember the "in general" thing) women have a less keen sense of "cause and effect" than men do because their playtime as a child was not spent investigating it.

I'd agree, it's not some completely gender determined attribute it's a cultural relic & obviously some people would just naturally go down that road anyway.
I wouldn't say it's just a case of some radical feminist explanation being right, i.e. the whole naming girls with boys names and vice versa,
& giving girls action man & boys barbie dolls , but I would definitely argue that it's the way our worldview is formed as children,
i.e. giving boys and girls distinctly culturally defined roles that
could greatly influence this nonsense perpetuating itself.

edit: A really interesting example of this is the bias women face in STEM exams & how it can translate into numbers in specific fields.

"During a panel discussion of the report, the study authors reported that girls are less likely than boys to be confident
about their abilities in math and science -- and that lack of confidence can translate to a lower likelihood of entering math and science fields.
“Boys think they are better [at mathematical tests] even though they performed the same as girls on the test,”
said speaker Shelley Correll, a sociology professor at Stanford "

If the tests are the same & it's simply a matter of cultural biases distorting the current balance in STEM gender differences,
I think it's feasible to see cultural biases also distorting religious gender differences...

goingpostal · 20-07-2010 03:46PM

panda100 wrote: »

....
Bill Maher in paticular is woeful in his comments about women. He just see's us as something to be f*cked and like a species from another planet. http://www.feministing.com/archives/008712.html
Considering how high profile he and Hitchens are in the atheist movement, this sort of behaviour is really isolating to women......

Bill Maher is a complete joke. Full stop. I saw that film of his last year. It was atrocious. He is an embarassment. Pointing out grammatical mistakes that a Senator made with subtitles? What kind of a journalist does that? That smug tósser puts me off my dinner.

mikhail · 20-07-2010 03:47PM

strobe wrote: »

I've often found that women are more likely to believe in the paranormal in general, not just religions. Things like psychics, mediums, ghosts, crystal healing, homeopathy etc aswell as belief in God...

That's been my experience too. Horoscopes, alternative medicine and religion all seem to get more attention from the women I've known than from men. Also, while I've known firmly, even fanatically religious men, I've never met a man as obsessed with ritual and religious fetishes as the extremes I've seen in women.

If that is something inate to the female brain, or some sort of social environmental effect, I don't know. I'd imaging the former is more likely.

Nature versus nurture; always interesting, damnably hard to answer with anything other than 'probably a bit of both'.

sponsoredwalk · 20-07-2010 03:58PM

panda100 wrote: »

Bill Maher in paticular is woeful in his comments about women. He just see's us as something to be f*cked and like a species from another planet. http://www.feministing.com/archives/008712.html
Considering how high profile he and Hitchens are in the atheist movement, this sort of behaviour is really isolating to women.

I don't think so, Maher is joking

If you've ever seen his show the guy kind of has a fascination with the woman

This is the danger of taking things out of context - the guy is not some mysoginist. He's in love with the Clinton's, both of them.

In fact, I bet you haven't seen much of his shows because if you did you'd see him treat Bill CLinton in the exact same way. He treats him like a child who's just out to ƒuck. I wonder would you jump to the conclusion he is a misandrist after hearing all of the jokes about screwing Monica Lewinsky

I'll grant you that the guy is a bit of an idiot @ times & can be scarily jingoistic but I wouldn't call him a mysoginist from the things I've seen, & that includes the quote you've used.

Hitchens, I don't see how he is? In fact his speeches about Muslim women would convey the exact opposite feeling to me...

I'd like to see some evidence of this if you have it though!

jill_valentine · 20-07-2010 04:02PM

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Having suffered SPD (condition where the pelvis splits in pregnancy), pre-eclapsia, one baby taking calcium from me rather than my diet and leaving me with a glass jaw and two emergency section caused by pregnancy related conditions - there is nothing less ethereal and spiritual about pregnancy. It's a complex biological process with a huge array of things that can (and in my case, usually do) go wrong. :pac:

Excuse me, I'm just off to the chemist to buy every single form of contraception ever devised by anyone.

sonicthebadger* · 20-07-2010 04:38PM

panda100 wrote: »

I also think another problem with atheism at the moment is a blind faith in science, while ignoring the importnace of social construct.

Shoot, I always get sick in my mouth a little bit when someone says that.

panda100 wrote: »

One of the huge areas of 'science' that has grown in the last few years is the who area of evolutionary psychology and the mystique of the caveman is now rooted in fact about how humans behave. For example,many believe believe rape is a completely natural desire for man to act out his nethanderal desires. However, we really know f*ck all about how early man lives and its rooted in fiction not fact that man was caveman,hunter, provider etc. All this of course ensuring that womens role in society as nurturer and home-keeper, as so loved by the dominant religions, remains in modern society.

I didn't bother to address your last question because you used the phrase "new Atheism" and last time I checked there was nothing "New" about not believing in the Sky Man.

I have taken the liberty of highlighting some of your own text that I feel is important. Many believing does not mean Scientists believing. Rape may indeed be natural, as is murder, and indeed so is Cancer. Just because it's perfectly natural doesn't mean it is desirable or in any way shape or form promoted by Science.

Science, as far as I'm aware, has absolutely no preference about what roles parents take or even what family unit is preferable. So seriously, what's your beef with Science and why bash it so hard on such flim flam claims?

Ickle Magoo · 20-07-2010 05:12PM

jill_valentine wrote: »

Excuse me, I'm just off to the chemist to buy every single form of contraception ever devised by anyone.

Not meaning to panic anyone, sorry. Much like my atheism it seems, I would be the exception rather than the rule.

magicbastarder · 20-07-2010 05:32PM

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

Rape may indeed be natural, as is murder, and indeed so is Cancer. Just because it's perfectly natural doesn't mean it is desirable or in any way shape or form promoted by Science.

exactly; nature is not a guide to what is right or wrong, as you'll probably find contradictory answers to any questions you may choose to ask of it.

jill_valentine · 20-07-2010 05:35PM

I might even invent some new ones.

I just don't say this enough, but I love you very much, Continuous Unsplit Pelvis.

Tim Robbins · 20-07-2010 06:28PM

I think women do not care about illogical parts of religion in the same way as blokes do not care about illogical parts of supporting a football team.

Beruthiel · 20-07-2010 06:29PM

seamus wrote: »

Women are more likely to play house and dress up their dolls and the like - their play involves more emotional and "cultural" aspects - more stories - and less physical play than men.

Maybe there is some truth in that.
I spent my childhood in the fields near our house, climbing trees and shooting cowboys with bows and arrows I made from sycamore trees. (I was always an Indian for some reason)

lynski · 20-07-2010 10:56PM

Interesting idea: my sis and i had to opposite experiences of religion and motherhood.
When i became a mother it reinforced my nascent atheism as i came to realise that we are the miracles and the wonder in the world and have the power to be and do anything we want and achieve anything we want as a species.
For my sister becoming a mother has reinforced her belief in the skyman as she thinks only he can grant life and he watches over her and she thanks him for everyday.
She cant understand why i dont believe and i cant understand why she does.

Gender divide with religious beliefs

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