Why are women more religious than men?

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There are no sharp lines seperating opinions from facts. Very well-supported opinions are facts and "expert opinion" is close to, if not actually, fact.

Not really. They are well grounded interpretations of facts, but they aren't facts per se.

If I can not cite a valid source for a claim, then I'll state it as an opinion. If someone else can publish the source, then so be it. If the source is never determined, then it's still only an opinion - one which others are free to ignore, if they so choose.

first all you have miss quoted me, I did say this "Allies make the worst of enemies." Try, try pitching up a cup? extortion and intimidation you must be confusing them with persuasion.

Regarding thugs, who are the thugs then? you must have empty table, don't you?

Oh by way to end this, thank you very much Master_Pedant for finally giving me the credit for inspiring this thread

1.In general, atheists average a higher IQ than theists.
2. in general, men have a wider distribution of IQs than women.

the difference in atheism between men and women can only be accounted for by these two facts if it can be shown that it takes a wide divergence from the mean rather than a small one to be an atheist, since as many women are 'above average' as men. Given that the difference in average IQs from point 1 between theists and atheists is fairly small (IIrc ~ 5 points), I don't think that such a case can be made.

Women are more sociodependent than men, thus fitting in and conforming to social signaling is more important. Men, even religious men, have trouble really BELIEVING the nonsense that is vomited forth under religion, whereas women are perfectly willing to parrot it.

I really doubt that.

But, for all the "sociodependent" conformism stuff, a good experiment would be to see if women's rates of irreligiosity mirror those of men in very secular countries like Sweden or the Czech Republic.

It's anecdotal, but I have never seen this contradicted in more than a few, obviously exceptional, cases. And there is good evolutionary reason for women to be far more motivated by social signaling than by ratiocination. As physically weak brood cows they are worthless for labor most of the time, and totally dependent on the whims of their group.

Also, democracy, egalitarianism, etc. are just as much religion as Jesus and Zeus. The Scandis are all religious nutters, they've just traded in Christ for Humanism.

You're right. I wasn't taking into account the variability in theist vs atheist IQ well enough. (Even granting the assumption of higher variability, which is questionable. Even then, if we accept some of this framework, it still leaves a lot of variance unaccounted for regardless)

That is a really interesting question.

I set the curve in every math class I was in from 6th grade through high school. I took multi-variate calculus for fun, not because it was required for my degree. Does that make me unfeminine, then? What about my math professors, the majority of whom were women, even in college?

The lack of high-ranking women in STEM fields can be attributed to a great many things other than 'women are less logical/less abstract,' not least of which is that women do not generally have partners willing to take care of their children, keep their houses clean, and maintain every non-mental aspect of their lives while they're off in theoretical la-la land.

There's also evidence that stereotypes influence women's presence and performance in these fields:
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscienc ... r.php#more
http://marywm.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/women_stem_1/
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscienc ... asters.php
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... -at-maths/
http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/whysofew.cfm

Here's something I'm just as curious about: why are more men than women likely to believe that 9/11 was an inside job, that the holocaust did not happen, that sasquatches exist, that aliens are visiting earth, and that global warming and the moon landing are hoaxes?
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/sce ... 19fr2.html

Last edited by LKL on 21 May 2011, 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

You do realize who you are trying to reason with, don't you?

In any case, I almost wonder if all male abstractness is just a dick-waving contest anyway. Like.... men don't seem to be deep so much as they like to argue.

Okay, while I really don't agree with this at all (I think the belief "equality, all things considered equal, is a good ideal to strive for" is a lot different in character than "the Bible is the word of God and must be lived by"), you do realize that if you want to throw out Scandinavian countries for not conforming to your ideals of relatively value-free individualism, than a lot of the studies showing societal health correlates with secularism are going to have to be re-worked?

I did a paper on the the subject during my (short) time in college for a sociology class,
and from what I could find out:


Women are more likely than men to believe in god
&
of believers, also more likely to be liberal versus fundamentalist in their beliefs.

I didn't go into potential causative factors.
It was made difficult enough because of how little research had been done on the subject at all,
especially in comparison to the infamous "gender gap" when it comes to politics,
particularly supporting social programs.
I had expected at least one meta-study, but had very little to work with.

When I used to follow RRS (Rational Response Squad) it was always thrilling to see another gal take part in their debates on the side of skepticism.


I'll have to dig it up sometime.

Last edited by ValentineWiggin on 21 May 2011, 2:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

"OF" = Older Females? or is it just "of"?

Corrected.