<p>any ideas?</p>
<p>More gullible?</p>
<p>A need to believe the next life will be an improvement?</p>
<p>I just spent a little while searching polling sites for recent polling done on religious topics that were separated by gender and couldn’t find any. Do you have some statistics? I’m not saying it’s not true, but the “why” is very dependent on the particular question we’re talking about. For example, by “more religious,” do you mean women who are religious are more committed to it than men who are religious? Or do you mean more women identify as having some god-belief than men do? Or do you mean women’s religious views have more of an impact on their political views than men’s religious views have on their political views? Or something else?</p>
<p>Or why is it that more women then men attend church? Does attending church mean you are religious? Personally, I think it’s because we’re smarter. ;)</p>
<p>This is my area of ‘expertise’. There’s a big difference between being religious and being spiritual. I know lots of people who are ‘religious’ who I wouldn’t describe as ‘spiritual’, as well as many people who are ‘spiritual’ who are not ‘religious’. </p>
<p>As a hospice chaplain, I have run across people who have spent their whole lives involved in churches, but when they are faced with end-of-life issues their rote memorization of prayers and scripture alone does not provide them with strength, courage and patience to deal with their impending death, and they have a lot of anxiety. And I’ve seen some people who haven’t stepped foot in a church in ages, and they are completely at peace with meeting their maker.</p>
<p>I would love to see a study that researches this across many different cultures, to see if it is more a cultural difference than just a gender difference.</p>
<p>I think in the American culture, men are taught that they should be self-sufficient, and thus, relying upon a higher power may be seen as weak, whereas that is not something as stressed to females, who are more accustomed to being dependent or inter-dependent. Also females tend to be more relational than men, and true religion is really a relationship.</p>
<p>just a few thoughts off the top of my head…</p>
<p>You’re right that socialization plays a big role. Some religions place a higher premium on control of female behavior, so obviously a lot of effort is going to be put into convincing women to accept the limitations imposed on them.</p>
<p>teriwtt, that’s a really interesting observation. I recently took a Comparative Religion class, and my professor described it like this, (I’m paraphrasing here):</p>
<p>Spirituality is the relationship between a person and the divine, while religion is the institutionalization of that relationship.</p>
<p>Gallup Poll according to Wausau Daily Herald:
“A recent Gallup Poll suggests that American women cherish their faith more and are more active in their congregations than men. The poll of about 1,000 American adults conducted last month found that 69 percent of women think religion is a very important part of their lives while only 53 percent of men feel the same. And 48 percent of women polled said they had attended worship services at least once in the past week, compared with 37 percent of men.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://atheism.about.com/b/a/053109.htm[/url]”>http://atheism.about.com/b/a/053109.htm</a></p>
<p>Women are more religious in the sense that more of them consider religion a “very important part” of their lives. It’s implied that if you don’t consider it so, you’re either a non-believer or, as is explicitly suggested, it’s just not very important to you.</p>
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<p>That’s funny, I thought.</p>
<p>Yeah, I want to ask as many questions as corranged, because it seems the initial interpretation is Christian, at least, when someone mentions “church” I think “Christian”?</p>
<p>But what are you talking about here? Religious as in church attendance? Spiritual? God, Angel or deity-believing? Christian? Jewish? Muslim? Hindu? Jain? Rastafarian? Wiccan? What?</p>
<p>Or are you just trying to get everyone stirred up?</p>
<p>*A need to believe the next life will be an improvement?</p>
<p>That’s funny, I thought.*</p>
<p>Well- actually it goes to my observation that organized religions are often patriarchal in nature & consider women to be “lesser” participants.</p>
<p>womens dominion is the “home” for example- and while I am not negating that some women choose that life- and I am not saying it is not important- I also feel that both men and women should share the roles as appropriate for their personalities and strenghts, and it shouldn’t be assumed that a man is the “head” of the household and the woman is the " heart".</p>
<p>I do know a few women who follow restrictive religions, ( IMO) & what I see is , having to choke down their spirit and free will in order to fit in with the life they have chosen. Some may feel they will get their reward in Heaven, but while I feel I am spiritual- it is more of a philosophy, than a dogma.</p>
<p>In our household, the menfolk go to services and the women stay home and do the Sunday crossword.</p>
<p>And in our religon we speak often of Father-Mother God. Of course, it was started by a woman! Not all Christian religons believe that men are the head of the family.</p>
<p>what in the world does “more religious” mean, some people are religious and don’t go to church, others go to church , but eh</p>
<p>sometimes being part of a religion fosters community</p>
<p>can’t answer the question as it is to vague and thus meaningess</p>
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<p>I refer you to my previous post in which I implied that “religion” was whatever the poll participants took “religion” to mean.</p>
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I also refer you to my previous post in which I said that women are more religious in that a higher percentage of them considered religion a “very important part” of their lives.</p>
<p>Men don’t like to ask for directions?</p>
<p>And your interest in this is what, exactly? Are you looking for an argument?</p>