"Women keep the faith as majority of men say they do not believe in God"

[Surya Gayatri]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11357707/Women-keep-the-faith-as-majority-of-men-say-they-do-not-believe-in-God.html

The congregation at BBC Songs of Praise in Hereford Cathedral has a strong female bias

Women are almost two thirds more likely than men to believe in God, a major study of attitudes among middle aged Britons has found.

Atheism and agnosticism are now the majority creed among the male population but almost two thirds of women believe in Heaven or an afterlife, according to the study which has been tracking 9,000 people now in their early 40s for more than 25 years.

The findings also suggest that Muslims have by far the strongest faith in modern Britain, with Christians from smaller evangelical churches the only group coming close to the same levels of certainty.
...
The striking divide between the sexes on the question of belief throws the decades-long battle within Britain’s main churches and other faiths over the role of women in leadership.
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In-depth article on the changing patterns of faith and its social repercussions (UK).

[libodem]

1. Interesting

This seems like a human interest story as well as a religious one. Food for thought.

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Agree, these changing patterns have far reaching social implications...

[NutmegYankee]

3. I've observed this just in my own social circles.

[Surya Gayatri]

7. Go to any spiritual or religious venue in any culture or country, i.e. temple,

ashram, chapel, and the real workers will be women.

Even in Islam, where women are effaced from any public role, they will be found behind the scenes (literally behind the curtain) influencing things and doing the grunt work.

[kydo]

4. Reminds me of a quote

"Some families think that church is like a convention where you send a delegate - and it's usually Mother."

[Surya Gayatri]

5. There's another quote, too: "As are its women, so is the nation"...

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. For better or for worse...

... belief in god ( and religion in general) tends to promote social cohesion. ( When the adherents thereof aren't out trying to kill each other over doctrinal matters, etc., of course)

As in marriage and monogamy.... women tend to have more at stake here. They need "help" raising the kids.

[Surya Gayatri]

8. Well seen, SD. This is an inescapable truth, whatever

the culture or country:
"...belief in god ( and religion in general) tends to promote social cohesion."

[Bluenorthwest]

9. Then we should be able to see more religous societies being more cohesive societies and yet we don't

see that. We see more religious societies employing great degrees of force and oppression and when they don't succeed we see religious societies fight one another over dogmatic details.
So if religion tends to promote social cohesion, why is there no evidence of that?

[davidn3600]

10. I disagree

I dont think religion has anything to do with social cohesion. And it certainly doesn't promote good marriage....lots of religious families out there are abusive.

Are you saying women feel as if they need religion in order to get help raising the kids?

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. I don't mean what I think you mean by "good" marriage.

>>>And it certainly doesn't promote good marriage....lots of religious families out there are abusive. >>>>>>

I mean marriage that is enduring, hard to break, taken "VERY seriously" has a powerful social sanction attached to it.

The quality of marriages can be good, miserable, happy, tragic or a mix of some or all of the above. ( The last probably being most often the case, imo... but who knows?)

I'm saying women need social cohesion in order to get help raising the kids. The form of that cohesion seems to vary widely by culture. Typically involves marriage and religion in the industrialized west. ( But not *always* and not globally.)

[Pooka Fey]

11. Interesting article. K&R