Gender divide with religious beliefs

Calibos

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

...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

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

This post has been deleted.

checkyabadself

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

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

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

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

Beruthiel wrote: »

I found being preggers a bit like that.

did you get a craving for eating live hamsters though?

seamus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why more women are religious

strobe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

panda100

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

.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?

Ok your right,I shouldn't have used the word 'New',Of course there is nothing new about not believing in a God.

I was talking about what seems to be this ascendant idea of recent times, linking atheism with a warped Darwinism. Its something that Dawkins himself has commented on numerous times. That Darwin is being abused to reinforce sexist,racist,right wing ideals.

Many atheists abuse Darwin's doctrine making it as damaging to women as the bible has even been.
If men are bigger,stronger,its survival of the fittest, and Darwinian discourse is being used to defend anti-social behavior such as rape and murder. Yet this is not what Darwin was alluding to at all!
If you read some of the scientific evolutionary theory books out there on the market today,there a lot worse than the old testament ever was. Yet most of them are based on opinion rather than subjective fact.

While I wouldn't consider evolutionary theory to be science at all it seems to have taken over from the bible as the new atheist doctrine. You can see that on every thread on Boards,where non-scientists quote sexist crap about women as nurturer man as provider. However, the profound sex inequality found in many human societies has never been proven to be based in biology.

Maybe you think this is not relevant to the topic at hand and perhaps it is not,but its one reason I could think that would make women turn to the Virgin Mary over silly fertility hip to waist ratio's.

Obviously the lack of access to education that many religious women have is a much more pertinent factor.

Some Links discussing how sexism in the Atheist community may be isolating women:
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/03/sexism_in_the_a
http://skeptifem.blogspot.com/2009/11/bill-maher-and-white-dude-privilege-of.html

Permabear

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seamus

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

While I'm not disagreeing with the observation, it's possible that there are other factors there. The vast majority of religions are patriarchal and mostly outright misogynistic, so when it comes to religious fanaticism it's no surprise that those fronting it and those who are most vocal are male.

When you get down into the rank and file of the likes of Westboro, there seems to be just as many insane women as there are men.

sonicthebadger*

panda100 wrote: »

While I wouldn't consider evolutionary theory to be science at all it seems to have taken over from the bible as the new atheist doctrine. You can see that on every thread on Boards,where non-scientists quote sexist crap about women as nurturer man as provider. However, the profound sex inequality found in many human societies has never been proven to be based in biology.

Thanks for your considered reply. But I still have one question, if not evolution then what? Where do you disagree with the theory of evolution?

I have read extensively on the subject of evolution and I think there is little there to disagree with if we just read the science and not the opinions. Your disagreement with evolution sounds like a disagreement with an abused and bastardised version of the theory but not actually the theory itself. Nowhere does it say in the theory that the female of the species must be some sort of nurturer and the male must be the provider.
In fact it indicates that for complex animals such as ourselves with young who are essentially defenseless for over a decade after birth a very large and complex social network is necessary for the survival of the gene to the next generation. Genes without the programming for this social behaviour or with limited capacity for it are not as likely to survive.

So the "traditional family unit" we hear so much about is actually not enough for the protection and raising of offspring in the vast majority of situations, a much larger community is needed.

sponsoredwalk

panda100 wrote: »

While I wouldn't consider evolutionary theory to be science at all...

Well you'd be coming into conflict with the greater majority of the practicing scientific community on that one

That's fine, it's your opinion & is incorrect as it may be, with respect to reality, I can't allow you to use elitist straw-man arguments about Bill Maher
& Christopher Hitchens in order to claim there is some atheistic movement & that this supposed movement has womens interests denigrated in some manner.

People admitting they are atheists does not enter them into some club, first off.
The idea that we all join together & invent some club rules is ignorant at best.
If you actually believe that then you haven't thought about this concept deeply enough.
The only tie linking atheists together is
that they do not believe there is a woman/man in the sky.

Now, as it happens more scientifically literate people tend to call themselves atheists. That, however, does not include everyone.

Still, those that do believe science is correct in it's fundamental premise,
i.e. that we are ignorant about how the world works but we have a
self-correcting method that has inbuilt humility, creativity & ignorance as it's guiding forces to understanding it,
do not make absolute statements as ultimate truth because science never claims itself to be so audacious.
Basically if you do find people claiming as such they are inventing their own fantasy construct in the name of science, & history has plenty of
examples of people being shown wrong for doing this.

If you knew more about the basic premise of science you'd be able to see that without ignorantly bandying about sweeping labels...

Why am I so angry? Because you're claiming science is being used to
propagate misogynistic beliefs. This is false.
It's ignorant people who use pseudoscience to pass off their lies.
If you knew anything about real science you would never have said what you said.

So, basically you have fallen into a far deeper trap created by ignorant men who have falsely used science to put women down.
Condemn science and atheists because a few people have spouted nonsense, smart move...

I really would need to see your sources for these pop-science books spouting off material worse than the bible...
In fact, if you would show us detailed passages that condemn women in the name of science I'm pretty confident
I'll find more credible information contradicting what you've said.
If not, I'd appreciate you showing me this material even more
because there may or may not be some truth to it.
Probably not, still though I'd love to actually read it.

If you knew anything about anthropological work you'd know that women gathering seeds etc... provided most of the nourishment for ancestral diets.
Hunting was not the main source of food in their diets so if we're to believe
that it was women who gathered the seeds as men hunted that still does not give men some special place.
These antiquaited ideas are fresh only in the minds of ultra left-wing feminists and in men trying to use some ignorance to their advantage.
Oddly enough this ignorant idea is used to condemn vegetarians too
and it's also science that has shown we can live on vetarian diets.
Anthropological work has also discovered matriarchical vegetarian cultures
(Iroquoi Indians of North America for example)
that kind of put down two false assumptions in one

You have to remember that it is science that discovered we all ultimately
depend on women through the passage of maternal mitochondria and it's
the science of evolution that explains how we can trace this back.
Hardly some idea propagated by mysoginistic atheists...

Science says very little about how women ought to be.
Basically psychology is the area that tends to make sweeping statements
but these are often proven false or as culturally created constructs.
My favourite example is the current arguments about women in science.
If you look at my last post about STEM test scores being the same it's
cultural biases that tend to cause less women to be confident in entering engineering & physics etc...
Science has something to say about this, namely the very enterprise of
showing that men and women's test scores are about the same is science
& flies in the face of culturally created ideas about women being destined
to somehow fail in the hard sciences...

So, basically science has very little to say on how women ought to be.
Now, if atheists are trying to use some arguments to denigrate women
they need to be questioned.

Also, Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher do not speak for anyone but themselves, if feminist blogs are going to try to
a) use this fantasy of an atheist movement
b) say these are the movements spokespeople
c) tell us there is an anti-women bias in science and these movements

then I think we can call feminism dead.

No, wait...

...I think we should call the foolish authors of these articles for what they are, fools...
and not go off bandying about labels about the whole feminist movement, see what I mean...;)

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Herbal Deity

panda100 wrote: »

I was talking about what seems to be this ascendant idea of recent times, linking atheism with a warped Darwinism. Its something that Dawkins himself has commented on numerous times. That Darwin is being abused to reinforce sexist,racist,right wing ideals.

???

I don't deny that it may be happening, but I certainly haven't come across it, and I don't think it's hugely prevalent in mainstream society.

It certainly wouldn't be a reason why women in general aren't atheists.

You seem to be talking about atheism as if it's a product or something. Surely people arrive at their atheism through realization of the irrationality of religion? Sure, the publicity Dawkins etc. get these days might have given a handful of people the last push they needed to abandon the faith they were brought up in, but it's by no means the sole reason why people convert to atheism.

donegalfella

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Maybe we just found better things to do

jill_valentine

Somebody has to make Richard and Christopher their damn dinners.

...

Listen, you can hear Emmeline Pankhurst screaming at me from the non-Afterlife.

Galvasean

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Also, Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher do not speak for anyone but themselves, if feminist blogs are going to try to
a) use this fantasy of an atheist movement
b) say these are the movements spokespeople
c) tell us there is an anti-women bias in science and these movements

then I think we can call feminism dead.

No, wait...

...I think we should call the foolish authors of these articles for what they are, fools...
and not go off bandying about labels about the whole feminist movement, see what I mean...;)

It is a bit rich alright, for someone proclaiming to be a femininist to turn around and try lump all atheists into a nice pigeonhole.

Dave!

panda100 wrote: »

While I wouldn't consider evolutionary theory to be science at all it seems to have taken over from the bible as the new atheist doctrine. You can see that on every thread on Boards,where non-scientists quote sexist crap about women as nurturer man as provider. However, the profound sex inequality found in many human societies has never been proven to be based in biology.

lulz

methinks you're letting your feminist ideology cloud your appraisal of the facts.

Jakkass tends to do the same thing when it comes to morality; "I don't want it to be true" ends up being warped into "It's not true" in his head.

Evolutionary psychology is currently the best model we have for understanding human behaviour, but you are free to propose an alternative, or falsify EP if you're so inclined.

Just because rape or misogyny or tribal warfare are 'natural' does not mean that we have to endorse them. We tend to go "against nature" on a regular basis, hence life expectancy has been on the increase for decades now.

panda100

Dave! wrote: »

lulz

methinks you're letting your feminist ideology cloud your appraisal of the facts.

Jakkass tends to do the same thing when it comes to morality; "I don't want it to be true" ends up being warped into "It's not true" in his head.

Evolutionary psychology is currently the best model we have for understanding human behaviour, but you are free to propose an alternative, or falsify EP if you're so inclined.

Just because rape or misogyny or tribal warfare are 'natural' does not mean that we have to endorse them. We tend to go "against nature" on a regular basis, hence life expectancy has been on the increase for decades now.

I don't think this is the forum to discuss evolutionary psychology. I feel it pointless having a debate with people who feel rape is 'natural' and so we have to fight against what is natural.
I was just suggesting a possible linkage to what has become a watered down, distorted view and abused sexist version of evolutionary theory and its association with atheism.Popular media seems hellbent on associating the two,probably something to do with the famous faces of atheism being evolutionary biologyists.

I put forward two links of women discussing what they feel to be sexist undertones in the Atheist 'community', with links to the lack of access women have to education,the lack of female atheist role models which may make women cling to Mary and The saints.
Yet we have various posts saying there is something innate in women's brains that make them believe in a higher being?! Serious nonsense which makes what should be an interesting discussion,utterly pointless.


I think another huge factor in why women tend to be more religious is the community aspect of it. My mother,for example, was a stay at home mum. Her involvement with the church in London was probably her main social outlet. While my dad had his Golf club and office friends,my mum,like most women had the sporting world's and business worlds closed off to her.

Similar story with my best friends mother who is a Hindu in India. The temple is the one place she can go and make friends, with other mothers who are isolated to the home all day.
There to me seems to be a lot of social factors that would make women not want to shake their understanding and belief in God, as they get too much out of religion for it to be taken away.

sonicthebadger*

panda100 wrote: »

I don't think this is the forum to discuss evolutionary psychology. I feel it pointless having a debate with people who feel rape is 'natural' and so we have to fight against what is natural.

So explain what is not natural about it. Or what is not natural about being eaten alive by a shark, or dying of Cancer or HIV.

Also please note, while you try to tar me as some kind of rape loving person who isn't worth discussing anything with, I have put rape in the same box as violent assault; being eaten alive; and death by disease.

panda100 wrote: »

I think another huge factor in why women tend to be more religious is the community aspect of it. My mother,for example, was a stay at home mum. Her involvement with the church in London was probably her main social outlet. While my dad had his Golf club and office friends,my mum,like most women had the sporting world's and business worlds closed off to her.

Similar story with my best friends mother who is a Hindu in India. The temple is the one place she can go and make friends, with other mothers who are isolated to the home all day.
There to me seems to be a lot of social factors that would make women not want to shake their understanding and belief in God, as they get too much out of religion for it to be taken away.

This is an excellent point. The social aspect has a huge role to play in keeping a religion alive I think. Humans are very social animals, any belief that can facilitate or piggyback on that is on a winner in terms of adherents.

Galvasean

Of course we have to fight what is natural. The great thing about being human is we have the ability to rise up above our natural tendencies for the greater good. Natural does not always mean good. Being eaten by a pack of wolves is about the most natural thing that can happen to a person. We still avoid it though.

panda100

Galvasean wrote: »

Of course we have to fight what is natural. The great thing about being human is we have the ability to rise up above our natural tendencies for the greater good. Natural does not always mean good. Being eaten by a pack of wolves is about the most natural thing that can happen to a person. We still avoid it though.

I don't know where your writing from,but sitting here in Limerick in the 21st century, getting eaten by a pack of wolves is not the most natural thing that can happen to me.

mohawk

panda100 wrote: »

I think another huge factor in why women tend to be more religious is the community aspect of it. My mother,for example, was a stay at home mum. Her involvement with the church in London was probably her main social outlet. While my dad had his Golf club and office friends,my mum,like most women had the sporting world's and business worlds closed off to her.

Similar story with my best friends mother who is a Hindu in India. The temple is the one place she can go and make friends, with other mothers who are isolated to the home all day.
There to me seems to be a lot of social factors that would make women not want to shake their understanding and belief in God, as they get too much out of religion for it to be taken away.

Really good point. Humans are social creatures who strive to fit in and no one wants to be left out in the cold by questioning the status quo.

Men and women are very different so is it possible that women have a greater desire for feeling like when they die they go to heaven. Do women need this comfort more then men?

Galvasean

panda100 wrote: »

I don't know where your writing from,but sitting here in Limerick in the 21st century, getting eaten by a pack of wolves is not the most natural thing that can happen to me.

Pedantic sidestepping of the point much?

panda100

panda100 wrote: »

I don't think this is the forum to discuss evolutionary psychology. I feel it pointless having a debate with people who feel rape is 'natural'

I don't think ducks rape each other because it's *not* natural...

Bottle_of_Smoke

panda100 wrote: »

Many atheists abuse Darwin's doctrine making it as damaging to women as the bible has even been.
If men are bigger,stronger,its survival of the fittest, and Darwinian discourse is being used to defend anti-social behavior such as rape and murder. Yet this is not what Darwin was alluding to at all!
If you read some of the scientific evolutionary theory books out there on the market today,there a lot worse than the old testament ever was. Yet most of them are based on opinion rather than subjective fact.

Sorry if you're going to come out with crap like this you're going to have to back it up with something

Who's defending rape and murder? Using evolution to explain rape and murder does not justify or even defend them. I've only read about the rape and evolution notion once in a book about evolutionary psychology called Human Instinct by Robert Winston, and he went to painstaking detail explaining how it in no way justifies rape.

scientific evolutionary theory books worse than the old testament? which ones have you read?

robindch

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

[...] crap like this [...]

Mod note -- calm down! -- thanks.