Sumerian Women Could Be Important Religious Leaders

A new analysis of survey data finds women pray more often then men, are more than likely to believe in God, and are more religious than men in a variety of other ways.

The reasons, analysts say, could range from traditional mothering duties to the tendency of men to take risks — in this example the chance they might not go to heaven.

The latest findings, released Friday, are no surprise, only confirming what other studies take constitute for decades. Still, the new numbers illustrate interesting and stark differences. They come from a fresh review of data that was collected in a 2007 survey and initially released final year by the Pew Research Center. The percent of women (and and so men) who:

• Are affiliated with a religion: 86 (79).
• Have absolutely certain conventionalities in a God or universal spirit: 77 (65).
• Pray at least daily: 66 (49).
• Take admittedly certain belief in a personal God: 58 (45).

The survey involved interviews with more than 35,000 U.S. adults by the Pew Forum on Faith & Public Life.

George H. Gallup, Jr., in an analysis for the Gallup polling system back in 2002, wrote that the differences in religiosity betwixt men and women have been shown consistently across the previous 7 decades of polls.

“A mountain of Gallup survey data attests to the thought that women are more religious than men, hold their beliefs more firmly, practice their faith more consistently, and piece of work more vigorously for the congregation,” Gallup wrote.

Amidst the reasons women tend to be more than religious, he says:

• Mothers have tended to spend more fourth dimension raising children, which frequently means overseeing their interest in church activities.
• Though two-income households are more than common today, in the by women often had more flexible daily schedules, permitting more church involvement during the week.
• Women tend to be more open almost sharing personal problems and are more relational than men. Other Gallup inquiry shows a higher proportion of women than men say they have a “best friend” in their congregation, he wrote.

Lastly, Gallup argued, “More and so than men, women lean toward an empirical [depending on experience or observation] rather than a rational ground for religion.”

There may be another reason. Rodney Stark, a professor of folklore and comparative religion at the University of Washington, flips the question around: Why are men less religious?

“Studies of biochemistry imply that both male person irreligiousness and male lawlessness are rooted in the fact that far more males than females take an underdeveloped power to inhibit their impulses, particularly those involving immediate gratification and thrills,” Stark argued in a 2002 paper in the
Journal for the Scientific Study of Organized religion.

The upshot is that some men are shortsighted and don’t call up ahead, Stark said, and so “going to prison or going to hell but doesn’t affair to these men.”

Stark may have purposely overstated the example, but you get the bespeak. My wife suggested some other reason: Life is but harder for women. While I can’t argue with that, I also tin’t find any research connecting that to prayer or church attendance.

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