In America, women are significantly more likely to be practicing theists than men, and are statistically more likely to profess theism.  I'm not certain of the rest of the world, but based on what I believe to be the answer to the OP, I suspect it is similar in most countries with patriarchal monotheist religions.

Women have different genetic interests than men, and this translates into different behavior patterns.  Genes use emotions to elicit behaviors, so naturally we would expect a different emotional profile for women than men.  Anyone who's ever dated someone of the opposite sex knows that this is true.  Men and women have different emotional behavior patterns, on average.

Remembering that our emotions and behaviors were shaped mostly by our ancestral environment,* we observe that birthing and rearing a child requires significant resources that are very difficult for a single woman to obtain without help.  This help would come primarily from kin groups, but as this strategy became more and more successful, it would likely evolve into a larger strategy of community reciprocation, including people who were not direct kin.

Women's tendency to become emotionally attached to "support groups" for lack of a better term seems to reflect the necessity of procuring and sustaining large pools of resources that can be "donated" to the raising of a child.  Men, on the other hand, spend the majority of their time trying to separate themselves from the field of competition by proving themselves to be a better resource procurer than the other men.  Rather than arranging pools of support, they are trying to demonstrate that they can be a resource pool.  Thus, women will tend to build groups and men will tend to demonstrate their separation from the group.

A disclaimer is necessary.  Men are famously good at forming coalitions of men for the purpose of acquiring more resources.  However, we need to recognize that each man in such a group is generally pushing for as much individual success as possible, and he will only join such groups when it is obvious that it will be of more personal benefit than striking out on his own.  Women seem to gravitate towards support groups as an end more than a means.

With all this in mind, it would follow that organized religion would be very attractive to women.  Not only is it a permanent extended family, one of its stated goals is the support of its members.  (Whether this is often practiced is another question.)  Furthermore, most religions promise some kind of super-power support, whether it's prayer to a god, or the power of group psychic abilities, or anything else.

For men, on the other hand, there is only one widely available benefit to being in a religion -- women.  Once a man has got a wife, it does him little good to keep going to church, and it probably doesn't do him much good to tithe regularly, for there is little else for him to gain.  There are very few positions of social or financial advancement in a church.  Most of the members are just members, with the same status as anyone else.  We would expect men to attend church enough to make their wives happy, and to maintain what social status they have, but we would expect them to care a lot more about their job outside the church.

* Watcher, this is a shout to you.  Despite the recent realization that humans are evolving quite rapidly, I've seen no evidence that we aren't primarily dominated by ancient emotional patterns.  Quite the contrary, in fact.  It appears that immense civilizations are still rather opposed to many of our individual instincts.

Ronin, I don't know if you've noticed, but your situation fits my theory.  Your wife is unconcerned with things that impress chicks.  I bet if you listed all the people involved in all the big science projects you like, you'd find mostly men.  That's because men are the ones with the vested interest in proving to women that they're very smart, and capable of being a good resource pool.  Your wife is, however, very concerned with the immediate social ramifications of religion.  Religious nuts are attempting to drive wedges in social networks, and since atheists are in a vast minority, this is an immediate threat to her ability to form lasting social bonds with lots of people.

I'm not saying that this logic is necessarily part of the conscious motivation of you, your wife, or any of the people working on building rockets.  I'm saying that we don't need to be aware of it.  It's the logic of genes trying to get humans to reproduce successfully.  Our complicity is important -- not our understanding.

Hamby, I think you have a good point.

Yeah.... and with the world pop. at 6.7 billion headed for 7b by 2015, and nearly 9b by 2050, it's probably time for us to begin complying just a little less.

 = 

Tee-hee 

i feel more comfortable around men myself.  although i attribute that to the fact that i was an automotive technician prior to the wheelchair which is a male dominated field.

interesting hamby.  you know, the two larger atheist groups here both have women's group spinoffs.  i went to two of the meetings just to see - yeah, gossip circle and fashion talk.  also, the older, married women telling me which of the guys they think i should hook up with.

This is a purely anecdotal opinion, but my experience is that women tend to be more inclined to follow rules and established practices. As a child they always seemed to be the ones to cite the teachers or schools rules. I had an experience with this as a barista at Starbucks (a predominantly female occupation) where I was constantly in trouble with the management for exercising my own judgment in areas where the manual was either sketchy or it's rules weren't suited to the situation. I think this also explains why so many women are intent on following the rules of the road to the letter such as observing the speed limit or stop lights and signs to the point of actually violating other laws like slow moving vehicles keeping right, or right turns being "free".

Questioning or defying the beliefs they were raised with seems to go hand in hand with this.

I agree that women are generally more likely to conform. Thank Jake I'm not one of them. Observing the speed limit? I try not to double it. (I'm completely velocitized.)

Hear hear! And woot for men who don't (I.E, me)

I'm totally clueless about anything mechanical. I wouldn't be able to change the oil or a tire if my life depended on it.

An enthusiastic high five to you, my good Miss.

Preaching to the choir. Girl drummers are pretty much my weakness.

... but then, I'm a drummer, so I guess it makes sense.

I think that just counts as being really, freaking lazy.

So....Kelly or Shelley... What's up with these @#&%! Ford EGR sensors. Love my truck but I replace more of these in my F-150 than I care to count. I don't hear much about the other auto makers having similar problems to my extent. Would you happen to know, is the Ford system config very different from the rest ???

    To be Atheist is to be bold and daring, a masculine trait, not feminine.  The female is weaker and a follower most of the time.  What a bunch of sheep shit huh !?!

I'm turned off by the lack of technical prowess displayed by most female musicians, at least within the world of rock and mainstream music. They seem to all aspire to make poppy, punky garbage.

Some chicks that are phenomenal musicians though: AdrianConner , JessicaLurie (The rest of the band are fucking amazing too.), and NekoCase (I can't vouch for her technical ability but she's an awesome song writer and I want to have sex with her voice.)

Edit: Here's a better link for JessicaLurie.

Anyone that likes female drummers, go check out percussionist Evelyn Glennie.  She rocks my socks.

Then listen again, knowing that she's deaf.

i didn't answer your question because (nothing personal wonko) the 'what's wrong with my car' questions are a pet peeve of mine... not because i mind people asking for advice but because i feel uncomfortable giving out any kind of diagnosis without seeing the vehicle. 

that being said, i don't know of any sort of widespread ford egr value problem... however you didn't mention what year your vehicle is - i did major in emissions, specifically, and was trained on ford and gm pretty much exclusively.  i graduated in 2005.  so, yeah - maybe i've been out of the field too long to have heard current rumors but i'd hope your shop has checked for recall information.

Could be worse. This drummer is fighting an even bigger handicap these days!

(I love the closing line ...)

No, no recall on the EGR. I did find the answer. The Ford design is different than the other auto makers. Apparently, for whatever reason, a blend of air mixed with actual exhaust is piped through to where the sensor is located. Must be the exhaust that gums up fairly quickly.... but I'd need to inquire further to be sure. Thanks, anyway.

ah, you were talking about design.  i thought you were asking about part specific problems.  should have read closer - sorry.   yet another reason why i'm not into diagnosing problems over the internet... i never was into picking up on customer's differing language uses.

Yo ladies...I totally kick ass at the drums...in Rock Band. Yeah--you're jealous of my expert drumming ability. Just admit it.

As far as the EGR valve goes, I think you're a little confused Wonko. You are likely replacing the oxygen sensor because of a problem with the EGR valve. Every car made in the last 25 years has an EGR valve, which stands for Exhaust Gas Recirculation, and essentially its function is to pump a portion of your exhaust gases back into the combustion chamber for increased fuel burning efficiency. It also has the effect of lowering the combustion chamber temperature by about 500 degrees. If your EGR valve is malfunctioning, the oxygen sensor would be triggered to the presence of too much O₂ causing a fuel mixture that is too rich--resulting in poor performance, lowered MPG, uneven idling, etc. With too much O₂ present in the exhaust, the car will send more gas into the combustion chamber assuming that there isn't enough to properly burn all of the available O₂. It's a vicious cycle of one small malfunction causing several problems.

Now tell me how much you love me. Now damnit!!

Another question is why are there so many more committed Christian women than Christian men. You can read the statistics here.

 http://www.churchformen.com/allmen.php

I was part of the whole Promise Keeper/Men's ministry thing when I was a fundy. Many churches have changed their message to try to correct the disparity. My theories.

1. Sexual repression/purity. You'll rarely meet a man, even in Christian circles that would brag about his virginity or sexual purity. You'll find tons of Christian women willing to do so. Christians have hijacked the concept of monogamy and demonized atheists as sexually immoral. Sexual promiscuity is something men brag about and women avoid for fear of being labeled as 'loose'.

2. Christianity has hijacked the concept of family values. Women generally take on more responsibility in raising children. They view church as a support group and a way to instill 'values' into children.

3. Women's intelligences seems to be more linguistic and musical/rhythmic, men's more logical mathematical and scientific. Churches use clever language, speaking rhythms and emotional music but no logic and science. This approach seems to work better on women than men.

I agree with what Hamby wrote. But then why does the religion of Islam not have the gender gap as does Christianity? Any theories?

I'll vouch for Kelly.  She is a badass Rock Band drummer.