Reply #8: Just did a little run-up on this fella [View All]

and I think that the short article may be taking him out of context. It's not that he didn't say what they say he said - but if you read the whole article, this aspect takes on far less importance. If we want to get our knickers in a twist, I'd say that the article he cites while discussing this aspect is more the culprit than he. I don't agree with the man - trust me - but I hate to see anyone taken out of context (and I despise people who post little articles like the one on EurekaAlert without offering citation).

The information comes from an article he wrote on gender and religious differences.
Physiology and Faith: Addressing the “Universal” Gender Difference in Religious Commitment
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion; Sep2002, Vol. 41 Issue 3, p495-507, 13p, 2 charts

Here is the abstract:
"That men are less religious than women is a generalization that holds around the world and across the centuries. However, there has been virtually no study of this phenomenon because it has seemed so obvious that it is the result of differential sex role socialization. Unfortunately, actual attempts to isolate socialization effects on gender differences in religiousness have failed, as have far more frequent and careful efforts to explain gender differences in crime. There is a growing body of plausible evidence in support of physiological bases for gender differences in crime. Making the assumption that, like crime, irreligiousness is an aspect of a general syndrome of shortsighted, risky behaviors leads to the conclusion that male irreligiousness may also have a physiological basis. If nothing else, this article may prompt creative efforts to salvage the socialization explanation. "
Copyright of Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion is the property of Blackwell Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.

Some selected passages (to avoid breaking the rules):

There is only one other gender difference similar to the one involving religion: males are far more likely than females to commit crimes. But unlike religion, this effect has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. Here, too, differential socialization has been the favored explanation, and here, too, the facts have proven uncooperative. For one thing, the gender effects tend to be limited to impulsive, violent, physical, and dangerous actions having short-term gratifications: murder, assault, robbery, rape, and burglary. Sex differences are small or nonexistent on planned, "sit-down" offenses such as forgery, embezzlement, and credit card fraud. Moreover, remarkable data on homicides in France from early in the 19th century reveal that of persons charged with murder, only 1 of 10 was a woman, but when poisoning was the method, women made up nearly half the accused (Guerry 1833). What these data clearly show is that it is not socialization taking the form of conscience that prevents women from breaking the law, since it is the kind of crime, not generalized conformity, that produces the effect. A second factor to consider vis-à-vis socialization is that the rates of "male crimes" tend to decline rapidly with age and therefore gender differences attenuate as well. For example, in the United States, homicide and robbery rates are highest among males aged 16 to 19, decline by about 50 percent for males aged 25 to 29, and men over 40 very seldom commit such offenses (Gove 1985; Stark 2000). All explanations, regardless of whether they involve socialization, must deal with the fact that most of the impulsive, physical, and risky crimes are committed by young males who also engage in many other risky behaviors, legal or not. They get drunk, smoke, use drugs, don't wear their seat belts, speed, drive without a license, urinate in public places, skip school, often don't show up for work, gamble compulsively, cheat on their wives and girlfriends, and engage in unprotected sex with strangers (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990).

It was against this background that Miller and Hoffmann (1995:64) drew their truly important conclusion that gender effects on religion and on crime are different facets of the same phenomenon. That is, to the list of risky behaviors engaged in by males, Miller and Hoffmann added irreligiousness: "one can conceive of ... the rejection of religious beliefs as risk-taking behavior." Miller and Hoffmann's logic is in accord with a classic argument in theology known as "Pascal's Wager" (Durkin and Greeley 1991). Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a French priest and philosopher, wrote that anyone with good sense would believe in God because this is a no-loss proposition. He noted that God either exists or does not exist and people have the choice of either believing in God or not. This results in four combinations. Assuming that God exists, then upon death those who believe will gain all the rewards promised to the faithful and escape the costs imposed on the unfaithful. In contrast, nonbelievers will miss out on the rewards and receive the punishments. Now assume there is no God. When they die, believers will simply be dead. But so will those who didn't believe. Therefore, Pascal reasoned, the smart move is to believe, for one has everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing so. However, Pascal overlooked something. Faith is not free. Believers must give up some gratifications here and now because various worldly delights are defined as sins. Consequently, if one is willing to take the risk of betting that God does not exist, one can enjoy many immediate gratifications prohibited by religion, and in that sense come out ahead of the believer.

Because many sins also are crimes, the interests of criminology and the social scientific study of religion converge on the same set of behaviors that overwhelmingly are committed by males. People who are willing to risk the secular costs of seeking immediate gratifications also are prone to risk the religious costs of misbehavior. Whatever it is that makes some men risk takers also makes them irreligious. It seems appropriate to mention that only two groups have had significant success in resocializing serious criminals, both of them religious: the Prison Fellowship founded by Charles Colson and the various groups of Black Muslims (Stark and Bainbridge 1997). When they analyzed appropriate data, Miller and Hoffmann found that within each gender, those scoring high on risk aversion were more religious. Moreover, when they compared men and women with a similar orientation toward risk, their religious behavior and beliefs were also similar. Further support has been lent to this finding by research showing that members of a sample of 1,148 newly ordained clergy in the Church of England scored well below the national average for English men on a scale of risk taking (Francis et al. 2001). It also is consistent with findings that men tend to accept higher risks than do women when making financial investments (Glass and Kilpatrick 1998; Powell and Ansic 1997).

For all the brilliance of their insight, however, Miller and Hoffmann merely expanded the fundamental question to include irreligiousness among the acts of crime and irresponsibility. The quesion remains: Why are some men short-sighted risk takers? Miller and Hoffmann suggested that the answer is to be found in differential socialization. I am willing to agree that socialization probably accounts for some of the gender difference, but that's not saying much. To attribute something to differential socialization is merely to sloganize unless one is able to identify the specific elements of socialization. And that is precisely what generations of sociologists and criminologists have been unable to do. Indeed, during the 1970s, feminist authors such as Freda Adler (1975) predicted that changes taking place in female socialization would soon eliminate the gender differences in crime. A generation later the gender differences are as large as ever. In similar fashion, any number of studies have attempted to account for gender differences in delinquency by controlling for attachments to parents and variations in parental supervision, without significant success (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990). Meanwhile, however, some progress was being made on the gender and criminality front from an entirely different direction.
*****************************************

He then goes on to talk about gender socialization, twin-studies, steroid abuse and other factors that may predispose males to crime.

Basically, this is a more complex article than the quotes suggest. Just saying. The problem that I see with Stark's conclusion is the basic 1+1=3 issue. It is not necessarily true that if religion makes one MORE risk-averse that lack of religion will make one LESS risk-averse. But he's a sociologist. They like their statistics too much to dabble in reason!

OH - here's the citation to the article Stark cites:
Risk and Religion: An Explanation of Gender Differences in Religiosity.
By: Miller, Alan S., Hoffmann, John P., Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 00218294, Mar95, Vol. 34, Issue 1

ETA: italics to the article title