Is it true most asexuales are atheist?

[Kolia Mutlaq]

I think so. Also, to be asexual is related with oppose religious rules. What do you think? The subject is complex.

[Rising Sun]

Welcome !

Actually, statistics on large asexual populations have shown that asexuals are a bit more religious than average. AVEN is very far from being representative.

Being asexual isn't related to antitheism, because it isn't an ideology, it's merely a lack of sexual feelings towards others.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

Why don't you add a poll and we can find out?

[Light02]

I personally identify as a pantheist but more on the atheistic side of things. However, I don't see how that could in any way be related to my asexuality.

[Elluna Hellen]

I'm an asexual and an atheist, but... These have nothing to do with each other? At least, I wouldn't expect it.

[KulkulkanX]

A quick perusal of the Intersectionality forum on this site reveals that people of every faith and none at all can be asexual. I can relate that some religious traditions are less tolerant than others, while some are okay with asexuality. I was Catholic thought the first 35 years of my life. Catholicism features celibate clergy and a strong monastic tradition. While of course asexuality does not equal celibacy, I can imagine that asexuality makes celibacy much easier. I was quite interested in becoming a preist in those years.Buddhis also has a tradition of monasticism.

On the other hand, Protestants, Jews, and Islam in my experience tendd to encouage marriage (and therefore sex) and can be intolerant of asexuality.

I myself am a Thelemite now. My core belief is "Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law; Love is the Law, Love under Will). While being very friendly to sex, in practice it is open to all orientations.

[WinterWanderer]

I am Christian, but I know many here who are atheists, and have seen some people of other religions too. I think it's hard to say if there is a link between religion and asexuality.

[Peachyy]

I think so. Also, to be asexual is related with oppose religious rules. What do you think? The subject is complex.

Yep! Fuck em'! :twisted: ;)

It more so hangs on how an individual feels about the evidence of things like biology and natural selection vs artificial via magic, etc.. There are lots of religions out there, you must not forget them all, so you can't say that an asexual goes against all of those rules unless you're counting only the popular handful. Opposing religious rules isn't necessarily even a part of atheism, as atheism doesn't really say much about how someone feels about religion, just their belief in gods or goddesses. I'd say that many asexuals, atheist or otherwise, do not directly oppose religion (though, I surely do ♥) because these are not mutually exclusive. Just as you can't tell someone's political party, or the type of music they listen to based upon them not feeling sexual attraction.

[Lost247365]

If you are judging by the ONLINE communities, then you are probably right. Online communities, in general, tend to skew younger, more tech and science savy, and more secular. The thing is, there are many many many aces who have little to no online presence.

In fact, I believe there was a scientific study done by Anthony Bogaert years ago that found asexuals tend to be MORE religious than the average person. However, this was one of the first studies done on asexual demographics and it is very dated and had many pecularities and criticisms. IIRC, the part about asexuals being more religious was particularly criticized for possibly counting celebate sexuals as being asexual. Since many sexuals are celibate for religious reason this made us look more religious than we actually are.

Personally, I suspect that we more secular/likely to be atheists than the average heterosexual, but less so than the average homosexual. My reasons for thinking this is that there is far more religious persecution of homosexuals than asexuals due to our lower visibility and fewer verses condemning asexuality than homosexuality in the Bible. This means there is less of a factor pushing asexuals away from religion than there is for homosexuals, but more than there is for heterosexuals.

Without looking it up, I believe that atheists/agnostics/secular homosexuals are usually represented as making up around ~45% of most homosexuals in studies done on this subject. While, for the general public it is more like 20% (though the younger you get the higher that number goes with millenials being around 30% secular) so i would figure that we are probably somewhere between those two number.

I would guess we asexual atheists/agnostics/not religious are around 32% or so.

EDIT: Source supporting me on the religious affiliation numbers:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/26/lesbian-gay-and-bisexual-americans-differ-from-general-public-in-their-religious-affiliations/

[Tarfeather]

My asexual girlfriend is religious.

[zoom]

I am atheist, but I am from atheist society and atheist family.

(although we do the Christian traditions like Christmas and Easter, the religious thing is missing; Christmas = presents, Easter = chocolate, and when it comes to the background story, my parents told me that Mary and Joseph were mommy and daddy of Jesus)

[DragonflytotheMoon]

Hello & welcome, Kolia. I'm a grace, but, I'm very spiritual & do follow a particular faith. Atheists & aces come from all walks of life. Sometimes, the two paths may converge. It's not like it's a prerequisite that if you're one, you're automatically the other. Hope that you enjoy your time here & make many new friends.

[zoom]

Idea: (very) religious aces are unlikely to identify as aces, because they are likely to accept the idea that sex is the holy babymaking activity.

[erf]

Might be true but I don't know but I'm a Christian nor do I care what other people are just gotta be a good person.

[MoraDollie]

I'm on ace spectrum and I'm an ex christian, now Pagan. I don't think religion has any correlation within the asex community.

[Sally]

No, it isn't true.

Nothing is true about asexuals except that we don't want partnered sex. Otherwise, we're all individuals.

[JustJordan]

Idea: (very) religious aces are unlikely to identify as aces, because they are likely to accept the idea that sex is the holy babymaking activity.

Well, as an ace who is Catholic, I would disagree. We recognize sexual attraction and all that jazz for all that it is, and the church actually encourages people to not deny their sexuality. Not much discussion revolves around a lack of a sexuality, but I don't think that religious aces (or at least, Christian and Catholic ones) would not identify as ace for that reason.

[God of the Forest]

No, it isn't true.

Nothing is true about asexuals except that we don't want partnered sex. Otherwise, we're all individuals.

Adding to what sally said; a person may be atheist whilst also being asexual but there isn't anything that indicates the two are related or that "you are asexual, therefore you are more likely to be atheist", I am asexual as fuck (no pun intended) and my faith in God is quite strong.

[PurpleAce]

I have to say that I've noticed this in several asexual groups; however, I don't think asexuality and atheism are necessarily related. What I believe is that we (=aces) may be more prone to question things instead of just taking them for granted or passively accepting them.

I am not atheist neither religious. I like to think of myself as spiritual.

[Vara]

I think so. Also, to be asexual is related with oppose religious rules. What do you think? The subject is complex.

No...it doesn't seem very complex to me.

I don't know if it was just a collection of typos, or actual poor grammar, but it is a bit hard for me to tell exactly what you mean. However, the primary point seems to be that there is a tendency among Asexuals to not be very religious due to 'being an asxual' being against some 'religious rules'. And that really isn't a complex idea or conflict.

Maybe you could name a few of the religious faiths which you believe teach, or imply, that Asexuality is wrong?

As a Christian who has attended severel denominational churches (while still being a solid Christian) I can say that there is a wide variety of focuses on specific passages or statements in the Bible. But far from being 'Asexual' in its roots, the Bible shows several Asexual relationships--one of which is the friendship between (the future King) David and Jonathan (King Saul's son). Their relationship is described as 'preferring eachother's friendship even before the company of women'. Sounds like a platonic, asexual relationship to me. And that is in the Old Testament which I think is accepted by the Jewish as well as Catholic faiths.

So I think it is very clearly not complex. Nor is it true. There just is no correlation between asexuality and religious belief.

[AliceL]

Welcome! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

I think maybe on Aven there are more Atheists. But I've met more spiritual religious people, such as Christian and Catholics who are asexual outside of Aven. And I knew a few girls and guys who were going into the consecrated life who I think were asexual since they were never interested in relationships or sex from all the years I've known them and been around them. But that whole part is just me and not representative of everyone as whole. If you were to do a poll on HERE, there would probably be a possibility that there would be more Atheists or non-religious/spiritual asexuals on here (but that's just from what I've seen and is only speculated). But Aven isn't representative of asexuals who are or who are not spiritual/religious as a whole since it is such a small community.

But in answering the question, I couldn't tell you if most asexuals are or are not Athiest since there's never been a nationwide study on it that I know of. :( On Aven, I would assume yes, most asexuals here are probably Atheist or non-religious/spiritual. But in order to truly determine and not go by assumptions (like I am right now because I am studying math like crazy right now so I am in probability-this-and-probability-that and statistics mode :D :P ), a poll solely for Aven would be good if you want to know if it's true that most asexuals on AVEN are atheist. But globally or nationwide, I couldn't tell you :(

[kelico]

Thread moved from Welcome Lounge to Asexual Musings and Rantings.

-kelico, Welcome Lounge Moderator

[nanogretchen4]

I really doubt there is any correlation between sexual orientation and religion in real life. The population on AVEN seems to skew young, liberal, and secular. That probably just tells us who is most likely to frequent an online forum about sexual orientation.

[LunarEclipse*]

Why would being asexual have anything to do with whether a person believes in God? They're completely non-related.

I mean, I guess you could argue that some religions teach against asexuality (not sure if that's even true), but it would probably take a lot more than a single disagreement with one of the claims of the religion to convince a person to stop believing in the existence of God altogether...

[UncommonNonsense]

I'm ace and atheist... but I suspect that the fact that there are a large percentage of atheist people on AVEN is just that being on the internet itself slews toward the geeky... and geeky types are more apt to be pro-science/logic, tech-savvy, and younger. All of these types of people have a higher likelihood of being non-religious. I'd bet that most online forums (excluding those based on religion or conservative/republican politics, of course) are likely to have a higher than average percentage of atheists/agnostics than the general population. Also, I'd suspect that more atheist/agnostic types are introverts, and online forums are attractive to introverts.

I also think that since we *are* a minority sexuality, a lot of us identify with other LGBT groups, who are often persecuted/abused/hated by conservative religions. Since many of us identify with them, it's understandable that we'd be wary of the religions that are spewing the hate. Some of us are also NB/non-binary/enby, Agender, Androgyne, Trans, Genderfluid, Homoromantic, etc.. and those *do* fall within the LGBT+ umbrella without much dispute (unlike aces in general... whether a particular ace considers themselves a part of the LGBT+ acronym seems to be largely a personal choice, as yet), and as such likely have experienced some sort of conflict with conservative religiosity, whether within their own family or from strangers. That kind of conflict drives people away from religiosity, especially if verbal/physical abuse is added to the mix. And even if they have managed to avoid being personally effected by religious bigotry, the way those groups talk in the media and amongst themselves (and who they believe to be like them) is usually enough to make a closeted gender-non-conformer or ace person feel wary, vulnerable, scared, unwanted, hated.. and that too will drive them away from religions that promote intolerance. Some find versions of the religion that are inclusive, but some are so turned off that they can't find any more comfort within religion.

So yeah.... complicated. Lots of different causes at work here.

Though, personally, I consider it a very positive thing.

So the very fact that we're online means that our population will have more atheists.

[AceOfShovels]

I don't think they Asexuality and Atheism have anything to do with one another, but if you look at the stats, most Asexuals are well educated. That might have something to do with it.

[Sally]

I don't think they Asexuality and Atheism have anything to do with one another, but if you look at the stats, most Asexuals are well educated. That might have something to do with it.

there aren't any statistics on how well education asexuals are. There really aren't any statistics on asexuals at all. And education has nothing to do with religiosity or non-religiosity.

[touching-not-so-much]

I agree with UncommonNonsense above and others, in that it's likely the internet itself is more the unifying thread that runs between atheism and probably a lot of communities. Atheism specifically more common in asexuals? I kinda doubt it, and in fact from the responses here, there are more religious (both established and pagan, nontraditional, etc) people that i expected.

I am an atheist but from my own personal experience, I don't think it's related to the asexuality (in any obvious way I know at least), as my worldview has more to do with my interests which were the paranormal and ghosts and such - I used to lean toward all that being possible, and was 'agnostic' but later leaned back the other direction and while it's still interesting to me, I'm of the skeptical side of things. I was semi struggling all throughout my life with asexuality or lack of relationships, etc, but the two never really seemed to overlap in any place.

[Still]

I'm an atheist myself, but don't really see the correlation. And if anything, asexuality would be in line with religious values: premarital sex is bad and all that.

[Pengwyn]

I am an atheist, but I was atheist long before I knew I was asexual, back when I was seven. I was atheist because I found it too difficult to believe in God, not because I'm uninterested in sex or feel no sexual attraction.

It is possible to interpret the bible in a way which discourages asexuality. Many people say that we have a duty to God to "be fruitful and increase in number", or "go forth and multiply". However, I doubt this is enough to push asexual people away from religion.