Title. Interested to see the response from different religions
Edit: Stating your religion would be appreciated. Lack of religion counts for the purpose of this question. Also let’s not downvote people for differing religions, all voices are welcome here. If no; why?
there was a show about muslims dating non-muslims in michigan, the guy had to commit to islam to even date the woman. it might be problematic if you arnt one and the other requires religious conversion.
if its associated with right wing political views, no thank you.
I’m atheist, and my partner was Muslim when I first knew her.
People say it doesn’t mater - but honestly it really fucking does.
Imagine being in relationship with someone who never really left North Korea, deep down. There’s so much fear, so much fear-driven obedience, and so much fear-driven defense of the indefensible.
I never really understood the concept of freedom of conscience until I was arguing with one of her friends about Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery - with her sentence delayed until her baby was weaned. Despite being really very progressive at heart, my partner ended up arguing in favour of it - and then later on was seriously pissed off at me for making her defend that.
She ended up deconverting several years later (certainly not at my behest), and things got immeasurably better from then on.
But that’s not a possibility I’d recommend banking on. My honest advice is just don’t go there, it’s far more stressful than you think it is.
Damn that is hardcore
I am atheist and my wife is Buddhist. While not exactly true, I view Buddhism more as a philosophy and it is more palatable in that regard. My tolerance for people practicing religion is also fairly high as long as they don’t try and “convert me”.
As a result, I have been to plenty of ceremonies for things over the years and it doesn’t bother me. Of course, I don’t believe in any of that “magic” but there is usually loads of good food that comes attached, depending. (Also, there is a high probability of after-hours gambling and drinking which was cool when I did that stuff, at least with the Asian crowd I roll with.)
+20 years married into a Buddhist family, if you were wondering about that.
Am also atheist, I have an extreme…distaste for religion in general. There are some that I find easier to mesh with, very dependent on the person in particular. But I have some long married friends with vastly different religious views and they work out somehow.
Oh, I get it. My distaste for religion runs deep as well. However, in my own direct experience, I have not seen any overt religious-driven nasty behavior in my years around Buddhism. (Not to say that it doesn’t exist, but I haven’t seen it.)
For the record, I grew up in an extreme Southern Baptist area, and still hold the belief that all those fuckers are all pure evil.
Buddhism seems like one of the easier ones to mesh with, yeah. Thank you for your response, I appreciate it very much!
I’m a Buddhist/Atheist. There is far less to fight about here than between Christians/Atheist. I’m sure I’m a “bad” Buddhist too because I take the philosophical bits that make sense to me and leave all the deities and supernatural stuff alone, but Buddhists don’t seem to mind and most atheists don’t either.
Atheist, married to a Buddhist. He prays daily and has his rituals.
Made it clear from the start that I’m ok with religion as long as they don’t try to convert me or harm others.
Aside some dietary requirements, it works quite well. Married for 9 years now.
This works quite well for us, but results and experience may differ based on religion, patience and personal beliefs. I imagine I might have a hard time dating a religious zealot though.
Same here. I am not interested in religion (so not even really atheist), wife is Buddhist doing Buddhist things. Married for 40 years this year, and it’s not an issue.
I won’t get romantically involved with anyone who deeply believes and allows religion, especially organized religion, to drive their lives.
I was raised Catholic. I have seen too many people use their religion to shirk responsibility for their evils.
Washington State mandatory reporter law changes are a great example. In the US it varies by state but in general, people in trusted positions like teachers, police officers, medical professionals, and counselors are required to report child abuse. Priests have had a special exception, even if they were acting as teachers or counselors. Last month, Washington removed the special exception for priests. The Catholic Church is now sueing to keep the right for priests to keep child abuse secret. Ponder that, these people who would put their magical ceremonies over the health, safety, even lives of children. What is the point of that religion? Because it sure isn’t about helping people live good lives.
And Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these … unless they’re being abused and you wait until you’re in the special room with me, chant some special words, and then tell me. Then fuck’em. No, literally, we’ll keep the pedophilia on the down low because the ceremony is more important than the kids”.
I’ll chime in myself here. Am an atheist, have dated hard core Christian women, Wiccans, and atheists. I’ve found that religion didn’t actively impact the relationship until it spilled over into daily life that my partner required I take part in. I actually really enjoyed religious history conversations with my more moderate partners. It started to break down when it was “shut up no debate this is how it is” and those are the relationships that ended badly.
I had a gf who considered herself Christian. Not someone who talked about it a lot, but I guess she has some belief. I have a fairly negative view of organized religion in general. She really wanted to start going to church and I was um, wow, sounds horrible. She looked around found a church with surprisingly cool people - not at all bible thumpers, or full of pretentious nonsense, hell and brimstone, none of that. They support LGBTQ, operated a homeless shelter, gave sermons about pro-abortion rights and astronomy. I was pleasantly surprised. Still I ended up determining that I didn’t want to wake up at 7:30 each Sunday to go there. I figured out that she viewed church more as a social club and some sort of tradition from her family.
If it was someone drastically different, like talking constantly about reading the bible and telling me I had to convert and basing half their life around it, absolutely not. I not only am not interested myself but I think it would illustrate some negative aspects of their personality that I don’t want to be around. I had a gf who owned a retail store and people would come in and tell her ridiculous stories about Jesus healing people when they were missionaries in Africa. Later she’d tell me and ask “Do you think that was true? Jesus really DID THAT?” and I’d have to be um… no. That lady sounds like a liar or a psycho, sorry. Not great for a relationship. It turned out it was just some feel-good thing for her. She didn’t read the bible or really know anything about scripture. Just thinking “magic jesus loves me” made her feel good. I’m only really vaguely religious but still I can’t respect that.
Atheist here. Married a Christian who was into missions, taught Sunday school, etc…
Love is love and we don’t choose who we fall in love with.
I never once tried to convert her, or call out her beliefs. But over time (she was from a small religious (mennonite) town) she came to see on her own how the indoctrination was just a cover for a lot of evil shit that went down in the church, and in its name.
She is no longer Christian, and veers towards agnosticism, but when pressed would say she is now more aligned with animism, or the idea that nature is the only ‘face’ of a god that is not a conscious being, but is just the culmination of all the processes in nature.
Eww, no, I’d never date anyone with religious views.
Fuck no. Organized religion is the source of most of the harms in the world. There is no man in the sky. You have no special blessing to be terrible to others.
Capitalism is responsible for most of the rest of the harms. And then a very small percent is the result of basically-bad people and mental health issues.
I mean, if you view certain controlling mechanisms that are weilded by terrible people as mere extensions of the terrible people, then it may be worth revising how much bad people have harmed the world.
Also I wish I could be as optimistic as you about how few terrible people there are in the world.
I’m an atheist. I dated a woman once who believed in spirits. I think she experienced night terrors among other things and interpreted them as supernatural phenomena. It didn’t cause problems then but I was a lot younger and I think now I’m less tolerant of that sort of thing. But who knows - I was crazy about her so maybe if I meet a woman I’m crazy about like that again then I’ll tolerate anything.
More recently I’ve dated people who believe in a vague sort of life after death but never someone who practiced any religion. I think I would immediately rule out practicing religious people if I were going through a list (as when dating online) but if I met someone in person, really liked her, and then found out she was religious then I’m not sure what I would do. It would definitely be off-putting.
The problem for me isn’t the lifestyle differences but rather my impression that religious people are missing the point about the basic nature of existence, when it really should be obvious. It makes me feel like I’m patronizing them, because to be frank I don’t tend to think of them as my intellectual equals. (And I know that makes me sound like a pompous jerk.)
Yea I kinda get the same feeling. Although for a lot of people their religion does not preclude the acceptation/understanding of a physical world, it’s a more of set of rites that they inherited and that’s part of their identity. There’s plenty of religious people who are scientists. For some, I imagine it may be difficult to reconcile.
I know that there are religious scientists and I think humans often compartmentalize beliefs in such a way that their belief about the supernatural doesn’t affect their assessment of real-world situations. I’ll even go further and say that often it seems like their belief affects their behavior much less than it logically ought to, with some (but not all) people who apparently sincerely believe in an all-seeing God and an afterlife still acting just like atheists in relevant situations. In this context, the fanatics are sometimes technically the more rational ones - I disagree with their premises, but their actions make sense if those premises are considered true.
Hard no.
The last thing I need is the wife pestering me constantly to go to church.
I am strongly atheist, and I don’t think I could ever feel like they were equal in intelligence, and respect someone who believes in total nonsense.
Sure. My parents had different religions and being an atheist I don’t really have a duty to care about other people’s religions.
Of course it helped that my parents weren’t too seriously religious. And I’ve rejected religious people for having religion-tied views I find appalling. But the religion itself isn’t the issue, just the things that sometimes result from it are.
I think the biggest problem is when one partner believes that the other is condemned for eternity in some way (not just a hell, but also other forms like reincarnation to a lower state or anything else deemed bad)…and either they spend the relationship trying to change the other person and probably ruining it, or worse, they accept that fate for someone they claim to love.
As an atheist, I don’t have that concern that my loved one is doomed to torment somehow, I just have the here and now to try and make their life with me as pleasant as I can. There is the issue of whether or not an atheist could live with someone whose rational is governed by beliefs that affect their judgement, either like mentioned above trying to convert them for their sake, or in other ways where religion steers them vs. having their own thoughts. But for what I think is a large majority, religious people mostly go through the motions if any just to fill some subconscious uncertainty and it’s not enough to threaten a relationship with a differing viewpoint.
The human brain is very good at compartmentalizing things to help us get through the day.
Yea I suppose if you consider your significant other to be a filthy kuffar doomed to wade through lava for the rest of time… that relationship is going to be a ride
You know that non-abrahamic religions exist, right?
Yes. That’s why I said what I said in the parentheses, different beliefs have different afterlife ideas, some may not have a hell but might have other punishments. The point was a relationship where one or both thinks the other is going to suffer later but is okay with it can’t be very deep. If it’s a religion where there isn’t such a thing, then there isn’t a conflict (at least not in that sense).
