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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hard no.
The last thing I need is the wife pestering me constantly to go to church.
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.
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.
My life partner and I both considered it critical that our beliefs were strongly compatible.
We’ve been together for decades.
Our beliefs have changed substantially, and certainly not identically.
We’re still together. There’s so many more important things.
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.)
It depends. I’m atheist/agnostic, but I have a lot of respect for certain core religious philosophies. Buddhism, Sikhism, and the teachings of Jesus (note that I did not say “Christianity”) in particular.
If a persons particular practice has an ethical, humanist core I can accept that. If it encourages any kind of blind appeal or deference to authority, I cannot. I can tolerate some mysticism and mythology, but I cannot tolerate unethical teaching, dogma, or behavior.
No
I’m a Satanist. I would be fine dating an atheist, depending on their morals and ethics. I would probably be okay dating someone that was agnostic, since technically most atheists are agnostics. I could date most reform Jews, since for most of them it’s a cultural religion, rather than a literal one.
I would not be able to date anyone that sincerely believed in a supernatural deity, because I would not be able to respect them, or trust any of their conclusions.
No. Spirituality is a very core value. I wouldn’t negotiate it.
Irreligious Agnostic here. As long as they don’t have extremist views I don’t care.
Irreligious agnostic as well.
I think I would have difficulty depending on how devoted they are. Like would I need to pretend to pray beside them at every meal? Or do they just keep most of that to themselves?
Also, I do find the little rituals and habits that religious people go through a bit silly so I feel like I would not be able to just silently sit by and watch it for years and years.
Honestly it’s a hard question to answer by text. Depends if they expect me to make room for them to practice their faith or expect me to to eventually follow in their spiritual path. Because these 2 are very different. I find the rituals offputting too even though I understand the logic behind them, but that could be because of internalised prejudice from my part. Also assuming this is a serious relationship would this person assume that in case you decide to have kids they will educated/indocrinated since an early age? That would be an absolute no for me. I’m certainly up for presenting them with the option when they come to an appropriate age but not raising them up to the idea that it is the only certainty in life. It’s complicated for sure and there a number of things to take into account but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should avoid being with someone you cherish because they find joy in a way of spirituality I/you may find archaic.
