I am a devout atheist and, now that I think about it, I am sure that I couldn’t have a serious relationship with someone deeply into any form of theism.
However one of my life long friends is no more religious than I am but is married to a seriously Catholic woman. When we shared a house I took her to late night mass when her husband was working. All their kids went to Catholic schools. That level of serious.
But it never seemed odd to me until I saw this thread. Strange.
Someone who believes in God, in a casual sort of way, sure, why not.
Someone who announces on the first date that she’s given her life to Christ and why don’t I meet her at church this Sunday and get saved myself? Not a fricken’ chance.
But even with the casual thing happening, if I was continually getting mired in theological arguments, being asked to go to church, or to pray for whatever, yada, yada, yada … I don’t see something like that lasting too long.
No, I couldn’t date a believer (for one thing, my wife would be pissed). I just don’t think I could date someone who is living in such a different reality than me.
My Mig is Catholic. He’s not active in church or anything, but he is mighty faithful. His attitude is “whatever Jesus wants”.
It kind of annoys me, but what can I do? I don’t want to leave him and I don’t want to discuss religion either. I love talking about religion with most people but I’ve said some things that confused him and shook his faith a bit, so I just shut up and backed off. He NEEDS to believe. I don’t want to take that away from him.
The only time it ever really caused problems is when he wanted to take our daughter to church. He claimed it would be good for her to grow up in church. That really, really pissed me off. I don’t want my child going to church. I realize we have to compromise with our partners but this was one I won’t bargain over. If she wants to go to church she can decide when she’s older. Of course I feel like a mean bitch about it but he let it go.
“Dating” someone for a while, sure, but some of these things get brought up on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd date, when you’re still weeding through the “Woah, OMG, you like/dislike/do/don’t WHAT?!?” phase.
And unfortunately, DerTrihs is right. Depending on where you are, the local “man on the street” WILL “look at atheists as monsters.”
I’m quite open about being an atheist and never had a problem. I don’t think my brother has either. Maybe it’s because of where we live. Many of the “believers” I know are barely tethered to any practices of the God they claim exists. Especially people I knew growing up.
That’s why I said “a believers”, and not “a religious person”. Not that I mind when people single out a religion.
No cite at the moment, but I believe he’s stated that he doesn’t.
(Note: I’m religious, in that I believe in God, not necessarily any one particular religion. And I don’t give a shit if I’d date an atheist, as long as he wasn’t an asshole about it – meaning called me deluded or mentally disabled.)
I met her through a mutual friend. We hit it off pretty well at first but slowly I felt she was distancing herself from me. We finally got into a big argument about something and suddenly she came out and told me that she couldn’t stay in the relationship anymore because of my beliefs. Great, could have told me earlier :rolleyes: She wasn’t just religious, but also conservative. Both of those things are now dealbreakers for me
Depends on what “date” means. I couldn’t imagine being serious on a long-term basis with a “serious” believer. Tho I could imagine it with someone who got comfort in believing in “something” - a “god of the gaps,” I couldn’t pretend to respect them if they bought strongly into a particular fairy tale. And it would really give me problems if my partner wished to encourage any kids we had to share in their irrational beliefs
But hell, I’d certainly knock boots with them. And I can’t really remember religious preferences coming up too terribly early in any of my dating relationships.
Happy to have been married to a fellow non-theist the past 25 years. While I doubt either of us intentionally made nonbelief a dealbreaking requirement, I’m pretty certain that finding each other to be rational went a long way towards convincing ourselves a longterm relationship was possible and desirable.
Preachiness about religious beliefs is far more significant to me than the content of those beliefs.
I’m an atheist myself, but I’d take a non-preachy theist over a super-preachy atheist. Hell, if they are not preachy about it, they can believe in Cthulhu for all I care.
For many people physical attraction doesnt happen until there is a meeting of the minds. I can think a woman is pretty or beautiful, but shes not arousing(I guess you could say) until I find an intellectual bond.
And this is important because beauty is not forever, but a persons values dont change so much in a life time. Its vital that we match our minds to someone else who is going to be good for us.
So the first criteria is to find mental compatibility. If its not there, you move on.
I cant help but think you have presented yourself as pretty shallow if you feel core beliefs are secondary to physical traits. Can we chalk it up to you being young?
Sure. But since almost everyone I know is very relaxed about their (a)theism (I’d be hard pressed to correctly determine whether or not more than 10% of my social circle – including people I’ve known for decades – in some way believe in some kind of deity)*, this is generally not something that would come up on the first date. Nor the second, third or fourth. Actually, I didn’t really know whether my wife was a believer or not until we started planning our wedding. That’s how important that is. I’m even quite comfortable in the company of some friends who are religious enough to say “grace” before meals (a practice which usually signifies a more-than-average deism where I live)
On most issues, except whether or not there is some kind of deity, and whether or not the children should be baptized, my wife’s mind and mine definitely meet. I guess I have to assume that you Americans are less relaxed on religion than many Europeans are. Just like many other issues…
Well, OK, I might hit close to ~50% by pure guesswork
I say “I think” because her Catholicism is more a link with her family, as far as I can tell, and she doesn’t go to church. It’s just something we don’t talk about.
She did refer to the Eucharist as “Mmm, tasty tasty Jesus” at one point.
I used to date a church goer when I was younger, and even went along to a few sermons and events - to be frank, the religious aspect was the least of her faults. It wasn’t enough to put me off dating a believer in the future.
It could be that she was an Anglican, rather than anything more fire and brimstone.
I don’t think beliefs should get in the way of a relationship. For me i am an Atheist, and as long as the believer didn’t try to tell me i was wrong or push their beliefs on me everything would be just fine
Although there are those people that strongly believe that it wouldn’t be right at all to date a non-believer which i don’t really see why some make such a big deal out of it but that’s just my opinion. .
But to answer the question, yes i could and i would if the feelings were there.
