Con: Travel plans will forever be confounded on Sundays.
Pro: Easy to cheat on her while shes busy at church, plus, if she finds out, she’ll have to forgive you!
Con: No meat on Fridays!
Pro: You can use the bible to “keep her down”.
Con: Won’t go for a “threesome”.
Pro: Quiet house to sleep off the Saturday night drunk.
Con: Always the missionary position.
Pro: Will fall for any story you give her.
You see, I see unequally yoked as implying poorly matched in wit, strength of will, intelligence, and nature. What this means is that I would be far more unequally yoked with someone like Abbie Carmichael than with that Wiccan friend of mine.
Arrogant much?
One of my friends is the son of an athiest and a Southern Baptist. They’re about 60 and still together. If THAT can work anything can.
As for me, I am supposed to be a Catholic and my wife is supposed to be a Muslim. We are really both secular humanists. The weddings (yes two of them - one of each kind) were quite an ordeal though. This was very hard to pull off.
Bottom line, keep the lines of communication open and respect one another. I’d think that would work.
*bolding mine, then was followed in her next post by…
I’ll let the strong willed and quick witted come to their own conclusions about this 
You’re assuming that everyone values religion and wants their child to find one. I value religion not at all. I would be perfectly happy, ecstatic even, if my children failed to find a religious path. Faith is another matter, but I speak of a sense of faith in general and not necessarily attached to any specific religion.
Correct*! It’s YOUR job to educate them about different religions, then when they are older, they get to choose. Sadly, though, most Fundamentalist Christians, with whom I have had the opportunity to interact**, simply settle for indoctrinating their child with their (the parent’s) chosen faith and firmly refuse to expose them to any other system of beliefs except to say they are evil, and those who practice them are going to Hayell.
For the OP: My husband is atheist (raised Catholic), I am Wiccan (raised Missionary Baptist), my two eldest children are currently flirting with some bizarre cross of Christianity and Judaism wherein they celebrated Passover and Easter this year. We discuss differing faiths and belief systems often in our house, since in addition to the paths we represent, a large chunk of my husband’s family is Hindu. My middle son also has some school peers who are Muslim. My children are just fine. My husband and I do not argue about it.
FB
*Some kids can and do seek out knowledge on their own.
** I’ve only witnessed it in my Christian acquaintances, but I’m certain fundamentalists of any stripe can be equally short-sighted
Given the rigor of your post and Siege’s response, I think she was generous in her assessment. But then I think my aunt, who’s a real catholic, marrying an agnostic/atheist way back in the … 50s? wasn’t a no-no, and her family agreed, as did her church, so maybe you should reconsider the basis for your opinion:)
I find your response to the question at hand to be a bit strong for IMHO, and off-topic to boot. The question asked wasn’t whether or not such a pairing should exist, it was how to make it work. If you have a problem with mixed marrages, start your own thread in Great Debates.
I think the degree of religiosity makes a big difference in the relationship’s prospects. Notice that most of the successful couples here are not hardcore Catholics and strong atheists, but lapsed Catholics and/or weak atheists (neither of those terms are meant as pejorative; just can’t think of a better label).
Considering that artificial birth control and not attending mass without a compelling reason are both considered mortal sins in the Catholic Church, it doesn’t surprise me that a Catholic who can reconcile that disagreement with the church can also reconcile an atheist’s disagreement with Catholicism as a whole.
Likewise, it’s not surprising that a Catholic can get along with a passive atheist who celebrates Christmas and tolerates going to church…but it would be hard for a devout Catholic to get along with an atheist who thinks that all forms of organized religion are dumb.
Given that I said nothing about degree of “in wit, strength of will [or] intelligence”, and “nature” is not something which lends itself to a sliding scale as I think of it, I’m not sure I’d consider my post arrogant. If I did, I wouldn’t have posted it. Indeed, I’d say you have at least as much strength of will as I do, although we choose to apply it to very different causes. I did intend to strongly disagree with your view because, well, I do. I’m afraid I tend to disagree with a lot of things you say. I also stand by the statement which followed, “Basically, a curious, intelligent atheist would be a better match for me than an Episcopalian of ordinary intelligence who did not believe in questioning authority.” My intelligence, such as it is, and curiousity, are part of who I am, as is my tendency to question authority as surely as my height and hair color. I can by hair dye to do something about the former; despite my best efforts in the past, I can’t do anything about intelligence or curiousity. Thus I stand by my position that I would be far more unequally yoked with a Christian who demanded unquestioning obedience, whether it be to a Biblical literalist view or to the Christian himself, than I would be with an atheist who also likes to ask questions. That is also why I believe rayray5884 and his SO may stand a chance if they are willing to respect each other. If that makes me arrogant, not a Christian, or anything else in your view, so be it. Believe me, I have been called worse.
Respectfully,
CJ
By the way, since I’ve been misunderstood once, let me make it perfectly clear.
I did not, in any way, mean to imply that Abbie Carmichael would be unequally yoked because of any difference in intelligence, wit, or strength of will. Instead, I believe I would be unequally yoked with someone like her because of our very different views of The Way The World Should Be as evidenced by our differing responses to the OP, not to mention our differing responses to various other threads. Again, no arrogance was intended, only disagreement.
CJ
I’m an atheist who’s been married for over 20 years to a Catholic. We have two small children. We got married in a Presbyterian church, to please my family (my father is a minister and that’s how I was raised.) About 10 years ago, my husband, who had been more or less lapsed, decided he wanted to rejoin the church, so we had to get married again. (They called it a “blessing” rather than a remarriage, but it had to be done in a Catholic church, by a priest.) My daughter is attending CCD classes in preparation for her communion. I attend church occasionally. The kids a pretty young still. When they get older we will probably all go to church more often. Right now my husband sings in the choir, so he often goes on his own.
I admire many things about Christian philosophy, so I don’t mind the indoctrination of the kids, much. They are bright. They’ll work things out on their own, I expect. We don’t discuss religion much, and when we do, I tend to hedge and talk about what “people” believe. I’ll come out when they are older, probably. I still don’t feel comfortable discussing it with some adults I know, though.
I think I would have much more trouble with a fundamentalist, evangelical person, than I would with a Catholic. They would of course like the whole world to be Catholic, but they are surprisingly low-key about actually trying to convert people. When you are number one, you really don’t have to advertise, I guess.
Fair enough, Siege. I misunderstood what you were saying and overreacted.
I used to be Catholic. My husband is an atheist. We are now all Unitarians.
But, I’m going to tell you about my friends. She is Baptist (of the liberal kind), he an atheist. They have two children. They were married by a Baptist minister (her choice and he didn’t care) and she takes the kids to church (he doesn’t care).
The dynamics change if you care. If she thought he was “undermining” her religious upbringing of their children - there would be conflict. If he didn’t want the religious upbringing to start with, there would be conflict.
Sit down and talk about all sorts of things (my understanding of Canon Law is that you need to be baptised to be married in a Catholic church, but some priests won’t care or maybe not even know). Are you willing to sit through the marriage classes the Catholic church requires and have a ceremony where you are united “in Christ.” (I was still marginally Catholic when we married, and the idea that my husband would promise to be united with me in a Christ he didn’t believe in was offensive to me - what other things is he promising in his vows that he doesn’t believe in - so we had a civil ceremony). Are you on the same page regarding religious education of children - which may mean you are willing to turn that over to her completely, or it may mean that she goes to church but your children don’t, or it may mean a compromise (everyone goes Unitarian), or that you all become “holiday Catholics.” Whatever will work for both of you.
Then there is the matter of respect. Can you respect her beliefs? Can she respect yours? Do you have some level of confidence that the two of you can continue to respect each others beliefs for the rest of your lives. If she is marrying you with “but I will just convert him when the kids arrive” or you marry her assuming “she’ll get over this irrationality later” you may be in for surprises.
I was born and raised Jewish (my mom is jewish and my dad agnostic), but my husband wasn’t raised as anything inparticular (his mom was raised strict Catholic, hated it and didn’t want to force religeon on her kids) I grew up going to Shul (temple) on a regular basis, Eric never went to church.
I would now consider myself more of an agnostic Jew than anything, and he considers himself an atheist. We got married my a non-denominational minister with a non-religeous service and that was fine for our families. It works for us.
I celebrate Easter and Christmas with his family (it is usually just a time to have a big tasty meal and get together with friends and family to them, not the religeous & spiritual aspects of the holidays) and we do Hanukkah, Passover etc with my mom and dad. We don’t put a christmas tree up at our house. Mainly because we have the cats from hell (I can’t even have house plants as they kill them all :eek: ) If we ever have kids (even though we are not planning on it) , I would want to raise them Jewish, he doesn’t care, but would be supportive because that is what I would want. I would, however, teach them about other religeons as well (so they have a clue) so they could have an appreciation of religeons (why they believe what they do etc).
I have friends who are hardcore athiests (she was raised as a Prodestant (?) and he was raised a Catholic). They are raising thier 4 kids as athiests, but teach them that not everyone doesn’t believe, but actually encourage their kids to learn about different religeons. If they (their kids) decided that when they get older they wanted to be Jewish, Buddist or Catholic or whatever- they wouldn’t care because the kid would have made a choice in what they wanted to believe- what feels right for them. I think that is great. 
I think people of mixed faith marriages can work if there is a little give and take. If you have that balance of give and take then all you need is love, right? 
sorry, that got a little long