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You’ve never heard of advent? Can I ask where you live? Because Advent is hardly an obscure ‘holiday’ - well certainly not in this country. In fact it’s probably better known as a secular time than a religious time - what with advent calendars and other related stuff. Just because it’s not in the Bible doesn’t make it a valid Christian event. However, I’m not aware of anything about it that would prevent her from coming over - maybe she was just using it as marker to indicate when she’d be free?
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That aside, I’ll agree with the majority view. For people who are serious about it, religion forms a central core to their life - If she is as devout as you make her out to be, then any attempt to force her to choose between ‘Me and Jesus’ can only have one result - and it won’t be you!
one of my wife’s aunts is a devout catholic, and married an atheist (he sounds at least as hard line as you do, as he refuses even to enter a church - even for a wedding or similar (he waits outside))
Because he won’t allow his children to be raised as christians, and she wouldn’t allow them not to be, they have never had children - I don’t know them well, but it always strikes me as a very strange marriage, and not very happy. From the sounds of it, your own relationship would be heading the same way
Lib, I didn’t read your link (it’s 7 in the freakin’ morning!) but I bookmarked it and I will read it later. I did, however, scan over it a bit and it appeared to be arguing for the exsistence of god not for the truth of the bible or the exsistence of a christian god.
I guess you would call me agnostic because, while I don’t really believe it, I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of some kind of superior being setting events in motion that led to where we are today.
I just don’t believe in the judeo-christian hot tempered bipolar god that says he loves you yet threatens you with eternal damnation if you don’t accept him into your life without any proof.
I’m going to try to get some sleep but if I can’t I might be back to continue. If not I’ll be here tomorrow (later today actually.)
Do you mean you don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian god or you don’t believe what I said about him? Not looking for another agrument just clarification.
I don’t believe in the judeo-christian hot tempered bipolar god that says he loves you yet threatens you with eternal damnation if you don’t accept him into your life without any proof.
Jeez, what’s with people trying to affix blame here? The guy and his girl have a difference of opinion. If she’s throwing in “Jesus loves you” as a non sequitur and has it in her mind that he’ll convert eventually, and he can’t intellectually respect her belief system, then they can either realize there are more important things and get over it, or they can realize that they think it’s very important and break up. No fault, no harm, no foul.
And I can tell you that if she is a Christian who throws out “Jesus loves you” occasionally, she’s probably got it in the back of her mind that you’ll convert eventually. Hearing that story about the grandfather just convinces me of it. In my experience, Christians (who actually believe all that stuff) can’t reconcile the ideas in their mind that: A) you’re a good person, they like/love you, your well-being is important to them, and B) you’re going to hell because you’re not a Christian, and you have repeatedly told them that you cannot adopt their religion and retain any sort of intellectual honesty with yourself. Of course they wouldn’t think that’s fair, because standards of fairness that people develop in their relationships with other people don’t exactly line up with “God’s justice” as defined in a Christian theology (not that they have to, or that there’s anything inherently flawed about that.) So they reconcile it in thier minds by convincing themselves that the heathen friend/SO will eventually convert and be “saved”, ignoring any and all claims by friend/SO that he/she will never do so and cannot do so.
So there’s some tension here coming from both sides of the relationship, and if it builds to a breakup there’s no need to characterize one party as the villian and other as victim.
If your girlfriend is a Christian, then your future is gloom. She will try to convert you for a while, that is part of her belief, but in the end when she sees that maybe it’s not possible, she will move on and chose someone of her own religion. While we Christians read the Bible and try to observe it’s teachings fairly closely, as often as not we act as others do and obey that which we chose to in certain cases. It instructs us in the Bible not to bind ourselves with ones that do not believe because there is the chance that we will allow ourselves to be led astray and also that the problems that arise from that union could be avoided because of the differences in beliefs. Often we don’t do that. The perfect example I can offer is my own mother and father. She was a believer and a devout church attender. My father was not. He’d get up on Sunday mornings and head off to the golf course. My mom would beg him to wait until she got out of church and she would go with him. Over time she realized that she was better off attending services and it didn’t hurt her feelings quite as bad. That’s a very tiny example, but still, it involved hurt feelings and a slight rift.
Eventually your girlfriend with either convert you or break it off. You are the one that determines the outcome. But if you don’t believe then you don’t believe, but don’t hold that against her.
Now, I love the Simpsons. As do all Goodly Dopers. But what bothers me here is not that you might brush her off quickly to catch a TV show you both love, but the time in which you chose to do it. She clearly turned a 180 on you in a discussion about religion (where you just called her a cultist!—even granting a little humor here and there you did note her response was to say “I’m no longer coming over”) and then you drop the line.
Simsons is on all the time. I hear they’re releasing the whole series on DVD now. And you can fight with your girlfriend whenever you want. But why would choose to mix these two together so?
If you find Christianity to be that terrible, I suppose you’ve really answered your own question. You won’t get a “you’re right” from me.
Anyone remember the thread, “Hate Christianity, love the Christian” or whatever? Good ol’ Esprix. (Of course I had to get into that one and make some silly remarks which I now regret.) I think this is the direction you should see if you can head in. I mean, look inside yourself and see if you think you can do it. Don’t break this girl’s heart every Sunday and holiday. That seems cruel.
You mean instead of thinking to herself smugly what an irrational knee-jerk anti-christian you are for not seeing what is obviously the work of god? Instead of telling herself, “Well, he might be wrong, but I can’t force him to see the truth”?
Maybe you need to talk to her more about your problem with this religion.
Well I laughed out loud at The Simpsons thing. It’s the kind of irony/hypocrisy that Homer would commit.
Cisco, people have strange beliefs, it is part of how they relate to the world. It gives them security and a sense of belonging and meaning. Do you dance? Sing? Eat weird food? Why? It just isn’t rational. Do you celebrate New Year’s? Why? It’s the mere turning of the calendar. Do yourself a favor and chill. This woman may not be for you, but she wants the comfort of her beliefs.
Cisco, I have no problem with your holding whatever beliefs you choose to, including the one that rational thought will always explain the world to your satisfaction without recourse to “beliefs” in the pejorative sense.
Nor do I necessarily see a dismal future between you and your girlfriend. But it might help if you respected her and her beliefs, even if you don’t share them.
And, quite frankly, I don’t think you have any sort of a handle on what it is that she believes in that you’re rejecting – because your description to Lib of what it was that you didn’t believe in, which he agreed with (and so do I) that it is not suitable to believe in, is not what the overwhelming majority of Christians do believe.
This is not a case of “I don’t believe in the Christian God. I don’t believe in Quetzalcoatl, Cthulhu, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn either.” You’re seriously contemplating spending the rest of your life with a woman who does believe in something that you don’t, and who presumably considers it an important part of her life. You owe it to her (and to your own future happiness) to get the facts regarding her beliefs, to see how it fits or doesn’t fit with your worldview, and to attempt to deal with the situation armed with that knowledge.
Cisco, we shouldn’t be placing all the burden on you but she’s not a member of the board apparently so you catch it all by default.
Break up. You will both be doing each other a favor in the long run. She may be under the illusion she can convert you like grandma did grandpa and that will only cause more problems.
Ok: So we have on one side the OPer who is anti-christianity from persona experience, or thus I gathered from the OP.
On the otherside: We have GF and family.
GF is religious, but with family who are trying to make the OPer see the light.
Now, I don’t know about the timeline of things here but this is what I’m seeing.
You’re getting the grandmother, and probably 1 or more other family members tryign to bring you back into the fold at the same time you’re doing the exact same thing to your GF.
I can see how the two are related and probably feed off each other. Maybe a comment was made criticizing christianity then the grandmother decided to convert you and thus the cycle began, or switch it around.
So the question you have is: Can you work out with your GF where no conversations with religion occure? Basically she keeps the family away from you and you make no comments on religion.
Just set rules that removes religion from the relationship.
However, you need to ask yourself a bigger question:
What happens when you try to raise kids! Will they be raised with some chruchin’ or not?
IF you manage to make it through this problem my odds are on the relationship explodes over the childrearing.
My opinion: Dump her and find someone who is an athiest. You don’t like christianity, enough so that it makes forming relationships with christians diffiult. So DON"T DATE CHRISTIANS! 'Nuff said.
My vote would be for you to show her your OP, then she will in all probability dump you. That strikes me as apropos, given that the intolerant and disrespectful attitude are exhibited by you, so she should get to do the ‘dumping’.
Clearly, her Christianity is essential to her character, to who she is. If you can’t accept and embrace her for who she is without passing judgment on such a personal decision, then you’re not really ‘in’ the relationship. It would be a mercy, for you both, to breakup.
And since you mentioned it, I’ll add that your insistence on the impossibility of holding Christian beliefs, based on ‘no evidence’, suggests to me that you would benefit from taking a class or two in world religions or comparative religions, which might go far toward disabusing you of any sophomoric notions about evidence and belief systems and intelligence which you seem to have latched on to.
Sorry if this sounds a little “pittish”. It is admirable that you’re asking and thinking about the relationship. Good luck with it.
you opened the door to argument and religious debate. By painting all Christians as stuck up and close-minded, you were asking for what you’ve received.
I’m with the majority: break up with her. It is evident from your posts that while you may love her, you don’t actually respect her – you don’t respect all of her, as her religion is part of her. In the long run, you will both be happier with people who share your beliefs.
Good luck! And it wouldn’t hurt for you to be more open-minded about Christians, in any context.
