When my wife and I got married I really wanted to get married in the Catholic church. There was no other option for me. She wasn’t Catholic at the time (she has since converted on her own accord). In order for us to get married we had to get a letter of dispensation signed by the bishop, and the wife had to promise that, even if she never stepped foot in church again, she would never get in the way of me raising our children Catholic.
Doesn’t seem a very relevant question to me, it’s not for me to judge other people’s relationships. I realise that to a certain extent we always do, but whenever we do our information tends to be inadequate and our judgement is usually inappropriate.
So I’ll just answer for me: I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who is religious. I also wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who believes in homeopathy. It’s too big a part I couldn’t really respect.
My mum suddenly went woo after about 20 years of marriage. My poor papa
I grew up as a devote Mormon, and there were a number of families in our congregation that the father wasn’t active but the mother was, and it would seen to be a large issue for them, in that they would be very sad that their families weren’t all active.
I know some Mormons who marry people from other faiths with the hope that they will convert to Mormonism, and it seemed to be similar. This problem may be more so with Mormonism because of its belief in eternal life together, but only if everyone remains faithful and active.
Within Mormonism, almost everyone who is very devote also strongly believes that Mormonism is the only answer. It would seem hard to believe that strongly and still be happy with a spouse who doesn’t share the same belief.
Considering how common interfaith marriages are(much more common than interracial marriages)with all due respect to the OP, the question seems to have been answered.
Obviously, for some of the ultra-Orthodox it might be an issue, but I doubt too many Hasidic Jews are going to be wanting to marry members of Opus Dei.
Watch closely. Are you watching closely? YOu’re about to see me give a shit about whether a bunch of racists from history would disagree.
Didja see it? Did you see me give a shit?
Okay, okay, you caught me: I don’t give a shit about what a bunch of racists thought, or think. That has fuckall to do with my point.
And me, I’m guessing you didn’t bother to read my post, because if you had, you would have noticed my talk about the underlying values in the religion. What you wouldn’t have noticed my talking about is “religious history,” because again that has fuckall to do with my point.
Seriously, can you get more ridiculous? Let’s see.
Left hand of Dorkness,
Your not alone on that one, he completely lost me several posts back when he randomly started talking in an angry tone about Jews murdering Jews and blacks murdering blacks? 
I read thru entire post and the subject of murder was not mentioned, only posts about how people can potentially (or not )make a marriage work when the two parties hold conflicting views…)
Really, this question could also apply to partners who hold conflicting views on other significant issues besides faith. Fr example, can a pro lifer realistically go the distance with the CEO of planned parenthood? Can a devout vegan who believes its wrong to kill animals make a lifetime marriage with the owner of Burger King?
Sometimes the diffences can seem very minor at first glance.
It really depends on the people, the faiths involved, and the level of faith each has.
A marriage between a Hindu and a Buddhist is a pretty darn easy thing to pull off. A marriage between a Unitarian and a Bahai is really no big deal.
A marriage between a conservative Christian and an Orthodox Jew might be tough, but if the people involved are tolerant and respectful, it can work. A friend of a friend and her husband have this marriage and have developed an international organization dedicated to religious tolerance - they’ve been married 30 years.
Or they’re henotheists.
Boyo Jim,
Well, your right :). At first he hoped his daughter would be a future baseball player, then he decided he would be happy if she could just have a bat mitzvah, …
My little bit of nuance is that plenty of people have very strongly held beliefs that don’t really have an “opposite,” and aren’t particularly incompatible with other beliefs.
For example, I have a friend who is very Christian. It is one of the central factors in her life, and it’s determined much of her life path. Her brand of Christianity, however, is very much rooted in the social justice tradition, and she considers action to alleviate poverty to be much more important than any other particular doctrine. She is happily paired up with a Sikh who isn’t particularly spiritual, but considers his culture to be a very important part of his identity. There is no conflict here, just difference.
It’s worth remembering that Christianity and Islam are the only major religions to have much of an opinion on what other people practice. Both are evangelical, and hold their truth to be true for everyone. This isn’t the case for religions like Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Atheists and agnostics cover all kinds of ground. Some believe that religion is outright immoral, but plenty (such as myself), consider it to be something that can add value to a person’s life regardless of if it is “true” or not."
And in reality, even among evangelical religions, individuals hold different shades of belief. Not every Christian believes in a literal hell. Plenty of Christians and Muslims are live-and-let-live types.
So what I want to say is that compatibility with partners of other religions is not necessarily a function of how “serious” or “strong” your belief is. It’s more about how tolerant or intolerant your particular belief system is.
It can work, but if they feel strongly about their beliefs, they should decide ahead of time how they’re going to raise any children. I’ve heard of kids being raised both, neither, one or the other of the parents’ religions.
I remember reading an article years ago (no, I don’t have a cite) in which some couples raised their sons one religion, and their daughters another. I don’t quite see how that would work.
A lot of faiths aren’t exclusive. There is nothing keeping a Hindu from also believing in Christ (although it might not work very well the other way around).
We tend to be so Christian centric that we don’t realize how many world faiths really don’t care what ELSE you believe.
Denarii dame,
Oh geeze, hmm, raising their sons one religion and their daughters another? I’m trying to picture how that would work…“mom, you love John more, your letting him be raised as a Mormon, why can’t I be a Mormon? Because I’m a girl?”
Or "dad, its not fair, how come Susan gets to go to shul and I have to go to church?
Isn’t parenting fraught with all kinds of challenges already, without creating a potential battlefield between your kids that way? Not that it would be in every case, but…:smack:
hijinks ensue!
While obviously it’s quite possible for interfaith marriages to work, and work well, I think it’s the kind of thing that people should think long and hard about, and take seriously. I think some people think it’s the kind of thing that “shouldn’t” matter in the least, so even worrying about it, or having second thoughts about it, is a sign of latent bigotry or lack of tolerance. But, as LHoD alluded to, a person’s faith includes a lot of ways of thinking about things, and conflicting ways of thinking about things can lead to a lot of communication problems.
One of the most difficult things about marriage is that we don’t even talk about our most basic and most tightly held expectations about what married life is like because it never even occurs to us that these things are open for debate. The further apart two people are in their backgrounds, the most of these things there will be, and they will arise continually in a marriage, like a farmer who is shocked every year to find new rocks in a field he has plowed a dozen times before. That doesn’t doom a marriage, of course. But it does require good communication skills, and it extracts a certain emotional toll. It would be foolish to go into an interfaith marriage not recognizing that these things will arise, and not prepared for a number of Long Boring Conversations–and not entirely satisfying compromises–before it’s over.
I also think anyone going into an interfaith relationship needs to accept that it significantly decreases the chances that their children will follow their own faith or any faith, and if that fills them with sorrow, they need to do something else.
So while I think that interfaith relationships can and do work, I think they do have real downsides and I would never presume to judge someone for choosing not to pursue one: I don’t think it’s in anyway bigoted or wrong to say 'My faith is the central organizing principle of my life, and I can’t reconcile that with a person who doesn’t organize their life the same way".
I’m surprised that so far no one has brought up the example of Mary Matalin and James Carville. The OP has already expanded the question to include strongly divergent belief systems other than religion and the Matalin-Carville match is nothing if not divergent. I assume most know who they are, but just in case – she was campaign director for George H.W. Bush, he was a strategist for Bill Clinton. They’re both fierce ideologues on opposite sides of the political fence. They’ve been married since 1993 and somehow have managed to make it work. I probably couldn’t but more power to them!
Ruby slippers, on a side note that sounds like a good basis for a comedy sitcom,…
I was going to, but I was too lazy to Google up links that say who they are for people who don’t already know. You’re a better person than me. 