The few interfaith couples I’ve known seem to do just fine until children are introduced. Then little questions become big questions unless someone is willing to compromise, which is often difficult with religious beliefs. In one such couple, I’ve watched the non-believer constantly giving way to the believer, because it really isn’t that important, until now she finds herself in a house full of devote Christians who wonder what her problem is.
I’ve always considered Matalin and Carville to be the same religion: extreme political junkie. They just sit on different sides of the same church.
I was raised Jewish, and my partner was raised Muslim. The way it works for us is that by the time we met (25 years ago), we were both atheists. But our families get/got along very well, though they are/were all still religious.
And it helps that there have been no kids involved.
A marriage between a Hindu and a person of any faith is pretty easy to pull off. Other than a few militant sects, Hindus believe that all religions reflect the same basic truths, and that other conceptions of god(s) are facets of the same beings. So in terms of compatibility with other beliefs, it’s not really a problem.
But for let’s say a southern baptist who’s religion is not just a Sunday event but woven into their whole life, and let’s say an atheist?
Or a conservative or Chasidic Jew and a Catholic …
These are more challenging to mesh the two especially over time, and especially after any kids come along
You’re coming very close to True Scotsmanning your position, Tollhouse.
Obviously if you define “an interfaith marriage” as one in which the members have beliefs that preclude marrying someone of another faith or compromising regarding the religious upbringing of their children, then “interfaith marriage” doesn’t work. You’ve defined your term to reach your conclusion.
But there are many, many couples for which those two statements don’t hold - they are not concerned with their partners faith and they are willing (and sometimes eager) to expose their children to multiple belief systems.
Your right that interfaith marriages can work fine if the two faiths dint contradict or oppose each other, or cause one party to basically restrict or hinder their beliefs. For thee purpose of this particular tgread I thought it was implied it was referring to two faiths that at some major points contradict or go in opposite directions
I’m a non-believing Jew who is married to a practicing Catholic. We get along fine.
Her parents are very strong believers is a “folk” style of Catholicism which often strikes me as bizzare to say the least - they on occasion have bleeding nuns who have stigmata in for tea, that sort of thing.
Perhaps the strangest moment was when we were first dating and I was to meet her parents for the first time. I was left sitting in the living room with nithing to do while my (then) GF got ready - a process seemingly taking hours. There was one book in English on the table (they are Ukranian) and I picked it up and leafed through it - what it was, was a set of meditations one is supposed to do each day. Each one of them was about one of the different tortures that people had subjected Jesus to. Of course in the Bible account “they” didn’t subject Jesus to 365 different tortures, so the writers of this book had to invent a few.
I flipped to today’s date (it was bookmarked) to find that this day, one was supposed to meditate on “the Jews” holding Jesus down and stuffing turds in his mouth. :eek:
This was somewhat uncomfortable reading, given that I was going to be introduced to these folks as my GF’s “Jewish BF”.
In fact, we ended up getting along very well - though of course they would be happier if I converted. Their beliefs are admittedly strange but they are still good peeps.