I agree with all your pithy replies except the “nah”. What do you think dating is about if not finding out about the other person?
This sounds awfully “No True Scotsman” to me. This being sociology we’re talking about, of course there are scales and flavors of nontheism, skepticism, and atheism.
Companionship.
Just to be clear, I’ve happily dated women who identified as religious of some stripe or other, and gotten along fine with them (and still do) with religious issues not arising at all, mainly because “jewish” did mean to them “I’ll eat pork and never attend synagogue and what’s shabbas again?” but also “My parents were Jewish, and I’m culturally definied that way but know nothing and care less about what you believe”, and Catholics and other christians who felt similarly about religious doctrine, and was happy to extend the same courtesy to them. This isn’t a thread about religion, as I see it, but about dishonesty in on-line dating.
I mean, I doubt friend Clothy would be quite as smug if I described my problem as “I’m a hard-core conservative, and say so clearly, but all these left-wing women keep answering my ads, and then after a few dates start mentioning how they want me to attend their socialist rallies with them, and telling me how important politics are to them–can’t these women read? What do they think ‘conservative’ means?”
Back in my internet dating days, I had a big fat Atheist in the part of the profile where it wanted “Religion.” I got responses from guys who had user names like Bob4Jesus. I’d send back a response saying “I’m an atheist; I don’t really think there’s any potential here.” Three months later I’d hear again from the same user names. These guys obviously weren’t paying attention to anything I had in my profile other than gender and (probably) general age. I didn’t include a picture, so it wasn’t like they were after my looks. They were just broadcasting interest to anyone who might have the right biology, presumably in order to get laid.
I basically stopped accepting on-line inquiries from anyone who had anything other than Atheist or Agnostic as their religion, because I realized that although I might miss out on the occasional person who went to church on Christmas and Easter because they’d been brought up to do so and liked the music, on the whole I didn’t want to date badly enough to bother with people whose stated world view was so alien to my own. To me, religious beliefs don’t differ qualitatively from, say, a belief in astrology. I have real trouble respecting the holder of such beliefs, at least enough to consider a romantic relationship with him.
So, pseudotron, if you feel the way I do, rather than strengthening your own profile, I’d be more selective in the people you choose to hook up with. In the U.S. these days, Christianity seems to be largely dominated by an evangelical mindset; even the Catholics now have their Bible studies and their “charismatic” prayer groups. If you want to avoid such, you’re better off simply not trying to date people who self-identify as believers.
This thread makes me wonder which would be a better deflection of the OP’s plight?
(a) “I’m sorry, but although I respect your right to your own beliefs, I’ve spent my life learning and forming my own convictions on the matter, and I must live my life without religious beliefs or practices so I can be true to myself.”
(b) “Uh-Huh. Well, religion bores the living shit out of me. Really.”
Zero interest in proselytizing. None. Woman wants to attend services? That’s a few hours I can sleep in, work on a painting, run on the beach–no problem. Problems arise when they want to discuss anything that assumes a religious framework for the discussion. But if she’s religious and can keep her beliefs to herself, which some nominally religious people can, we’re good. But as stated, maybe I need to be clearer about own views, so to weed out women who think I may have more give than I do, and to screen better, rejecting out of hand anyone who describes herself as religious in any way.
Dio, the proselytizers are not the problem–they’re just funny, and sorta rare. The problem is the women who think they’ll be happy with a self-described atheist, and then are astonished to find he has no interest in attending church with them. Religion almost never needs to come up in conversation–if someone doesn’t mention it, I’ll quickly forget it even exists. But they keep mentioning it as if it’s as healthy and natural as bean sprouts and get all astonished when I say “No, thanks, I’ve already had all I can take. If I have any more, I’ll get all gassy.”
Here down South, women know men think religion is bullshit, and many think it’s bullshit themselves. But it somehow proves that the man is “tamed,” and so if a guy wants regular sex, he has to put up with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs6qBZtMGgQ about 44 seconds in. 
The whole clip is hilarious!!!
PRR, what exactly does your profile say about your lack of beliefs? A great many women like men that they think they can “fix” men and you might be attracting women who think they can fix your problem with God. And honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these women responded to you precisely because you don’t believe - if you believe you should be out spreading the good news targetting someone who states a lack of belief probably feels more effective than the scatter gun approach of chatting up random people in hopes of getting lucky. You’re probably be happier only accepting dates from women who check off lack of belief in their profiles too.
There are no degrees of atheism. You either believe in gods or you don’t. There is no scale of “don’t.” Belief cannot be more or less absent. If you have any belief at all, you’re not an atheist. You can’t be a little bit pregnant.
I think there’s quite a bit of difference between A) some hypothetical guy living on an island somewhere, who’s never even heard of religion, B) a guy with irreligious parents who’s never really thought of the subject that much, but nevertheless with no belief in a deity, C) Richard Dawkins, and D) Jean-Paul Sartre. All are/were atheists. They are atheists to different degrees and for different reasons. A and B could conceivably be “converted” more easily than C and D.
Dawkins isn’t more of an atheist than someone who has never heard of religion. Neither of them are religious. The ease at which they can be converted has more to do with their education, comparative ignorance and societal pressure, not “how atheist” they are. If someone is a self-described atheist and yet is open to conversion, it’s likely that person was an agnostic.
They want to save you. I think the Christians get greenstamps or something for every person they drag to the baptismal font or something. Karmic brownie points. Whatever. The point is, some of these women are dating you under false pretenses to save you.
Others are probably just nuts.
This discussion has taken a funny turn, from my POV. If I go on about my atheism (they just give a space, sometimes a drop-down menu, to choose a brief phrase), I’m a full-on nutter, ranting and raving inappropriately about my anti-religion agenda on a site about my attractiveness as a potential S.O. (which I may do because it will weed out all the religious women better) BUT if I don’t rant and rave, just say that I’m an atheist, then I’m inviting all sorts of interactions with women who don’t understand what “atheist” means.
There are at least two degrees of atheists. Well, more like types.
One doesn’t believe in god and that’s it. You don’t know they’re an atheist and they don’t care if you believe anything. Very similar to how most religious people treat their religious beliefs.
The second kind is one that tut tuts any religious belief with mocking terms like “bearded sky fairy” or “storybook tales” or blah blah blah.
Also, about 75% of the women whose photos show a lot of cleavage are also women who self-describe as “Catholic.” Just an observation. Most of them turn out to be not very religious Catholics, but some women who try to entice witih a good view of the cleavagey areas are extremely devout.
My point is that if you don’t want to date evangelical women, then you probably should simply steer clear of dating self-avowed religious woman, cleavage or lack there-of notwithstanding.
That has nothing to do with how much of an atheist those people are. That’s an indicator of personality.
Exactly.
When PRR is wondering if he should restrict his dating to just atheists (and others in this thread that have suggested it), they’re falling into the same trap. I’m “religious” only in the sense that I believe in god. I never go to church, I never talk about my belief or my immortal soul and I never try to convert atheists. Yet, the mere fact that I’m a theist seems to actively irritate some of the atheists I know.
This is the same situation.