*She wanted to witness some more, but I told her, “no!”
You done proselytized me once
You done proselytized me once
Said if you want to preach don’t mess with a big fat atheist
We’ll never get on down
Huh!
Chorus:
You ain’t gonna bump no more with no big fat atheist
You ain’t gonna bump no more with no big fat atheist*
In my online dating experience, a lot of women just answer Christian or Catholic or whatever without being a “hardcore” religious nut. Kind of as an obligation or homage to how they were raised without actually believing it or taking it that seriously as an adult.
Point being, some women/people will merely say they’re of a religion without being devout or sometimes without even really believing.
Trust me, if you’re on a dating site and you restrict yourself to the people that specifically say atheist on their profile, you stand better chances of meeting someone somewhere else.
I’m Jewish, but lean agnostic. I would like a partner that can live with some of the more ritualistic and cultural aspects of my faith; a mezuzah on the front door frame, lighting Hanukkah candles and occasionally Shabbat candles, and maybe joining me for a Passover seder. I’m not out to convert anyone from Christianity or non-belief to Judaism. More hardcore atheists, I’ve found, want to live in a completely secular environment, with no expressions of faith or belief whatsoever in their living environment.
It sounds like the OP is meeting some very religious women. How would he feel about a partner that wasn’t all that religious, but wanted a Christmas tree, attended church every few weeks or on major holidays, or hid chocolate for the kids on Easter Sunday?
I also wonder how the OP is finding so many uber-religious women. In my online dating adventures, I met mostly run-of-the-mill Catholics, Protestants, Jews and atheists. If a woman wrote, and her profile is filled with God this, Jesus that, and/or Virgin Mary something else, I sent a polite rejection letter. The dates I’ve had with women that turn out to be fervently religious (usually either very devoutly old-school Catholic, megachurch evangelicals, or hardcore sects like JW) are usually fix-ups or real word encounters.
Then perhaps prr’s best bet is to say on his profile “I like having a Christmas tree/Hannukah bush/Easter basket/whatever traditional celebration, and I don’t mind if you believe, but I have NO interest in religion. Ever.” and call it a day.
Like I said, mostly bad luck. This is a recent phenomenon, and is amusing me when I step back a little, but frustrating me when I’m actually out on a date and realize that, No, I can’t date this pretty woman because she’s a total nutbag.
Well, as a few others have noted, there are different types on atheists philosophically, due in part to the fluid definition of atheist. There’s “strong vs. weak” and “implicit vs. non-implicit,” for starters.
For example, I suppose I’d best be described as a “weak atheist,” though many would call me agnostic. Of course, that brings in it’s own set of choices. (That said, I don’t like the word “weak” associate with my non-religious beliefs.)
I don’t think you should attempt to define your atheism in your profile, PRR. It’s probably something to broach slightly in email communication. But it sounds like you’re doing it right with the drop down menu choices, etc. This is a tricky part of compatibility, and I think you’ve just hit a bad patch of luck.
There is no such thing as a non-practicing atheist. We have no church to attend, no rituals to perform. Anything that an atheist does, besides not believing in God, is driven by that person’s personality.
Well it doesn’t hurt to keep your options open. My Mig was a devout Catholic when we met but I’ve since corrupted him. He didn’t even shave his head and go to Mass this year for Easter!
Yeah. I’ve taken to adding disclaimers with my self-description as atheist- ‘and I am serious about it. I’ve researched it and everything. I’ve made up my mind.’ I’ve tried to date Christians, and have found it’s rarely as easy as ‘live and let live’. Sometimes I can’t help but to scorn things I find not only silly but destructive, and also I’ve been known to ask Christian horndogs what part of the Bible okays premarital sex for them. They don’t tend to like that.
(Sorry, I can’t figure how to get your whole post quoted in this reply…)
Yes, respectfully, I heard you upthread the first time when you mentioned personality in response to Justin Bailey’s comment about whether an atheist “tut tuts” believers or not. And I agree that’s a personality difference.
But are you saying there’s no philosophical difference between, say, strong and weak atheism?
Kicking down nativity scenes, giving the finger to drivers with religious bumper stickers, telling little kids there’s no heaven and that their dead grandparent is just a hunk of rotting meat…
Sorry about that, when I saw someone else mention strong vs weak my brain immediately interpreted it as aggressive or passive atheism.
I’d interpret atheism as “the non-belief in the divinely supernatural.” I won’t expand that to include non-divinely supernatural at this point, but I’ve never met an atheist who believed in magic, etc.
Maybe someone here can explain it to me, but I don’t see how this makes sense:
I’m a weak atheist. I don’t believe that deities exist. Yet I refuse to say that I believe the following to be false: “There is at least one god.” If you don’t think think that that statement is false, that means you believe that there is at least one god. That means you DO believe that deities exist.
It seems to me that the discussion of “are there degrees of atheism” belongs in a different thread, probably in Great Debates. The issue here is getting PRR laid.