I just wish I could find these people. All the women I meet online say they are religious, but then don’t show it.
Also, I find that the whole “must be a Christian” thing is often less of a religious construct but a social one. Most Catholics I know aren’t very true to their beliefs, but they expect you to convert to Catholicism to marry them.
In my experience of dating a fundamentalist, I discovered it was a one-way street - I was to respect his beliefs, but I would not be afforded the same respect (I identify closest with agnostic). It wasn’t immediately obvious, but after awhile it became obvious that he was working on converting me eventually (with the occasional flare-up of giving me a hard time when I was acting particularly un-Christianly). I concluded that religious compatibility was one of the critical keys for a successful long-term relationship.
For the record, I married a lapsed Catholic, and religion is NEVER an issue between us.
This would be my suggestion too. 
Ah, see, she was stupid. There are places in Spain where, until very recently, you could tell which girls had gotten boyfriends because, since everybody who was having Comunion would have Confession beforehand, and since a girl with a boyfriend was having premarital sex (people there did not get married until, in their charming words, “the cow had proven fertile”), girls with boyfriends stopped taking Comunion.
What she should have done is stop confessing the premarital sex (she was going to do it again anyway, which made the confession invalid) and get a video edition of the kama sutra.
Well, religious lady and I did go our separate ways and I suspect her congregation had something to do with it. She , at one point, was all gung ho for a more serious committed relationship and I wanted to slow down and make sure those differences wouldn’t become a constant pain. IOW, lets not assume one of us will eventually come around because it probably won’t happen. I can accept that you go to church every Sunday and are involved in other ways. I can accept that you don’t drink or smoke dope. Don’t give me or my friends any crap because we occasionally do. Don’t invite me to Bible study and then be concerned about the questions I asked. and maybe you should top praying at every prayer meeting that I’ll see the light. I think I’ve already seen it which is why I don’t believe the way I used to.
I kept encouraging her to decide for herself and stop asking someone in her congregation what was right. Eventually she decided we were to different to continue even though she obviously liked being with me. Too bad because there was some good chemistry there.
Come to think of it though, the same thing happened to my daughter. She dated a very nice religious boy who gradually became to critical and controlling concerning her friends and how much time they spent with them.
When he told her he didn’t think she should be spending time with one of her long time friends he got the boot.
You want them to leave you alone, but keep the fuck. Or maybe you’d forgo that too. I don’t have any personal experience to add, except that OKC has levels of seriousness in their religion section, and I avoid anyone who is “… and serious about it” in their column.
Oh, absolutely. I think that for most dutchies, ‘agnostic’ would be the default option.
Come and live in Australia, ‘the most Godless place under heaven’. It’s cool, we’re mostly heathens. I’ve certainly never even been to church.
Same here in Japan.
Oh, no. It has nothing to do with an inability to mesh with your religious beliefs. I wouldn’t be comfortable with you teaching my children to believe what I find delusional.
But I’ve been in short term relationships with religious girls and I didn’t mind it. A few even said they would pray for me and it didn’t make me particularly uncomfortable at all. One girl I dated who was really religious told me she’d be willing to let me dictate the raising of children however I wanted, lol. I’m not sure if it was because of the misogynistic Christian upbringing that she endured (she believes women experience pain in childbirth as punishment for Eve’s sin) and was thus willing to let her male partner have complete control or if she was simply lying to me.
You know, I also believe that “women experience pain in childbirth as punishment for Eve’s sin,” at least metaphorically. The sin of knowledge of good and evil is, basically, the difficulties caused by man’s ability to think of moral and ethical considerations, which comes from our advanced brain capacity, which in turn causes childbirth to be so damned painful. When our brains were chimpanzee size or smaller, I think we droppped babies like turds, as most animals do, so this is one thing that the Bible (dumb luck?) got right.
Hope this doesn’t get me drummed out of the hardcore atheists’ union.
Actually, the reason why childbirth is so much more painful for humans than it is for animals is because unlike most animals our legs are located underneath our torsos, not on the sides of our torsos. Super painful childbirth is a direct result of our transition from walking on four legs to two.
The more you know.
I’m also Australian, but I wouldn’t say no-one gave a shit about religion here. There are some hard-core religious types here, it’s just that they’re very much in the minority compared to the US.
Plenty of churches have literally gone out of business here, which makes me proud to be an Australian, but the country isn’t free of superstitious nonsense yet, by any means, and plenty of the people who would identify as agnostic believe in homeopathy and similar bunkum. Magical thinking is alive and well here, unfortunately.
Fair enough.
[Anecdote is not data] Most “Dutch Canadians” I know, at least the immigrant generation and some of their first generation children are very religious, the whole Dutch reformed Church protocols and elders visiting to ask why you don’t go to church, and so forth. I have a friend who didn’t dance or listen to secular music until university [/anecdote is not data]
Reminds me of a quote from a comedian (paraphrase, as it’s been a long time since I heard it):
“I’d have people come up to me and say ‘I was strung oiut on booze, I was strung out on drugs, but now I’ve found Jesus, and I’d like to share him with you!’ 'What for? You never shared your booze or drugs with me … '”
Golden Rule definitely applies here (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) - I wouldn’t want hardcore atheists mocking my beliefs (even though they’re more enlightened than most Christians I know), so I have no business mocking theirs. IMHO that’s one part of the Bible that, if nothing else, I hope everyone can grok and follow. I have nothing but the utmost respect for my fellow Dopers that are atheist but not condescending about it (which is prit near everyone in this thread so far) and helps me shape my belief system in turn.
just stick to fuckin’ em.
There was nothing smug about my response. That is what I would do if I were in your place in the situation you described in the OP. If your scenario changed to what I quoted above, my response would be along the same lines: Babe, if you can show me any logic or intelligence behind your socialistic beliefs, there will be a second date. Or something similar.
From what I’ve been told - I have no info to prove it, but it seems to be the case anecdotally and from my own ancestry - the Dutch who left the Netherlands for elsewhere, at least historically, left because they were more religious than their fellow countrymen, and wanted to move somewhere for religious freedom. That is, the freedom to be more strict in their religious practices. I came from a pretty strict religious background and am descended from Dutch who emigrated to the US.
Off-topic, but really? All Christians? All denominations? I think there’s some selection bias involved among the accusations by nonbelievers that most Christians are always proselytizing and trying to save them.
The evangelicals and megachurchers that qualify everything with “Christian”, who try to lead a lifestyle that is as free of secular aspects as possible, maybe. Run-of-the-mill mainstream Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopals, Methodists, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ congregants, Quakers, and the like … not from what I’ve experienced. Mainstream Christians generally don’t try to inject their faith or the word “Christian” into every conversation. It’s the mainstream and lapsed Christians that are actually in the vast majority throughout most of the country outside of Utah and the deep South, and they seldom, if ever evangelize or make much noise.
Around here, because the population is so Catholic (~75% of the population; WNY is far more Catholic than Utah is Mormon), conservative Catholicism is far more prominent than in other parts of the country. While Catholicism strongly flavors the area’s culture and built environment, I’ve never had a Catholic evangelize or try to convert me, or impose their lifestyle on me. The most obnoxious behavior tends to be assuming I’m Catholic too (“So, what parish do you belong to?”, “It’s Friday! Why are you eating meat today?”) or unsolicited advice to pray to some saint. Dating was a challenge, because there’s a large percentage of conservative Catholics who will only date other Catholics. Still, I’ll take the Hail Mary Loop Channel on the basic cable tier, Mary on the Half Shell displays, and the barrage of stories in the media about the church and Diocese over Southern-style evangelism.