Dating Religious People

Does anyone have any experience dating religious people? I've been dating a girl for about a year and everything is going great, minus the fact that she believes in a talking snake and a giant boat full of 2 billion species. She's been brainwashed Catholic since she was born, and I feel like it could be a real problem in our future. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

This has been really tough for me as well. To be quite honest, I've actually given up on dating religious people. I consider them to be fundamentally unreasonable and there is no way to really resolve the conflict for me. The last girl I dated actually tried to debate me on the merits of space exploration.

Her position was that exploring space was going against god's will because god only gave us domain over the earth and the animals. Going into space was "forbidden." No need for environmental protection either because only god can decide when to end human life on earth. She also thought that "World of Warcraft" promoted satanism and "the occult" in young people.

I simply cannot deal with someone so monumentally benighted no matter how great everything else is. Unquestioning belief in the absurd is a categorical deal breaker for me.

It's tough because, of course, most of the population is religious. Writing off religious people entirely makes it very hard to date. Ultimately, though, the problems only get thornier as you go on.

I have found that you cannot truly have a relationship with a religious person, most centrally because you are never alone in your relationship. Jesus is always there. He is number one and if he is not number one to you as well, you've just bought a problem that will never go away.

How about your kids? Will Mom insist they attend church? Will she insist you also attend, for appearances sake? The truth of the matter is that, as much as we atheists like to compliment ourselves on our own awesomeness in being/becoming atheists, the tricks of the priest-class work on a very high percentage of people. Exposing children to that from an early age sows the crops for later. As tempting as it may be to think that you would be able to influence them enough to avoid that fate for them, two major pieces of contrary evidence must be considered. First, you have been unable to move your mate. Second, ~85% of American children become Christian, which means that the odds are roughly 5:1 against you, just on the face. And, of course, your mate will be trying her darndest to work toward Christian children.

It's just bad news, all the way around. I know a lot of older atheists that have told me stories that have curdled my blood. I can guarantee you that you'll be happier settling for less in other facets of your relationship than signing up for a lifetime of front-row seats to this kind of slow-motion disaster. You are smart enough to see bad things down the line (or you wouldn't have posted this) and I think you should listen to your instincts. There are a million other problems and sources of problems in relationships; this is one you would be wise to sidestep.

Agreed. I can get used to and deal with a lot of difficulties. Different hobbies, different interests, different diet - these are all manageable in the scope of a healthy relationship. But mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed worldviews, one based on reason and evidence, and another based on faith, superstition, and slavish obedience to imaginary friends, is a recipe for disaster. No, thanks.

My mother is a moderate-conservative Lutheran and my father is an atheist. They both recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. My mother (like SO many theists and religionists) seems to partition her life into "God" and "Not-God." Thus, she can, in her "normal" life, promote woman suffrage, equality for all, and kind rational treatment of those around her and still not rock the boat when her pastor tells her that women cannot hold authority over men when she goes to church on Sunday and believe that this is reason enough to deny priesthood to women.

It doesn't make much sense to me, but the point is that on MOST issues, my parents share an intellectual connection and a basic agreement on being thoughtful, compassionate people and so far it's worked pretty well for them. So I think it basically comes down to not only WHAT each person believes, but WHY they believe it and HOW they apply it to their decision-making process. There are, I am sure, very unique, interesting, usually thoughtful people who have just not sloughed off the religious indoctrination of their youth. If that is not a problem for you, then go for it. If, on the other hand, they are a rabid True Believer® who DOES apply their religious irrationality to making crucial life decisions, there will probably be serious conflict.

I think when it comes to relationships and deciding who we want to be with there are two sides of things. On the one hand we have this "resume" of character traits we want in a mate that we use to search, and then all of a sudden a person comes along who just HITS you and really does it for you who violates many or sometimes even ALL of those criteria. Love's weird that way. You just gotta figure out what your values are and balance those two things.

Everyone I have ever dated has been religious. ...as well, all my friends and family, and many of them proud extremists. I am actually the only atheist I know personally. Always have been.

But by the time I turned 27, the uphill battle had become more trouble than it was worth, and I just plain quit dating. Honestly, I don't dislike women, but in the last six years, I've restricted my conversations with them to "hello", and "nice meeting you", with an occasional, "I'm sorry, I should explain, I'm just not into women.". Honestly, I prefer people to wonder if I'm gay than get dragged into another relationship doomed to end in a religious war. Nothing pleasant about it. I'll take a peaceful, healthy, constructive life, even if it means going it alone. Not exactly how I always imagined it, but as the prophet Jagger put it, "You can't always get...", and at any rate, I certainly have nothing to complain about.

I guess that's the reason I'm a little nervous about coming to a meetup. Suddenly, there's no reason to be so guarded... leaving exposed just how socially retarded I've become! Hahaha... hmmm.

The OP did not mention when he told her of his "belief" or lack there of.

I would think that this is something you would bring up after a few dates, sorta like: do you want kids?

When did you tell her you were an atheist?

If it was early on then you're both guilty of probably thinking to yourselves, "I can change him/her".

Later,
Efren

We knew very early in the relationship where eachother stood but we've just back burnered it. Everytime belief comes up it turns into a fight so we just dont talk about it. The thing is, her Catholism doesn't get in the way of her life. She's very rational, and doesn't like a lot of things the Catholic Church does. I honestly can't see it changing her actions from if she was not very religious. The kids are my major concern, because I dont want them to be indoctrinated, brainwashed, and molested like so many before them. I think the Church needs to be condemed for child abuse for what they do. I think if I can keep them out of Mass we'll be alright. As you all have said, if I take out religious people I've eliminated 85% of the dating populous. I dont like those odds.

I'm still trying to get over a relationsip with a fundamentalist. The relationship is over, but I'm not yet over it.

Eventually you are going to do some head butting. I tried to not talk about religion. She knew my opinion. But, what do you say when her young son asks a question about how silly evolution is. Do you debate this little boy while his fundamentalist mother watches? No, you back down and let the kid win. Ok, I bought another day in the relationship, but she realized what a volatile moment she let into her house. That took our relationship down another notch. Her loyalty is to an imaginary creature, not you. She thinks YOU are the piece of clay that she can mold into a believer eventually.

We were together six years and broke up ten months ago. She finally demanded that I go to church with her. Yesterday I learned that she married, pretty quickly. Today I learned her husband is her minister. I met him a few times. He was a friend of her family.

There are not enough atheist women to go around. You can try to rescue women from religion, but don't get angry if you fail.

Ryan, I used to date a tender, caring, loving Catholic woman..., who believed I was headed straight to hell upon death and she suffered genuinely because of it. I used to brush it off gently, in ways such as "don't worry, I won't be looking for my lighted all the time there" (I was a smoker then). This did not cause any trouble in our daily life, however. As it has been pointed out, religious people are intelligent, rational, loving..., except for anything related to their superstitions.

She wanted to have children and insisted that they had to have a religious education. I made some compromises. My conditions were: if they had to have a Catholic education, it would have to be a Jesuit school, no other order would do. I would not go to church or religious functions and the children would have to hear and understand from the very first day that I did not share these beliefs. In the end, nothing of this mattered because we broke up for reasons that I presume are unrelated to religion.