Would you become romantically involved with someone with vastly different religious views?

[email protected]

While I am not the previous poster, that's certainly how I'd describe it. The "I am euphoric" types who care only about the circlejerk.

[email protected]

Aye. I'm not proud of it. If you think about it, it's kind of just conservatism, just not in an expected way.

I've seen a few around here.

[email protected]

Fuck no. Organized religion is the source of most of the harms in the world. There is no man in the sky. You have no special blessing to be terrible to others.

Capitalism is responsible for most of the rest of the harms. And then a very small percent is the result of basically-bad people and mental health issues.

[email protected]

Growing and bettering ones self is what matters. Good on you for breaking the cycle. Not everyone can do that.

[email protected]

My life partner and I both considered it critical that our beliefs were strongly compatible.

We've been together for decades.

Our beliefs have changed substantially, and certainly not identically.

We're still together. There's so many more important things.

[email protected]

Don't be a dick.

That basically my only requirement.

[email protected]

I've made it a goal in life to put more thought into things. It is indeed a major turnaround. Thank you for the kind words!

[email protected]

Eww, no, I'd never date anyone with religious views.

[email protected]

While I was in the process of disentangling myself from religion, the woman I lived with for nearly 10 years went off the deep end. Prosperity gospel. She became insufferable.

I made a much-needed escape, and met my wife a year later. She, like me, believes religion to be a social construct, intended to keep the masses docile and obedient.

[email protected]

I think people's behavior is determined much more by social conventions and the expectations of their community (in addition to pragmatic self-interest) than it is by logical reasoning. I'll risk being the preachy vegetarian by discussing people's attitudes towards eating meat. Most people sincerely believe that cruelty to animals is wrong, and also that factory farming (if not all killing) is cruel. Yet they eat meat. I even know some people who started eating meat again after being ethical vegetarians. Did they change their minds about whether or not harming animals is bad? No. If pressed, they feel guilty but they don't like to talk about it. The reason they're eating meat is because it's convenient and almost everyone expects them to, not because they reasoned from first principles. Likewise with religion - if no one else is giving everything away to the poor and everyone will think you're crazy if you do rather than praising you, you're not going to give everything away to the poor even if it would make sense to do so given what you believe.

Edit: Kidney donation is another example. I met a woman once who donated a kidney to a friend of her mother's. This person wasn't someone particularly dear to her, but she found out that he needed a kidney to live and she gave him hers. I think that what she did is commendable, but I still have both my kidneys. This is despite the fact that I sincerely believe that if, for example, I saw a drowning child then I would risk my life to save him. People would think I was a hero if I saved the child, or that I was a coward if I didn't try. Meanwhile almost everyone I know would think I went crazy if I donated a kidney to a stranger. My relatives would be extremely worried, and they would try to talk me out of it. I'm not going to do something difficult, painful, and (to an extent) dangerous when everyone I know would disapprove, even if in principle I think risking my life to save another's is a good thing to do.

[email protected]

I think your ideas here go into the right direction, but the confusing part for me is that many of the christians I know are so far below what you'd expect from a christian in these parts (which is already very little) - it's not that they don't give everything away to the poor, they're doing (as far as I can tell) nothing - they don't pray, they don't go to church, and they don't adhere to any of what the bible says they should do beyond maybe basic Golden Rule stuff. And it's not even like most families would make a big deal out of it if you left the faith or even became fully atheist. Most do pay the church tax, though, which is about 1% of your gross income.

[email protected]

I am strongly atheist, and I don't think I could ever feel like they were equal in intelligence, and respect someone who believes in total nonsense.

[email protected]

Here's an incident that is only tangentially related to what we're talking about, but it's one that I found memorable. My grandmother was reading a tabloid newspaper (which she tends to believe) and it apparently had an article about UFOs. She turned to me and told me that, according to the newspaper, space aliens were real and visiting Earth. Then she went about her ordinary business - the thing about the aliens was simply an interesting bit of trivia for her.

I think her reaction was not in fact particularly unusual, but I found it baffling. The arrival of space aliens would be perhaps the most important thing that has ever happened to humanity. The entire future of the species would hang in the balance, and everything would hinge on what the aliens want. I know my grandmother very well but I still don't really understand how she thinks about things like this. The best I can come up with is that she believes in many fantastical things and therefore just one more fantastical thing changes little for her.

This isn't a direct response to what you're describing but I think it's relevant as an illustration of one way how the fantastical can be less important than the mundane for people.

[email protected]

Here's the fun thing about that question; it's basically 'Would you date someone you considered mentally insane?' Whether you are atheist considering dating Hindu, a Catholic considering dating a Zoroastrian, or a Buddhist dating a nihilist, this is a person who has a fundamentally different understanding of reality. Here's the real kicker; 'Is someone who has a distorted sense of reality capable of giving consent?' Can you even date them if you value consent?

[email protected]

As a former evangelical Christian, who also dabbled in atheism, antitheism, etc, I settled into something that's probably closest to Zen Buddhism mixed with atheism. I've been on dates with people, many of them I probably never knew their religion, but the gung-ho Christians and the Mormons showed their incompatibility very quickly. Funnily enough, ex-catholics dig me and I like them.

I don't see myself dating someone who is theocratic, doesn't believe abortion should be allowed, or wants me to go to their church with them. I sometimes tell the story of the time I was figuring myself out and ended up going on a date with a girl who didn't believe in dinosaurs. I call her dinosaur girl. I wish her well, but man did I dodge a bullet!

[email protected]

I'm a Buddhist/Atheist. There is far less to fight about here than between Christians/Atheist. I'm sure I'm a "bad" Buddhist too because I take the philosophical bits that make sense to me and leave all the deities and supernatural stuff alone, but Buddhists don't seem to mind and most atheists don't either.

[email protected]

I'm laic.

What beliefs a person holds to themselves is indiferent to me. And it should not matter to anyone. Relationships are a negotiated endeavour, from both parts, where everyone gives a little to reach a mutual understanding.

Unless a person subscribes views capable of leading to individual, personal and socially harmful and regressive thought and action, it does not matter.

Removing the religious view from your question: would you date a vegan, not being one? Would you date a non vegan, being yourself one?

Zealotry goes both ways. Both the believer and the non believer can entrench themselves in their views so deeply they become fanatics.

[email protected]

I'm a Satanist. I would be fine dating an atheist, depending on their morals and ethics. I would probably be okay dating someone that was agnostic, since technically most atheists are agnostics. I could date most reform Jews, since for most of them it's a cultural religion, rather than a literal one.

I would not be able to date anyone that sincerely believed in a supernatural deity, because I would not be able to respect them, or trust any of their conclusions.

[email protected]

No. Spirituality is a very core value. I wouldn't negotiate it.

[email protected]

It depends. Probably, as long as they didn't think I was going to hell, or believe something I found awful, or were evangelistic, needing me to believe what they did.

My mom's family was Methodist, my dad's family was Catholic, my mom stayed Methodist, Dad became just open-minded general Theist but not specifically Christian, I am not religious but not capital A Atheist.

agnos.is Forums

Would you become romantically involved with someone with vastly different religious views?