If you're atheist and your significant other was religious...

What would you do if they wanted to convert you? What if they say they can't be with you because of how you are not a member of their religion?

. . .

Just curious to see what other's reply would be...

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edit: SUNNOVABICH! I can't believe I mispelled 'was' in the goddamn TITLE of all thigns!

edited 17th Feb '11 6:45:11 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I wouldn't. If she could not tolerate that, then she would either have to learn to deal with it or leave me. Simple.

I think a "have a nice (after)life" would be in order.

edited 17th Feb '11 6:56:36 PM by MRDA1981

Enjoy the Inferno...

Usually these things are talked about throughout the relationship. Some end because of it, some are fine with it.

Non-conversions tends to be most likely to work if they're not planning on having children, as that's usually the biggest contention.

edited 17th Feb '11 6:57:18 PM by Pykrete

Wow...now I'm imagining a Jewish father and Muslim mother...that does kind of suck for the kids.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Thats really something you should consider before entering the relationship, isnt it?

I doubt this would ever happen to me, but if it did, I would tell my signifigant other that it just wont happen. I have no interest in their God.

Assassinate the pope.

Or what SS said. The first sentence, anyway.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

But what if none of you two ever considered it until halfway into the relationship?

G: Why aren't you saying grace?

B: Why should I?

B and G: Uh-oh...

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

This is why Friends First is such a good idea. Chances are these things become apparent before you're playing tonsil hockey.

edited 17th Feb '11 7:06:28 PM by Pykrete

^ If you're devout enough that this would be an issue, would you really jump in the sack with someome before you knew that first anyway?

I'm sorry, this just sounds like a sitcom.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

She'll learn to deal with my godlessness or we'll break up. If I can tolerate her being a believer she can tolerate my being an atheist.

Seriously, pushing evangelizing would be a real relationship killer for me.

edited 17th Feb '11 7:09:18 PM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

This is why religious beliefs would need to be discussed BEFORE entering the relationship.

Not to say that differing beliefs are an inherent detriment, but they CAN be depending on the nature of the difference. So really, one should evaluate the nature of the difference before the relationship.

A bit of a family unfriendly solution I am afraid. The fundamental question is whether you share values. If you have the same set of values discounting the whole existence of a divine order question then it is a question of semantics. Pay some lip service, go to church on holidays but don't get sucked into the social life of the congregation. Thing is if you are in a sexual relationship, premaritally they are already compromising on a lot of the supposed values. Chances are they will compromise a lot more if you show yourself to be a worthwhile person.

I am a committed atheist, but part of that commitment comes from a profound unwillingness to assume I know jack shit about the underlying order of existence. A commitment to doubt as it were. Part of that doubt involves not throwing my lack of faith in peoples faces. I dated and then lived with a committed evangelical for more than three years. There were just topics I knew better than to broach. I didn't snort or roll my eyes when she started in on that young earth crap or the 'evolution is nonsense' hoopla and she didn't try to drag me to church functions or preach at me.

Almost lost it a couple of times when she brought home creationism defense literature. I was spitting venom as I paged through the book marking factual and logical errors in the margins. But in the end, I realized I was doing it to prove a point that didn't have any relevance on our day to day life. Luckily I was writing in pencil.

Chances are more than even that if you find yourself in a mixed marriage as it were, the catcalls from the peanut galleries of your respective social circles( church folk are about a million times more judgmental and intrusive than their atheist counterparts; also, strangely, far more immoral) are going to me more of an obstacle than each others ideologies. Long story short, if you find that you are engaged in a protracted battle over theology then that adversarial stance is your relationship. Whether you want that is up to you but that sort of relationship is generally not long term or long lived.

"A bit of a family unfriendly solution I am afraid." - Shrimpus

Mine, or someone else's?

YMMV. Widely. The only atheist group I ever had exposure to tried to picket a ridiculously nice "Jesus ♥ U" sandwich board guy off campus, while the church group I came from set up and continues to run a secular homeless shelter.

Dicks will be dicks.

^^^ See, thats something I have never understood. Now, I get that relationships are based on compromise, but this seems like something you cant really get around. If my girlfriend started bringing home creationist literature and drag me to church and stuff, I very much doubt I'd be able to lie down next to her at night again. This isnt arguing baout whos doing the dishes tonight, this is a disagreement about how reality functions.

edited 17th Feb '11 7:35:07 PM by SilentStranger

Overt and pushy religiousness is a big turn off for me.

Relationships are built on love and respect. Compromise can come from this, but if you have to compromise too much then your partner isn't really in love with you — they're in love with an effigy they want to turn you into.

edited 17th Feb '11 7:44:39 PM by Pykrete

Depends on exact attempts on conversion. Discussions this one does not mind, but being outright pushy and demanding (or guilt-tripping) about it is unacceptable. And of course this one is not going to attempt to "convert" them into atheism. But if they think we can't be together because of religious differences - then, alas, we can't be together. Because it would mean that they do not want to be with me but with someone else. This! So very this!

edited 17th Feb '11 7:49:11 PM by Beholderess

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

^^ Thats not the experience Ive had. People always seem to come into relationships with some preconcieved notion about how their partner should be and then try to make them fit the mold.

And how high is the divorce rate again...? Up to 7 years into a marriage, the most oft-cited reason for it is "high conflict".

edited 17th Feb '11 7:58:56 PM by Pykrete

I didnt say people should do that, I'm just saying thats what I have experienced and observed.

Wait...were you talking in third person?

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So what about in a situation where she can not eat until everyone says grace but her partner is atheist and just wanna eat?

edited 17th Feb '11 8:08:54 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Neo: I was referring to the fact that the best solution is small lies, avoidance and apathy.

Honestly I can't think of a situation in which religion is a direct deal breaker. I can think of tons of ways in which it can cause deal breaking issues but the actual idealogical conflict? That just doesn't seem to have the juice. I could see breaking up over children, over birth control, over sex or it's absence, I could see breaking up over dietary laws, I could see breaking up over a million and one things that religion causes but the religion itself? That is an ego issue.

Any person that is willing to deep six a relationship on idealogical grounds alone is a fanatic and doesn't have enough room in their heart for another person.

Pyrket: I know that type. I also find that they aren't really atheists. They have distinct belief that there is no god, and in particular that there is no Christian god. You will hear them spout a lot of bs any time someone with a Jesus fish on their car drives past but rarely if ever will you hear the same complaint about the Ganesha statue in the local indian restaurant. I find that atheist fundamentalists (to borrow an iconic language) are just as bad news as their counterparts. More so because they have often abandoned the useful tenants of moral conduct that religion gives without fully understanding the underlying reasons why these were needed clauses. I dunno. I suppose I wish there were atheist sects so we could more easily be identified in casual conversation. You know... Dawkins, doubter, Jehovah Haters....

edited 17th Feb '11 8:45:03 PM by Shrimpus