Would you date someone who has different religious beliefs?

Before I get started, I just want to say that this is not about whether/which religion is right or wrong. This is about what you believe. This is more of a relationship question so please please please no debates about religion.

So, would you date someone who has different religious beliefs, whether it's that you're an atheist and they are Christian (or vice versa), you're a Christian and they're a Muslim, or even if you're Catholic and they're evangelical Baptist. Also please say what beliefs you have.

For me it depends on how religious the person is (I'm a Christian, Episcopalian specifically). If he is a bible-thumping Holier Than Thou person, then probably not. Ultimately I'm a very private person, and I couldn't date someone who was all about shoving their religion in everyone's face. I probably would be more likely to consider someone who's a completely different religion.

Well I didn't want to necropost, so I just started a nother.

edited 4th Dec '11 9:53:56 AM by wuggles

I think we had this thread before?

Anyway, yes. I am an agnostic and I find myself dating Catholics most often, and no I'm not at all certain why, though it could simply be local demographics.

Sure, I don't care. Now, if the religion mad eher prudish, it would be annoying.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Sure, but not too seriously. It would cause too many problems in the long run.

Oh, and Agnostic Theist.

Still Sheepin'

Sure!

It's really about the person, and not their religion, anyway. Different people handle the same religion differently, after all. I have known progressive religious people (most notably Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Hinduists) who were perfectly cool to hang out with, and I've met the occasional conservative who was a walking headache (the only religious conservatives I've met personally were Catholic—Since I grew up in a Catholic community and was sent to "Monday school" *

I met far more Catholics than any other religions, and met enough of the demographic to meet conservatives).

edited 4th Dec '11 10:19:02 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

I dunno why I wouldn't, as long as the views themselves aren't objctionable.

I largely agree with anne.

I am now known as Flyboy.

I'd like to say yes, but I honestly don't know.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

I have, pretty much every time. The only girl who shared my religious beliefs who I ended up in a relationship with was my now ex-wife. So I'll go with "Yes".

She just has to not try and convert me.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

It depends on what the differences are, and the other reasons for or against dating someone.

I do think that, all other things being the same, it is best to date those with more similar religious beliefs, and leave those with differing belief X to date others with belief X. I have yet to get involved in dating at all, though, so this is just a guess, really.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

I wouldn't date anyone, problem solved.

Murrl LustFatM

The real sticking point isn't the religious difference but how both parties choose to handle it. Speaking from experience here; if a girl of a religious outlook different from my own can respect my beliefs (and I can respect hers), no problem.

It's like any other differing viewpoint in any other relationship, really.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Just highlighting some of the implications you are making. Religion, culture and ethnicity are all related things.

What is stopping a person from one religion/culture/ethnicity from dating a person from another religion/culture/ethnicity? Why must a person choose a person from the same religion/culture/ethnicity? Quite frankly, I don't see any good reason.

If I meet a sweet, friendly dude whose company I can genuinely enjoy, it should not matter to me whether he is Muslim, or Odinist, or Catholic, or Shintoist, or Buddhist, or Jewish, and I don't see why it should. If at all, his differing religion is merely aspect of him for me to appreciate and be fascinated by.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:15:38 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

While agree with the sentiment, I'd put religion in a separate category more akin to political beliefs before I put it with ethnicity...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Actually, people of even the same sect of religion can differ completely on political views. I think religion is more cultural and ethnic than political. People are Muslim because they believe in Allah and the prophet Muhammad, not necessarily because they agree with what the muslims in religious and/or political power are saying now, and in fact many Muslims don't! There is a huge divide between the conservatives/fundamentalists in control of Iran, and the progressive youth. These people are mostly Shi'ite Muslim, but differ significantly in their political beliefs.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:23:14 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

This, basically.

I did date a catholic girl, and she is still one of my best friends.

As long as the date doesn't look down on me for not being religious or try to convert me, I'm fine, and would encourage them to be that religious person, because its obviously a huge part of their lives.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:17:12 AM by Enkufka

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

And even so, that says something about that person, and not that person's religion. As I keep saying, different people from even the same sect of religion can have very different views.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:20:13 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

@anne,

No, I meant in terms of its nature.

Ethnicity is an inherent trait, but religion can theoretically be changed at any time. You can be justified in saying "I would never date people of X religion," because religion is a viewpoint chosen by an individual—rather than an immutable, innate fact—and thus fair game for moral judgement.

Just because you can be justified doesn't mean you will be, however. And there's an aspect of social conditioning to account for when looking at religious "choice." Still, though...

I am now known as Flyboy.

I see ethnicity as something fluid that is established through developing a close and personal identification with a culture (often in early childhood, and often influenced by family and ancestry, hence the correlation between genetics and ethnicity), rather than something that is fixed at birth by ancestry.

So if I was born to Poles (which I am), but was sent to a Hmong community at an extremely early age, and assimilated with the Hmong culture as I grew up, I would be more likely to identify as Hmong than Polish, despite being clearly genetically unrelated to the Hmong.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:31:04 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

That's not actually your ethnicity though, that's your racial identity.

Different things entirely. I'm talking about straight biology here, not the connotation someone and their society attaches to it.

I am now known as Flyboy.

The Hmong are a social group (or a group of subgroups, really, there are many different kinds of Hmong) with a common cultural tradition, although sadly they do not have their own nation in a world where having a nation would give them protection against the Chinese and Laotians. If I grew up amongst Hmong, I would belong to this group, and thus, Hmong would be my ethnicity. Whether or not I was actually born of a Hmong ancestry would be irrelevant.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:46:58 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

The race thread LIED!

I've been given multiple different definitions for race and ethnicity in the last two days...

...and I iz now confuzed...

I am now known as Flyboy.

I personally would find it difficult to date a religious person. If I were religious myself, I think it wouldn't be too hard to date someone with a different creed, but as a secular humanist I find that its generally difficult to form a lasting relationship with a partner who practices a religion.

I might be able to tolerate a shinto or a buddhist, though, mostly because animism is starting to look scientifically valid at the quantum level (quarks seem to have limited behavior patterns), and buddhism can be interpreted as secular humanism that got the trapping of religion because at the time it was invented people couldn't accept a faith without supernatural beings.

But no, believing in the "power" of prayer and other such things is a big turn-off for me.

Because all religious people are fundamentalists who would pray our problems away.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:46:21 AM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

Shintoists and Buddhists, too, have their own traditions of prayer.

Besides, I don't see anything harmful in believing in prayer. If I was ill and someone offered to pray for me, I would take it as a kind symbolic gesture, as a way of wishing me good fortune in my recovery.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:49:51 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

You don't have to be a fundamentalist to believe in the power of prayer, but it is implied that if you have faith in a deity you also believe that said deity will answer your prayers.

For example, I had a conversation with a girl the other day who claims that she would "totally throw herself into defending the environment and the planet from corporate greed and become a greenpeace treehugger, but she knows that it is all a part of god's plan so she can relax and let what will be be". She is by no means a fundamentalist, going by the way that she parties, but she is still perfectly willing to ignore her misgivings about the environment with this religious justification. To see a rational conclusion get subverted like this - to see a human being ignore what their own heart is telling them is right - is what kills me when it comes to religion. All religion is about subjugation of the human intellect and spirit on some level, and anyone willing to do that to themselves simply is not attractive to me.

Like I said, those faiths have the trappings of religion. Buddhists, at least, aren't praying to gods so much as Bodhisatvas - humans who already attained nirvana but instead of moving on to a higher plane remained to assist others in attaining the path. At its core, though, Buddhism is about using your own willpower to attain control over the dark side of your nature - the same philosophy as secular humanism.

Shinto do pray to various gods, but it is implied that said gods only help those who help them. And since the kami exist in things of natural beauty, that makes shinto a naturally environmentalist faith.

Christianity would be similar, except that somehow Western civilization reinterpreted God's command to safeguard the Garden of Eden as permission to do whatever the hell we want to the planet.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:55:01 AM by MyGodItsFullofStars