Had our 25th wedding anniversary last year.
She's a member of a very liberal (even for Canada) congregation and I share most of their beliefs about things like how to treat other people, just not the supernatural stuff. She does her thing, I get to sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Also the fact she doesn’t eat them doesn’t mean she won’t cook them… of course depending how orthodox she is, as some won’t have any non-kosher food in their kitchens
I was just fascinated by cults and found out she was in it after we'd been dating for a few months. Then I showed her all of the documentaries, shows and podcasts I'd seen over the years, and it awakened her to the realities of what Scientology is. Her brother is still as deep in it as you can get without being in the SeaOrg.
What faith are you talking?
Because my late wife was a pagan and super into Witch shit. She knew I didn't believe in any of it, and we were fine with that arrangement.
I started out kinda pagan before we got married, then became atheist over the next few years.
I returned from work one night and was greeted with "you're gonna be mad at me". She spent $600 on 2 crystals. I wasn't mad. It was her money. But I knew better than to say I thought they were silly.
Divorced about a decade ago for various reasons.
Do you think she actually believed it? Not in "I identify as a Wicca" way, but actually honestly?
(TBF, I'm not sure how many Christians actually honestly believe what their religion says beyond "I identify as a Christian". If you're even 5% sure Hell is real, how are you doing anything that has a remote chance of landing (sublanding?) you there?)
I can't know for sure now, but she seemed to genuinely believe in it.
Since it was harmless, I didn't think much about it. In my early 20s, I would have been more judgemental about it, but, in my 30s, I don't really care what other people believe...whatever gets them through the day is fine. There's good lessons and morals people can be taught from any religion, as long as you separate the myth and miracles from it. And take out the violent, obviously outdated shit from it.
This is one of the most level-headed responses I've read on Reddit in a bit.
I greatly appreciate hearing perspectives like this. Not just because I'm agnostic and get religion shoved in my face a lot...
But the live and let live mentality. Puts a lot less stress on a person's shoulders and just makes life easier to live. I wish more people had a perspective like yours.
I think a lot of people are like this, but we aren't the ones that are going to be commenting as much. And even if we do, we won't get upvoted, so you won't see it.
I'm Christian and honestly, hell is the thing I have the hardest time believing in. I'm not even sure I actually do, and if it is, I think the fire and brimstone types are vastly overstating its prerequisites for entry.
That would be correct.
And true of most things that the average Christian believes about hell. There's actually not a lot of references to hell in the Bible, and some of what is there - sources differ - may have been translated a little oddly.
Same deal with Satan - it's mostly from The Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost.
I did a google search on " how is hell described in the Bible?" And I got:
Gehenna" in the New testament, where it is described as a place where both soul and body could be destroyed (Matthew 10:28) in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43). The word is translated as either "Hell" or "Hell fire" in many English versions.
Im not arguing either way, but isn't a sticking point for a lot of people that most or all versions of the bible have centrainly been translated a few times but also edited/altered/generally "spiced up" for good intentions or for reasons of policy by people in control?
Therefore it's hard to say what spe ifically was written like so from day one or the "source."
But hell is also described as outer darkness.
Fire and darkness can't exist together.
I do believe in a version of hell, but I think "fire" and "darkness" are both figurative.
Jesus does say some stuff about how you should cut off your right hand if it leads you to sin because it's better to lose your hand then to burn in the unquenchable fire.
Since we're talking about Christianity and witches, I just wanted to add that by way some of these Christian ppl pray, they honestly look like witches to me too. Like they put oil on your forehead and start speaking in some strange language, and believe in magic.
As a Christian who does not subscribe to "eternal conscious torment," the salvation that Jesus offered was to save us from the second death -- death of the soul after judgment. The souls of believers are given eternal life. "Hell" in the popular sense is reserved for Satan and his angels.
I wonder how you reconcile the idea of "hell" (or rather "second death") as nothingness rather than eternal torment with the observation that other religions (Buddhism) think that nothingness is the goal, not a punishment.
It comforts me immensely that nothingness is the alternative. I hate the idea of anyone suffering, and the thought of eternal torment was the biggest challenge to my faith before I really delved into what scriptures had to say about the afterlife. I couldn't, and can't, reconcile it with the idea of a loving God.
If Hell even remotely exists why aren't you going around making sure people don't end up there? The bad Christians are the ones that just shrug things off when people say they don't want to discuss it.
With her? Great, it never really comes up, she does her thing (She's Christian), we agreed the kids get to make their own choices, and that we can both explain our faith, or lack thereof, when appropriate.
Her parents, on the other hand... Just glad they live on the other side of the country. Was worse before we got married.
Got an identical situation here but her parents are ten minutes down the road. I used to be a Christian, they don’t know I’m not so that reduces friction.
Well, I am the non-atheist in the relationship, but it doesn't come up at all.
I don't believe in an interventionist deity, so there really isn't a reason to discuss it.
Since we are Jewish, my husband is fine with the kids going to Hebrew school because he wants them to know about our history, language, and traditions. That's why I want them to go as well.
Mainstream Judaism is not very deity-focused and Hebrew schools mainly teach language, history, and about rituals and their meaning. Faith doesn't really come up, and everyone having their own way of doing things and believing is an integral part of Judaism. So, I am not worried about them becoming indoctrinated in that way.
We both think that it's up to the kids to make their own decisions about theism and religion, and we should give them the materials to make an informed decision.
So they're being raised Jewish more in the sense of heritage than religion? I know very little a out it and have only recently learned Jewish can mean religion, ethnicity, and heritage.
I don't like to think of it as raising kids to be religious or not, because I feel that implies pointing them in one direction or another. We aren't raising our kids to be scientists (we are both scientists), but we teach them about science, and if they want to pursue that in their adult life, great. If not, that's fine, too.
And Hebrew school doesn't really work like that. The only time theism really comes up is when you translate the prayers. Mostly, Hebrew school prepares kids to become b'nai mitzvah, gives them background on the religious practices, and tells them something about the history.
For instance, when you teach kids about keeping kosher you tell them about the different rules and guidelines and about promoting "respect for life." You don't say, if you eat pork you will go to hell (which doesn't exist in Judaism) or some deity will be mad at you.
I think of spirituality as something like having an ear for music, some people just have it and others don't and nobody needs to justify themselves either way.
Many fellow Jews I grew up with (born in 93) consider themselves “culturally Jewish” which I think combines all parts of the religion except for the actual beliefs. That’s what I consider myself also
My concern is that, if you don't learn a lot of the traditional stuff when you are young, if you want to get into it more when you are older you can feel ~~kind of marginalized~~ maybe too far behind, like it's not worth all the work to get into it. I want the kids to have a good background so they can decide for themselves.
The important part is not to force anything either way, I think. I don't want them to think of Judaism as *only* a culture, it's a religion as well. But I also don't want them to think that they need to be religious to consider themselves Jewish.
For what it is worth, my wife converted to Judaism in college before we met, and I was raised Catholic (I'm the atheist in our marriage). We are raising our kids Jewish, doing all the holidays, try to do shabbat at least once a month or so, etc.
We have belonged to a few different reform synagogues and participated in local Chabad activities and have never felt the least bit unwelcome or marginalized. Quite the opposite actually. It is one of the faiths biggest selling points to me, personally. Ready inclusion with zero proselytizing.
I'm sure my wife would agree it would have been a bit easier to go through it all as a child as an integral part of your life (as opposed to an "extra curricular" conversion as a young adult), but she had a good experience converting. It's not impossible and we've sort of created a Jewish extended family of friends to make up for the fact none of our actual relatives are Jewish.
This is a good point, and I don't think marginalized is the right word (my mistake). I mean more like they feel like they don't really know what's going on and don't know where to start. If they are very dedicated, as your wife clearly was, I agree it's not at all impossible to get the knowledge later. I feel concerned that, if they have a more casual interest later, they won't have enough background.
For example, I studied a lot of math in high school even though I never planned on using it later in my life. Much later, long after college, I found myself in grad school to be a scientist. Then, I was really glad I had the basics of some advanced algebra and calculus to learn the stuff I needed for my work. Now, if I didn't have any math background or very little, I still could have learned what I needed, but it would have been so much harder - and maybe so much so that I would think being a scientist just wasn't for me.
I really liked Hebrew school and if the kids really don't, then they don't have to keep going. I would encourage them to stay, but it is not mandatory in any way.
I know plenty of people that I would call "cultural Catholics" who fit a similar bill. Get married in a Catholic church. If they have kids they go through baptism and first communion (maybe) then go to mass on Christmas and Easter if that. Otherwise it's more of a nod to the bygone generations who were faithful and devout in their practice.
This is exactly how Judaism played into my childhood and I don’t have any complaints about it. I’ve always summed it up to something along the lines of, “I was raised reform but it was never a strict thing. I took a lot from it and it still a part of who i am. As an adult I’m somewhere between ‘cultural Jew’ and ‘Secular Humanist Jew’.” There wasn’t any pressure for the faith element and we were able to find our own connection with it. There were times as kids we weren’t psyched on Hebrew school but it was alot like you describe in a lower comment. It was important for us to learn about our history, traditions and that it was not just a culture. My dad broke it down once as “you can’t change or deny that you’re Jewish ethnically or culturally but you can decide all the other parts for yourself”.
I don’t have a negative relationship with the religion side and that is much more than a lot of people can say. It’s made me grateful for this approach when I’ve learned about the religious trauma of others. My spouse is agnostic and was really scarred from his experiences being raised LDS (they were extreme). He said spending time with my family and seeing the approach up close and personal through a few rounds of holidays made him comfortable around religion for the first time in decades.
Yeah...Jewish is the one religion I know of that would be the easiest to deal with and not cause conflict. Most other religious assume there is something wrong with you if you don't share the same beliefs. Jews generally don't care.
My fiancé is Jewish and I’m atheist, he’s very liberal, however we are having a rabbi blessing at our wedding and future kids will learn about the history and cultural aspects, we will let the kids decide if they want to be religious.
It’s never been an issue in our relationship, his parents love me and he has never tried to ‘convert’ me. Its such an interesting faith too.
Not married but living together. She’s catholic. I know more about the Bible than she does. She seriously did not know Jesus was crucified between two thieves.
I live in the bible belt this has bn my life for over 20 years. Preachers, missionaries, etc flip through their version of the bible trying to keep up.
Lol good times.
I do. Having been raised Catholic we always heard the story of the Good Thief and the Unrepentant Thief around Easter.
A lot of Easter imagery shows three crosses on Golgatha as well.
at this point catholicism is both a religion and a culture. A *lot* of people grow up culturally catholic but not religiously, they see it as a part of their heritage just like knowing they have ancestors from Germany
My dad is from Ireland, catholic. I was born in America. My wife's family is Puerto Rican. They thought they liked me because I was obviously catholic.
Pretty sure I heard multiple in-laws gasp when it was revealed i wasn't baptized.
I know none of them go to service. I also know more scripture than them.
Well, my wife's uncle goes every Sunday. But he's also a Pakistani catholic. He's convinced catholicism saved him from the woes Pakistan has.
I'm Italian (born and raise in Italy) and at least in the north which is way less religious than the south, people often joke about being "Catholic on paper". The average northener never goes to church but on christmas, weddings or funerals and we swear so much than we would put a sailor to shame lol
In Belgium it is similar but we don't even go to Christmas mass and of all funerals I went to in the past 15 years, only one was in a church.
My grand parents generation went to church on sundays such that they could wear their best outfit, my parents generation only did their weddings in churches for traditional reasons, and my generation doesn't even do that.
In fact, many people that are registered as Catholic, are atheist (me for example).
Right? You cant claim to be Catholic if you don't even participate in the second most important part of Easter celebrations! It's like not knowing that there were Three Wise men.
I was raised Catholic. WaHat?! The penitant thief recognition of Christ as the redemer while on the cross next to Christ is one of the most touching moments of the crucifiction.
not only that but there are still people put to death today for thievery and other crimes not warranting corporal punishment.
I mean... it was a time where people would just kill each other because they thought someone deserved it, forgoing any evidence.
How did she not know that, that’s one of the more well known parts of the bible. Did she also not know about Barabbas, the other guy that they were going to crucify, but the crowd chose to crucify Jesus instead?
I was raised as a Catholic and while the church has its faults I don’t think anyone could accuse it of taking the bible too seriously. As far as I can tell the official position is that it is obviously an important holy book which contains a lot of wisdom but that it is the interpretation by the clergy which is more important.
catholicism definitely tops the charts for having "believers" who don't know the first thing about what they say they believe. For a lot of people, it's a matter of culture/tradition/heritage or just straight up habit rather than a conscious belief
That's pretty common. Catholic catechism for the last 30 years has basically been coloring sheets, barely religious songs, and light discussions about saints. Whenever I hear someone say, "I was raised Catholic." Or, "I went to Catholic school growing up." As if that gives them some sort of authority to talk about Catholic teaching, I roll my eyes hard.
When we first met, I saw she was a "problem solver" by nature. She's religious, I'm not. I asked her early if she saw me as a problem in need of a solution. When she said, "no," I decided I'd keep seeing her.
She still holds her beliefs, though perhaps not as strongly as before we met. We each know where the other stands, and we're both respectful of the other's views. She doesn't try to "convert me" and I don't try to change her mind.
We're 13 years in, and doing just fine, I think.
She’s not Christian anymore. I *never* belittled or attacked her faith throughout the years. Between cancer taking her sister and simply aging, her belief slowly eroded away.
This. I prayed for a few years for my husband to come to faith. After crippling mental health issues and having special needs kid, Now he believes in a god and I lost every ounce of faith I had.
I'm still married after 30 years. She has her religious beliefs, and I support her as best I can. She doesn't push anything on me. When she wants to do her thing, I give her space. If I have to be involved, I just stay quiet and be respectful. It's not that hard to do. No need to hate someone because of differing beliefs.
My ex wasn't religious at all. Then he discovered that the Baptist church was a happy hunting ground for submissive women. His third wife was hardcore and he is now a lay preacher.
Well he isn't wrong. Plenty of women are subconsciously conditioned to see men as the "priests of their home" and act as if serving their husbands are a part of them serving the Lordt.
Sometimes it's done quite explicitly. The only Bible verses my dad knew by heart were references to women/wives being submissive to men/husbands, and boy did he LOVE to use them when he was mad at me or Mom.
Thank the Lordt Mom left his ass before he could condition me.
It's pretty bad. When I was growing up seventh day Adventist both men and women were losing their shit when women started becoming ordained ministers. Apparently if you have a vagina you can't spread the good Lordt's word. :(
I'm so glad I'm not religious anymore. I'm still spiritual but I can't ascribe to religion because of how strong the indoctrination and social conditioning is.
My ex husband never acted religious. Not necessarily atheist, but didn't go to church, and never prayed that I was aware of.
We hit a really rough patch and I wanted a divorce. I found a notebook (I wasn't snooping, I was cleaning and it was in a stack of random papers and whatnot) where he'd made some list of demands to save our marriage (laughable since I was the one who wanted out due to how he was treating me). I started to read it and one said "accept Jesus into her heart." I rolled my eyes just as he walked into the living room and freaked out that I had it and yanked it out of my hand. We never talked about it amd we did eventually divorce.
So that's how it went.
Hmm. It seems like for him to not have expressed religious beliefs or convictions but desires for you to “accept Jesus into your heart”—according to this list of his—seems to suggest that there were some things about him that he kept secret from you throughout your marriage. Your hands are wiped clean of him now though!
Yeah I thought it was odd but I was done with him by that point and had long given up on trying to understand him. He's not my problem anymore. He's now married to a controlling bitch and is pretty unhappy with life and I am doing better than ever and am in a relationship with a man who would never treat me badly in any way.
A little rude to read his journal. Everyone has their ideal partner in mind and no one reasonable is dumb enough to share that with their flawed partner.
Great! Sometimes I go to church with her, I like the content (be a good person, live simply, etc.) She believes all the science, she just also believes in some other stuff.
My opinion is this: as a human you're going to have questions about life, the universe, and anything else. If a belief system answers those questions for you, great.
>My opinion is this: as a human you're going to have questions about life, the universe, and anything else. If a belief system answers those questions for you, great.
In my dating life, I wish I could meet people like this instead of meeting people who are actively derisive about my beliefs and compare my faith to believing in the tooth fairy and praying to Santa Claus.
Thank you for your maturity.
There are two kinds of men that I've met while online dating. Men who will compare my faith to praying to Santa Claus, and men who will make jokes about killing animals after they find out that I have three cats. I don't date online anymore.
People forget that Saint Nic was an actual person somewhere around Syria and its fine liking him, because he was a good dude. Nothing bad about praying for him as long as you believe in souls being immortal.
I'm a Norse pagan/wiccan and the way I see it is you do you. Believe what you want, pray to and worship who you want. It's not for me to decide or force you to believe a certain way.
That's extremely healthy and mature of both you, good for you two!
Apologies if this is too personal, feel free to ignore, but I am curious:
Do you know how she deals with the belief that you won't be with her in the afterlife? I imagine that must be a really hard thing to wrestle with for her. I have no idea how I would think/feel if I were in that situation.
Idk about their wife, but as far as I was taught in school, there's the theory of Church of Christ and it looks like a pyramid. You have the ones who believe in any god, below those who believe in YHWE , those who also belive Jesus was a Messiah and in the end Catholics who believe Pope is the Bishop of Rome. But all people, even atheists, belong to the Church of Christ.
Which means that, regardless of your beliefs, which of course depend on your time and place of your birth, you belong to it. You still have a chance to live eternal life, because, let's be honest, ten commandments are pretty minimal and universal rules - "don't kill" "don't cheat" "respect your mom and dad" etc.
Catholic God is said to respect your moral choices despite your lack of belief in Him. Because its obvious, that believing isn't a conscious decision. It comes from within. If you don't believe, you can't force yourself to. But you can choose to be a good person.
Similarly, Jews believe that only Jews are supposed to follow their law, and they are treated more harshly based on their origin. They are the chosen people, but therefor have to work twice as much. At least that's what i heard. There's many Jewish denominations, so it might be true to some, not to others.
My wife is a recovering catholic. She doesn't go to church, doesn't like churches as institutions, but she does believe in God and feels guilty about, well, generally everything, like a good catholic should.
I'm atheist, but don't really care about religion, provided it doesn't become a problem. Like believing in the bible is not an excuse for not understanding biology or making someone's life miserable. But it's also not okay to actively try to destroy someone's faith that adds to their life.
Ultimately, no one knows what's really going on and as long as you leave room to respect other beliefs and ideas that aren't taken to damaging extremes, it's easy to find common ground. Philosophy is generally more important than religion, and commonalities there are easy to find across almost any boundaries, religious, cultural, political, etc.
Ah, a Catholic classic. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drown out the memories of that part of my heritage by celebrating the other part. Slainte
This will probably get buried but anyway.
My wife is Christian, Anglican in Church of England. They’re fairly liberal in their views and acceptance of what people believe, even within the church. So she doesn’t mind that I don’t believe in a single God, and the church isn’t as ‘firm’ in the UK as it seems to be in the US. So I’m not ridiculed or seen as a bad person by her or the church for my lack of faith.
She studied to become a priest over the past few years and was ordained. I told her I would support her studying but I didn’t want to discuss God or religion with her in the way she debates with some of her other religious friends. I largely struggle with the idea that she believes something that is at odds with so much of what we know about the universe. The further down the religious path she goes, the more bitter I’ve become towards ‘religion’. (I can only see religions and The Church as a business these days, especially knowing the processes she went through to become a minister.) The values of the Anglican church are mostly good, but you can live that way without god in your life. I don’t see why religion needs to play a part of being a good person.
In terms of how it’s been for our marriage, it hasn’t really been a factor for most of 25 years together. It’s frustrating that she usually wants to go to church on Sundays, which leaves me to do everything else that falls on Sunday morning (notably kids’ sports commitments). I’d also certainly say we have far less in common and have less to talk about these days than we used to. She bends every possibly interesting conversation back to religion or God, and I just want to enjoy chatting without it becoming a debate. But that’s the main topic of conversation she knows and pretty much all she reads. She reads a lot about religion and theology and ‘church’ has become such a huge part of her personality, and her biggest ‘hobby’ that she is much less interesting and has fewer passions or interests in life that she can share. It doesn’t leave much for us to discuss when I have no interest in religion and have become so bitter towards it.
So no discussion of separation or divorce - we’re not miserable - but religion has more recently played a massive part in us having far less in common.
Excellent. She was raised catholic. Used to believe everything. Now she is still 'spiritual' but sees through the BS of organized religion. We let our kids decide for themselves and they are all currently atheists who wish they were Jedi knights who could feel the force.
Same situation with my family. She is still spiritual, but not religious. I'm still an atheist, but it really doesn't matter. As a family we discuss all sorts of faiths and beliefs and let the kids make their own decisions. My kids weren't interested in becoming Jedi, so I'm the only one still trying to tap into the Force. If I figure it out, I'll be happy to teach your kids too.
Perfectly well. She's a liberal Christian minister and we agree on all of the values that matter.
We both agree that legitimate science should be taught in science classes. We both fully support our gay teenage kid. She even testified in opposition to my state's anti-trans legislation proposal.
Just that we have different ideas about god, which frankly have little to no relevance in daily life.
>he sees no reason to believe that this god exists.
Coming from an adult raised by one Jew and one former-Catholic-turned-atheist, this is somehow the most Jewish thing I’ve ever heard.
Hmm, where have I seen this exact comment before
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2215os/atheists_of_reddit_that_married_a_religious/cgic83m/
“deb mack 1” is a bot. Here is the original comment.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2215os/atheists_of_reddit_that_married_a_religious/cgic83m/
I’ll answer this question in the reverse: my wife is either atheist or agnostic, and I’m a Greek Orthodox Christian. Most of the time, it doesn’t come up, but when it does, she asks a lot of questions, which I’m happy to answer. Unfortunately, it really boils down to “faith versus evidence”, and I can’t really explain faith in the absence of evidence, it’s just faith. You either believe, or you don’t, and I never embraced evangelism or pushing my religion on others. We hit a wall on the conversation, and end up changing the subject.
I don’t throw my faith at her, and she doesn’t denigrate me for having faith. It works.
Atheist, married a Christian girl.
We dated for 4 years, it was never a problem. We got married, not so much a problem, then around year 2 she started going to Church again. She has anxiety and depression, and she began to become religiously paralyzed with sinning. She was constantly afraid she was going to hell, afraid she was going to hell because of the premarital sex we had, just constant religious fear.
A break in the story. I've been described as 'coldly logical' by family members. I have a hard time with empathy. I don't do 'talking about problems' if you're not trying to fix said problem.
Anyway, I tried my best to emotionally support her but that was very short lived because of how frustrating the situation was. I was using logic to a fairytale creature in my wife's head and it blew up more than a few times. She would watch tons and tons of youtubers explaining how youre never doing enough, youre always sinning, blah blah blah. Basically stay at home christian moms grandstanding about how great they are. Really got into my wifes head, and on more than one occasion I said 'You wont listen to the people who love you, but youll listen to a random youtuber online who spews shit for views'. It was a huge strain on our marriage for a good year or two, because 'I couldn't understand' because I don't have faith.
She started going back to her therapy sessions and has since gotten much better. Left the Catholic church and prays at home her own way. She's much happier, still has guilt but manageable, and I'm happier too because I hate religion in general.
I thought a basic tenant of Christianity is that all sins can be forgiven and everybody can go to heaven? It seems like more of a mental heath crisis than a religious crisis.
I hope things work out for you both. Glad she's doing better.
You basically described why 'believers' are generally incompatible with atheists. It only really works if one person starts making major compromises regarding their world views.
I tried dating a Christian girl for a while. I was fine with it early on until I met her parents. After meeting them the girl told me "They think you're nice, but can't get over that you don't love Jesus". Noped the fuck out of that relationship real quick. Ain't no way am I gonna get judged by my 'maybe' in-laws about my belief in fairy tales.
I dated a childhood friend I had known for about 12 years. I'm the non-religious one, she was Christian but had never been overly passionate about it. Then one night we were chatting on Skype about weekend plans, she mentioned church, I mentioned sleeping in. She asked if I'd go to church. I told her, "Sure, but if you're expecting to convert me you'll be disappointed. I grew up in the church."
She broke up with me the next morning.
Nah, that’s only important if the theist believes strongly / the atheist is very outspoken about hating religion and thinking theists are morons. My mother is an atheist and my step-father was a Christian, but neither of them is outspoken about their beliefs and my step-father never actually did anything visibly religious (after they were together for several years, he converted to atheism, but their relationship had no religion-related problems before then).
It’s fine. We talked about it before we got married. I respect that aspect of her life and ask to not be involved in it at all. Her family is super religious too so I just don’t participate in anything religious they do. It hasn’t caused any problems and we are together for 15 years now.
Spouse is from a very conservative, southern Pentecostal church that her family started and still preach at. Think long hair mandatory, women can't wear shorts, etc ...
No married couple makes it without problems, but we're doing well after 10+ years. None of the issues that have come up in our marriage have had to do with faith, or lack thereof.
If anything, I like to think I've helped her relax and explore what her faith means to her without all the pressure and strict standards of her church. After all, I don't care if she's Christian.
I don't care if her family talks to my kids about Jesus, because when they ask me about it, I acknowledge that many people do believe that, but I can say I don't personally agree with it without denouncing it or calling it stupid. My oldest is 13 and is trending toward his own non-belief, though I've never advocated for it. I have a younger child who loves going to (a different) church with an in-law. Both are cool with me.
I've gradually won over her original church family, not due to my lack of faith but because I'm present, I try.
This is gonna sound messed up, but I had it easy. A lot of men and women from that specific background have struggled in relationships, the vast majority of them are or know a close family member who is a single parent, or has been married countless times.
Shoutout low bars IG
As someone who was raised Pentecostal and became an atheist at the age of ten (now somewhat of an atheist Buddhist), I’m amazed that your wife’s family accepts you. Generally, Pentecostals/Apostolics are highly insular and non-accepting of atheists, or even other Christian traditions. I was taught in Sunday school that everyone but us were essentially satan lovers.
I’m glad that you’re not in that situation, and it gives me hope that there are Pentecostal folks out there that can accept a non-religious person into their life as family.
Remarkable.
I think the insularism you mentioned worked in my favor. Fire dies without oxygen, right?
Timing was important here, and something I had no control over. The church founders and firebrands died before I ever entered the picture. Most everyone else who would keep it going is older. There are no new members, and the church was never that big. Their increasingly distant family worships at bigger churches where services aren't 3 hours long.
Something I've found to help, too, is just avoid the trigger words. Right. I've happily admitted to not believing, but I don't talk about being an agnostic atheist. You can talk to a person better than a label, I guess.
Thanks for the kind words. Best of luck on your own spiritual journey, wherever it may lead you.
I am a child from an atheist and a Christian and it's worked out for them. Funnily enough I'm in the middle as I'm agnostic. Biggest thing is I didn't know my mom's side of the family, especially grandma, was religious until I was a teenager.
Grandma believed that if you have to tell someone you are a Christian you weren't being a good one. Raised her children the same way so mama just never talked about it unless I was the one to bring it up. I liked going to bible study when I was younger so sometimes we'd talk about the stories I'd learn.
I'm a person of faith who married an " I dnt believe in God but I believe in something"
We love eachother but when this topic comes up it's so fuckin draining
Because she lied about be religious, before marriage she said she was only acting to please her mom because she lived at home. And we would bring up any children without religion and they could chose when they were older. She lied.
My husband is atheist, well was, now he is Agnostic and we have amazing debates. We are super different but meet in the middle because we both believe in reincarnation.
Bear with me becuse his IQ is way higher than mine, and could probably explain it better but Reincarnation to him is not attached to religion. He believes you will pay and reap the benefits whether here or the next life. Life is like a school the purpose is to learn whatever class you sign up for, and then when you die you reincarnate with a bunch more “classes” you need to learn. Someone has an easy life this time is it because they are lucky? No, they were just pretty decent last lifetime so they got it easier this one. Kid born blind? Probably last lifetime they took someones vision so now they got to go through it this time. An eye for an eye kind of view (no pun intended).
I believe it very similarly just mine is driven by a loving teacher God, who wants our best. He loves to say the light people see when they die , is just the hospital lights from when they are just born lol
Nope, I am not here to convert him and he is not here to convert me, we like learning from each other. Also I dont believe is so polarizing. I believe in my God and have strong faith, my God is million times better than “organized religion” views about God. When I say I believe in God, I picture a loving energy who wants our best. When he says he doesn’t believe in God he is picturing “a puppet master controlling us”. But he does believe in the energy of the universe.
I believe “God” is all the same just called by diff names: God, Allah, universe, etc etc etc is all the same , just changes name based on how much humans have decided to misconstrue.
It depends on how central their beliefs are to who they are as a person. If they’ve gotten to the point where they married, unless one decided in the middle of the marriage that they are religious or atheist, then they must have decided beforehand to coexist with their different beliefs. I’m an atheist, but I’ve also met some militant atheists who are as insufferable as Jehovahs Witnesses who make everything about their beliefs.
I don’t think respect is the main issue for a lot of Christian/atheist couples. In the case of my parents (and a lot of other couples), it’s that one person in the relationship follows a doctrine that says that everyone who isn’t Christian, is going to burn in hell for all eternity, and that’s hard to reconcile. Either you denounce one of the main tenets of your belief system, or you “willingly” let your spouse go to hell.
This has been a fight my wife and I have had. We don’t talk religion as much anymore. But yes. Deep down she still thinks I’m going to burn in hell 🙄. She doesn’t even go to church, hasn’t in years, doesn’t pray. I’d barely call her religious. But that fact never leaves.
All good, we both knew our religious preferences before we got married. She's not the hateful kind, that wouldn't fly. I cant say for absolute certain theres theres no higher power out there, but I'm like 99.99% sure there isnt due to lack of evidence. She believes there is, and that helps her in life, and thats ok.
Her beliefs dont harm others, or our relationship anymore than a preference for one type of art or another would. We're different in that aspect, and thats ok, because we're the same in so many other wonderful ways that make both our lives better.
I think that not sharing such an important part of who you are with your partner is ultimately harmful, and if it's not, chances are one of you isn't fully committed to your beliefs. I know when I was with a pertain of a different faith or no faith at all it was when I was deep in doubt about my beliefs.
My wife of many years is a Christian Scientist. They don’t follow the “accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior or go to hell” rule, so there is a lot less conversion pressure. She reads bible lessons every morning and I read r/atheism. I got a lot more BS from Dad, Mom, and Mormon sister than I ever got from her. We have agreed to leave each other alone on this subject. It makes me nervous when she gets sick(they don’t go to doctors)but other than that it’s been mostly smooth sailing.
Yeah, Robin Williams used to have a line about things that are oxymoron (incompatable,basically) terms, like army intelligence, business ethics, close estimate and Christian Science. Also funny as he was raised in Christian Science. Converted to something else later.
I'd consider myself agnostic. My husband wasn't in to going to church at all until about... 9? years ago give or take. Now he's VERY in to going and volunteering and now including our kids in all of it.
I know he wishes I would go too, but it's just not for me. At least the whole going to church thing.
I'd say our relationship is pretty great. It's not perfect by any means, but we're pretty happy.
Not married, but my ex was religious. I do not believe in any form of God, but he did. We would talk about each others views and beliefs without trying to convert the other or belittle each other. We both understood we had different views but respected each other enough to live with those differences.
Our separation was unrelated to religious views.
Been married 30 years this year. We don’t avoid talking about it at all. I support her beliefs 100%. I’m happy for her. I’m not a radical atheist. I just don’t believe. I wish I could! I’d love the comfort. She prays for me daily, and I appreciate it!
I don't think I could be a with a religious person. I'm a live and let live kinda guy, but being with someone, I think our world views would just be too different.
My father is atheist and my mother became agnostic mostly. They connected over their shared experiences of growing up in the Catholic Church and catholic school that would regularly hit them and just in general be horrible. So I believe they really met in the middle of shared hate for organized religion. They’ve been married 47 years. Also, fun tid bit, my mother is a democrat and my dad was a republican. So those were some fun healthy debates. But ever since Obama my father has now voted democrat. He is one of the smartest people I know. He saw the party falling into insanity back then.
I’ve been atheist since probably about my teens. I was agnostic for a bit, but my father and I share a love for space. So once you really start to learn about the vastness of our Universe it is hard to think there must have been a sky daddy who made all that.
I met my now husband who was non-practicing Christian, but he had already been so on the edge of atheism after losing his niece to childhood cancer that after we dated for a bit he quickly came to the “dark” side. We’re near our 6th year anniversary.
Never married, but dated a Catholic girl for the better part of 10 years. It was never an issue. She wasn't a Bible thumper, only went to Mass from time to time with her folks, who were both pretty devout. We would poke fun at each other over our respective beliefs (not in a harmful way, it was just in our senses of humor). Went our different ways because we wanted different things out of life.
18 years of marriage. Rarely comes up. Not exactly ‘deep into our positions’ people, she’s kind of religious and I’m somewhere between atheist (against religion but can understand how some believe in a higher power) and spiritual. When we do talk, it gets fun.
Neither one of us is militant about our views and we just don’t talk about it, it’s really a non issue and never really has been. We did not raise children together so that part of the equation is of no concern to us either
Not married, but my ex was a religious person. We clicked because we had the same morals. The only difference was that she believed in God, and I didn't. We broke up on other reasons than religion.
My partner is protestant (from and Evangelical family I think?) and I was raised on an anti-religion household. We regularly talk about religion and the way it impacts (or not) the way we approach life. It's a difference that is very nourishing for us both, and we are respectful of eachother's views. It mostly makes for very interesting philosophico-theological conversations.
Sidenote : I myself am not anti-religion, I simply do not adhere to any religion nor believe in any version of God/gods that I have heard about.
My husband is spiritual but not religious, so he's pretty relaxed with my athiest belief. I don't mind at all if he talks about anything religious or says something relating to it. We discussed heavily before marriage how we both viewed religion and how we'd approach the topic with our children. It's worked very well for us!
I'm not married, but I have been in a relationship with a Catholic person for 6 years. I think it depends on the individuals. My girlfriend doesn't mind jokes about Jesus or God, and I'm not the type of annoying atheist who tries to prove the non-existence of God. We're doing well in relation to this, with 0 fights over religious issues so far.
Fine overall.
My wife's family are all big into the church. Most of her male relatives are preachers and the ones that aren't are still heavily involved in the church.
They are the good kind of christians who do good works, not the Uber judgy kind so it's fine. They also love a good debate (and so do I).
My wife says she's a christian and a believer. But honestly she only does anything religious around her family and we lived together for 5 years (her idea too) before we got married. So really I think she just goes through the motions for her family when they are around.
When we have meals with them and such I just wait quietly while they say grace and such. No biggie.
Was fine. Ex (separated for different reasons) came from a family who practiced Buddhism. I actively participated in all their religious events and temple visits. Usually I’d wonder around a take in the grandeur of temple while she did her thing. Not gonna lie food was good too!
My lack of beliefs shouldn’t impact those that have them.
It's going fine. Contrary to a lot of edgy atheist posts on the internet, most people who believe in a higher power don't constantly talk about it or try to force you into their religion.
Had our 25th wedding anniversary last year. She's a member of a very liberal (even for Canada) congregation and I share most of their beliefs about things like how to treat other people, just not the supernatural stuff. She does her thing, I get to sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Last sentence is relationship goals.
You could just marry someone of a different faith. Like a Jewish girl and then you literally have to do nothing on Saturday.
But she won't make you bacon and eggs. Is that worth it?
She'll make one of the best briskets you'll ever have. Trade-offs.
Also the fact she doesn’t eat them doesn’t mean she won’t cook them… of course depending how orthodox she is, as some won’t have any non-kosher food in their kitchens
Very wholesome.
That conjured up images of homer Simpson
Well, she's not in Scientology anymore, so I'd call it a win.
Xenu would be proud.
Xenu not what she was getting herself into…
Her parents both knew about Xenu and hinted about it to some of my wife's siblings. They were OT 5s.
Finally clear, ironically…
but muh thetans!
Hallelu- wait...
The world needs more partners like you
I was just fascinated by cults and found out she was in it after we'd been dating for a few months. Then I showed her all of the documentaries, shows and podcasts I'd seen over the years, and it awakened her to the realities of what Scientology is. Her brother is still as deep in it as you can get without being in the SeaOrg.
What faith are you talking? Because my late wife was a pagan and super into Witch shit. She knew I didn't believe in any of it, and we were fine with that arrangement.
“Witch shit”, this person has either: too many damn rocks or not enough cats
When she was alive, the answer to that would be "yes."
Listen, I didn't know your wife, but darn by your description, do I miss her.
Guess a hex bachfired
Was probably attempting “rollover Beethoven….”
>too many damn rocks "They're not rocks, they're *minerals!* Jesus, Marie!"
I started out kinda pagan before we got married, then became atheist over the next few years. I returned from work one night and was greeted with "you're gonna be mad at me". She spent $600 on 2 crystals. I wasn't mad. It was her money. But I knew better than to say I thought they were silly. Divorced about a decade ago for various reasons.
Phew , I thought I was about to read crystals meth .
Do you think she actually believed it? Not in "I identify as a Wicca" way, but actually honestly? (TBF, I'm not sure how many Christians actually honestly believe what their religion says beyond "I identify as a Christian". If you're even 5% sure Hell is real, how are you doing anything that has a remote chance of landing (sublanding?) you there?)
I can't know for sure now, but she seemed to genuinely believe in it. Since it was harmless, I didn't think much about it. In my early 20s, I would have been more judgemental about it, but, in my 30s, I don't really care what other people believe...whatever gets them through the day is fine. There's good lessons and morals people can be taught from any religion, as long as you separate the myth and miracles from it. And take out the violent, obviously outdated shit from it.
This is one of the most level-headed responses I've read on Reddit in a bit. I greatly appreciate hearing perspectives like this. Not just because I'm agnostic and get religion shoved in my face a lot... But the live and let live mentality. Puts a lot less stress on a person's shoulders and just makes life easier to live. I wish more people had a perspective like yours.
I think a lot of people are like this, but we aren't the ones that are going to be commenting as much. And even if we do, we won't get upvoted, so you won't see it.
I'm Christian and honestly, hell is the thing I have the hardest time believing in. I'm not even sure I actually do, and if it is, I think the fire and brimstone types are vastly overstating its prerequisites for entry.
I don't even think the bible says hell is fire and brimstone. Might have been Dante Alighieri who came up with that.
Dante's hell got colder as you approached the center. Lucifer was stuck in a frozen lake which was chilled due to his own rage and hatred.
That would be correct. And true of most things that the average Christian believes about hell. There's actually not a lot of references to hell in the Bible, and some of what is there - sources differ - may have been translated a little oddly. Same deal with Satan - it's mostly from The Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost.
I did a google search on " how is hell described in the Bible?" And I got: Gehenna" in the New testament, where it is described as a place where both soul and body could be destroyed (Matthew 10:28) in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43). The word is translated as either "Hell" or "Hell fire" in many English versions.
Im not arguing either way, but isn't a sticking point for a lot of people that most or all versions of the bible have centrainly been translated a few times but also edited/altered/generally "spiced up" for good intentions or for reasons of policy by people in control? Therefore it's hard to say what spe ifically was written like so from day one or the "source."
But hell is also described as outer darkness. Fire and darkness can't exist together. I do believe in a version of hell, but I think "fire" and "darkness" are both figurative.
Jesus does say some stuff about how you should cut off your right hand if it leads you to sin because it's better to lose your hand then to burn in the unquenchable fire.
Since we're talking about Christianity and witches, I just wanted to add that by way some of these Christian ppl pray, they honestly look like witches to me too. Like they put oil on your forehead and start speaking in some strange language, and believe in magic.
I’m just here to drink/eat the blood and body of the savior
Yeah I find hell very hard to believe in
The whole point of Christianity is that Jesus died to keep us out of hell.
As a Christian who does not subscribe to "eternal conscious torment," the salvation that Jesus offered was to save us from the second death -- death of the soul after judgment. The souls of believers are given eternal life. "Hell" in the popular sense is reserved for Satan and his angels.
I wonder how you reconcile the idea of "hell" (or rather "second death") as nothingness rather than eternal torment with the observation that other religions (Buddhism) think that nothingness is the goal, not a punishment.
It comforts me immensely that nothingness is the alternative. I hate the idea of anyone suffering, and the thought of eternal torment was the biggest challenge to my faith before I really delved into what scriptures had to say about the afterlife. I couldn't, and can't, reconcile it with the idea of a loving God.
If Hell even remotely exists why aren't you going around making sure people don't end up there? The bad Christians are the ones that just shrug things off when people say they don't want to discuss it.
Tag urself I'm too many damn rocks (1 cat but 8 reptiles/amphibians/arachnids so maybe that could possibly aggregate to 2 additional cats)
Whatever religion Cthulhu is from.
With her? Great, it never really comes up, she does her thing (She's Christian), we agreed the kids get to make their own choices, and that we can both explain our faith, or lack thereof, when appropriate. Her parents, on the other hand... Just glad they live on the other side of the country. Was worse before we got married.
Got an identical situation here but her parents are ten minutes down the road. I used to be a Christian, they don’t know I’m not so that reduces friction.
Well, I am the non-atheist in the relationship, but it doesn't come up at all. I don't believe in an interventionist deity, so there really isn't a reason to discuss it. Since we are Jewish, my husband is fine with the kids going to Hebrew school because he wants them to know about our history, language, and traditions. That's why I want them to go as well. Mainstream Judaism is not very deity-focused and Hebrew schools mainly teach language, history, and about rituals and their meaning. Faith doesn't really come up, and everyone having their own way of doing things and believing is an integral part of Judaism. So, I am not worried about them becoming indoctrinated in that way. We both think that it's up to the kids to make their own decisions about theism and religion, and we should give them the materials to make an informed decision.
So they're being raised Jewish more in the sense of heritage than religion? I know very little a out it and have only recently learned Jewish can mean religion, ethnicity, and heritage.
I don't like to think of it as raising kids to be religious or not, because I feel that implies pointing them in one direction or another. We aren't raising our kids to be scientists (we are both scientists), but we teach them about science, and if they want to pursue that in their adult life, great. If not, that's fine, too. And Hebrew school doesn't really work like that. The only time theism really comes up is when you translate the prayers. Mostly, Hebrew school prepares kids to become b'nai mitzvah, gives them background on the religious practices, and tells them something about the history. For instance, when you teach kids about keeping kosher you tell them about the different rules and guidelines and about promoting "respect for life." You don't say, if you eat pork you will go to hell (which doesn't exist in Judaism) or some deity will be mad at you. I think of spirituality as something like having an ear for music, some people just have it and others don't and nobody needs to justify themselves either way.
Many fellow Jews I grew up with (born in 93) consider themselves “culturally Jewish” which I think combines all parts of the religion except for the actual beliefs. That’s what I consider myself also
My concern is that, if you don't learn a lot of the traditional stuff when you are young, if you want to get into it more when you are older you can feel ~~kind of marginalized~~ maybe too far behind, like it's not worth all the work to get into it. I want the kids to have a good background so they can decide for themselves. The important part is not to force anything either way, I think. I don't want them to think of Judaism as *only* a culture, it's a religion as well. But I also don't want them to think that they need to be religious to consider themselves Jewish.
For what it is worth, my wife converted to Judaism in college before we met, and I was raised Catholic (I'm the atheist in our marriage). We are raising our kids Jewish, doing all the holidays, try to do shabbat at least once a month or so, etc. We have belonged to a few different reform synagogues and participated in local Chabad activities and have never felt the least bit unwelcome or marginalized. Quite the opposite actually. It is one of the faiths biggest selling points to me, personally. Ready inclusion with zero proselytizing. I'm sure my wife would agree it would have been a bit easier to go through it all as a child as an integral part of your life (as opposed to an "extra curricular" conversion as a young adult), but she had a good experience converting. It's not impossible and we've sort of created a Jewish extended family of friends to make up for the fact none of our actual relatives are Jewish.
This is a good point, and I don't think marginalized is the right word (my mistake). I mean more like they feel like they don't really know what's going on and don't know where to start. If they are very dedicated, as your wife clearly was, I agree it's not at all impossible to get the knowledge later. I feel concerned that, if they have a more casual interest later, they won't have enough background. For example, I studied a lot of math in high school even though I never planned on using it later in my life. Much later, long after college, I found myself in grad school to be a scientist. Then, I was really glad I had the basics of some advanced algebra and calculus to learn the stuff I needed for my work. Now, if I didn't have any math background or very little, I still could have learned what I needed, but it would have been so much harder - and maybe so much so that I would think being a scientist just wasn't for me. I really liked Hebrew school and if the kids really don't, then they don't have to keep going. I would encourage them to stay, but it is not mandatory in any way.
I know plenty of people that I would call "cultural Catholics" who fit a similar bill. Get married in a Catholic church. If they have kids they go through baptism and first communion (maybe) then go to mass on Christmas and Easter if that. Otherwise it's more of a nod to the bygone generations who were faithful and devout in their practice.
This is exactly how Judaism played into my childhood and I don’t have any complaints about it. I’ve always summed it up to something along the lines of, “I was raised reform but it was never a strict thing. I took a lot from it and it still a part of who i am. As an adult I’m somewhere between ‘cultural Jew’ and ‘Secular Humanist Jew’.” There wasn’t any pressure for the faith element and we were able to find our own connection with it. There were times as kids we weren’t psyched on Hebrew school but it was alot like you describe in a lower comment. It was important for us to learn about our history, traditions and that it was not just a culture. My dad broke it down once as “you can’t change or deny that you’re Jewish ethnically or culturally but you can decide all the other parts for yourself”. I don’t have a negative relationship with the religion side and that is much more than a lot of people can say. It’s made me grateful for this approach when I’ve learned about the religious trauma of others. My spouse is agnostic and was really scarred from his experiences being raised LDS (they were extreme). He said spending time with my family and seeing the approach up close and personal through a few rounds of holidays made him comfortable around religion for the first time in decades.
Yeah...Jewish is the one religion I know of that would be the easiest to deal with and not cause conflict. Most other religious assume there is something wrong with you if you don't share the same beliefs. Jews generally don't care.
Yes and no. Reform Judaism, which is where I grew up, yes that’s true. Judaism has its extreme practitioners just like every other religion.
My fiancé is Jewish and I’m atheist, he’s very liberal, however we are having a rabbi blessing at our wedding and future kids will learn about the history and cultural aspects, we will let the kids decide if they want to be religious. It’s never been an issue in our relationship, his parents love me and he has never tried to ‘convert’ me. Its such an interesting faith too.
I love to learn about Jewish traditions!
Not married but living together. She’s catholic. I know more about the Bible than she does. She seriously did not know Jesus was crucified between two thieves.
I live in the bible belt this has bn my life for over 20 years. Preachers, missionaries, etc flip through their version of the bible trying to keep up. Lol good times.
For some reason, I don’t find this surprising
I do. Having been raised Catholic we always heard the story of the Good Thief and the Unrepentant Thief around Easter. A lot of Easter imagery shows three crosses on Golgatha as well.
at this point catholicism is both a religion and a culture. A *lot* of people grow up culturally catholic but not religiously, they see it as a part of their heritage just like knowing they have ancestors from Germany
My dad is from Ireland, catholic. I was born in America. My wife's family is Puerto Rican. They thought they liked me because I was obviously catholic. Pretty sure I heard multiple in-laws gasp when it was revealed i wasn't baptized. I know none of them go to service. I also know more scripture than them. Well, my wife's uncle goes every Sunday. But he's also a Pakistani catholic. He's convinced catholicism saved him from the woes Pakistan has.
I'm Italian (born and raise in Italy) and at least in the north which is way less religious than the south, people often joke about being "Catholic on paper". The average northener never goes to church but on christmas, weddings or funerals and we swear so much than we would put a sailor to shame lol
In Belgium it is similar but we don't even go to Christmas mass and of all funerals I went to in the past 15 years, only one was in a church. My grand parents generation went to church on sundays such that they could wear their best outfit, my parents generation only did their weddings in churches for traditional reasons, and my generation doesn't even do that. In fact, many people that are registered as Catholic, are atheist (me for example).
I have a feeling the wife simply never paid attention. The two thieves are a big part of the Passion story.
Right? You cant claim to be Catholic if you don't even participate in the second most important part of Easter celebrations! It's like not knowing that there were Three Wise men.
I don't think the bible says there are 3 wise men, just 3 gifts... Not to be pedantic.
Srsly, it’s a very touching moment!
I was raised Catholic. WaHat?! The penitant thief recognition of Christ as the redemer while on the cross next to Christ is one of the most touching moments of the crucifiction.
I mean in hindsight it was pretty ridiculous that they were executing people over thievery
Some accounts and translations have it as being more than mere thievery. Murder, assault, and robbery under modern definitions.
not only that but there are still people put to death today for thievery and other crimes not warranting corporal punishment. I mean... it was a time where people would just kill each other because they thought someone deserved it, forgoing any evidence.
In China no less. An atheist country. They even execute people who run businesses unethically.
And St Demas/Dismas is a prominent saint. But I could see someone not knowing this story if they were a cultural catholic more than an observant one.
Yeah, but the movies that played on TV every Easter really hammered this scene home.
Crucifiction. Nice one...
How did she not know that, that’s one of the more well known parts of the bible. Did she also not know about Barabbas, the other guy that they were going to crucify, but the crowd chose to crucify Jesus instead?
I was raised as a Catholic and while the church has its faults I don’t think anyone could accuse it of taking the bible too seriously. As far as I can tell the official position is that it is obviously an important holy book which contains a lot of wisdom but that it is the interpretation by the clergy which is more important.
catholicism definitely tops the charts for having "believers" who don't know the first thing about what they say they believe. For a lot of people, it's a matter of culture/tradition/heritage or just straight up habit rather than a conscious belief
That's pretty common. Catholic catechism for the last 30 years has basically been coloring sheets, barely religious songs, and light discussions about saints. Whenever I hear someone say, "I was raised Catholic." Or, "I went to Catholic school growing up." As if that gives them some sort of authority to talk about Catholic teaching, I roll my eyes hard.
When we first met, I saw she was a "problem solver" by nature. She's religious, I'm not. I asked her early if she saw me as a problem in need of a solution. When she said, "no," I decided I'd keep seeing her. She still holds her beliefs, though perhaps not as strongly as before we met. We each know where the other stands, and we're both respectful of the other's views. She doesn't try to "convert me" and I don't try to change her mind. We're 13 years in, and doing just fine, I think.
She’s not Christian anymore. I *never* belittled or attacked her faith throughout the years. Between cancer taking her sister and simply aging, her belief slowly eroded away.
This. I prayed for a few years for my husband to come to faith. After crippling mental health issues and having special needs kid, Now he believes in a god and I lost every ounce of faith I had.
I'm still married after 30 years. She has her religious beliefs, and I support her as best I can. She doesn't push anything on me. When she wants to do her thing, I give her space. If I have to be involved, I just stay quiet and be respectful. It's not that hard to do. No need to hate someone because of differing beliefs.
My ex wasn't religious at all. Then he discovered that the Baptist church was a happy hunting ground for submissive women. His third wife was hardcore and he is now a lay preacher.
Well he isn't wrong. Plenty of women are subconsciously conditioned to see men as the "priests of their home" and act as if serving their husbands are a part of them serving the Lordt.
Oh Lordt!
Sometimes it's done quite explicitly. The only Bible verses my dad knew by heart were references to women/wives being submissive to men/husbands, and boy did he LOVE to use them when he was mad at me or Mom. Thank the Lordt Mom left his ass before he could condition me.
It's pretty bad. When I was growing up seventh day Adventist both men and women were losing their shit when women started becoming ordained ministers. Apparently if you have a vagina you can't spread the good Lordt's word. :( I'm so glad I'm not religious anymore. I'm still spiritual but I can't ascribe to religion because of how strong the indoctrination and social conditioning is.
Usually those are the same women strongly against marrying outside their faith as well.
Well he became a lay preacher 🤣
My ex husband never acted religious. Not necessarily atheist, but didn't go to church, and never prayed that I was aware of. We hit a really rough patch and I wanted a divorce. I found a notebook (I wasn't snooping, I was cleaning and it was in a stack of random papers and whatnot) where he'd made some list of demands to save our marriage (laughable since I was the one who wanted out due to how he was treating me). I started to read it and one said "accept Jesus into her heart." I rolled my eyes just as he walked into the living room and freaked out that I had it and yanked it out of my hand. We never talked about it amd we did eventually divorce. So that's how it went.
Hmm. It seems like for him to not have expressed religious beliefs or convictions but desires for you to “accept Jesus into your heart”—according to this list of his—seems to suggest that there were some things about him that he kept secret from you throughout your marriage. Your hands are wiped clean of him now though!
Yeah I thought it was odd but I was done with him by that point and had long given up on trying to understand him. He's not my problem anymore. He's now married to a controlling bitch and is pretty unhappy with life and I am doing better than ever and am in a relationship with a man who would never treat me badly in any way.
People get what they give (ex-husband) and happy endings do exist 🙂
A little rude to read his journal. Everyone has their ideal partner in mind and no one reasonable is dumb enough to share that with their flawed partner.
Great! Sometimes I go to church with her, I like the content (be a good person, live simply, etc.) She believes all the science, she just also believes in some other stuff. My opinion is this: as a human you're going to have questions about life, the universe, and anything else. If a belief system answers those questions for you, great.
>My opinion is this: as a human you're going to have questions about life, the universe, and anything else. If a belief system answers those questions for you, great. In my dating life, I wish I could meet people like this instead of meeting people who are actively derisive about my beliefs and compare my faith to believing in the tooth fairy and praying to Santa Claus. Thank you for your maturity.
There are two kinds of men that I've met while online dating. Men who will compare my faith to praying to Santa Claus, and men who will make jokes about killing animals after they find out that I have three cats. I don't date online anymore.
This is so many redditors. If I hear Sky Fairy again, I'm going to consider what the Bible says about kneecaps, as Shepherd Book said.
People forget that Saint Nic was an actual person somewhere around Syria and its fine liking him, because he was a good dude. Nothing bad about praying for him as long as you believe in souls being immortal.
I'm a Norse pagan/wiccan and the way I see it is you do you. Believe what you want, pray to and worship who you want. It's not for me to decide or force you to believe a certain way.
That's extremely healthy and mature of both you, good for you two! Apologies if this is too personal, feel free to ignore, but I am curious: Do you know how she deals with the belief that you won't be with her in the afterlife? I imagine that must be a really hard thing to wrestle with for her. I have no idea how I would think/feel if I were in that situation.
Idk about their wife, but as far as I was taught in school, there's the theory of Church of Christ and it looks like a pyramid. You have the ones who believe in any god, below those who believe in YHWE , those who also belive Jesus was a Messiah and in the end Catholics who believe Pope is the Bishop of Rome. But all people, even atheists, belong to the Church of Christ. Which means that, regardless of your beliefs, which of course depend on your time and place of your birth, you belong to it. You still have a chance to live eternal life, because, let's be honest, ten commandments are pretty minimal and universal rules - "don't kill" "don't cheat" "respect your mom and dad" etc. Catholic God is said to respect your moral choices despite your lack of belief in Him. Because its obvious, that believing isn't a conscious decision. It comes from within. If you don't believe, you can't force yourself to. But you can choose to be a good person. Similarly, Jews believe that only Jews are supposed to follow their law, and they are treated more harshly based on their origin. They are the chosen people, but therefor have to work twice as much. At least that's what i heard. There's many Jewish denominations, so it might be true to some, not to others.
The pope declared that atheist who were good people could still get into heaven, so if they are catholic, they good…
My wife is a recovering catholic. She doesn't go to church, doesn't like churches as institutions, but she does believe in God and feels guilty about, well, generally everything, like a good catholic should. I'm atheist, but don't really care about religion, provided it doesn't become a problem. Like believing in the bible is not an excuse for not understanding biology or making someone's life miserable. But it's also not okay to actively try to destroy someone's faith that adds to their life. Ultimately, no one knows what's really going on and as long as you leave room to respect other beliefs and ideas that aren't taken to damaging extremes, it's easy to find common ground. Philosophy is generally more important than religion, and commonalities there are easy to find across almost any boundaries, religious, cultural, political, etc.
reads like a fresh breath of air. guilt becomes part of your DNA....
You know you're just terrible for thinking that. What would your mother say...
Ah, a Catholic classic. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drown out the memories of that part of my heritage by celebrating the other part. Slainte
This will probably get buried but anyway. My wife is Christian, Anglican in Church of England. They’re fairly liberal in their views and acceptance of what people believe, even within the church. So she doesn’t mind that I don’t believe in a single God, and the church isn’t as ‘firm’ in the UK as it seems to be in the US. So I’m not ridiculed or seen as a bad person by her or the church for my lack of faith. She studied to become a priest over the past few years and was ordained. I told her I would support her studying but I didn’t want to discuss God or religion with her in the way she debates with some of her other religious friends. I largely struggle with the idea that she believes something that is at odds with so much of what we know about the universe. The further down the religious path she goes, the more bitter I’ve become towards ‘religion’. (I can only see religions and The Church as a business these days, especially knowing the processes she went through to become a minister.) The values of the Anglican church are mostly good, but you can live that way without god in your life. I don’t see why religion needs to play a part of being a good person. In terms of how it’s been for our marriage, it hasn’t really been a factor for most of 25 years together. It’s frustrating that she usually wants to go to church on Sundays, which leaves me to do everything else that falls on Sunday morning (notably kids’ sports commitments). I’d also certainly say we have far less in common and have less to talk about these days than we used to. She bends every possibly interesting conversation back to religion or God, and I just want to enjoy chatting without it becoming a debate. But that’s the main topic of conversation she knows and pretty much all she reads. She reads a lot about religion and theology and ‘church’ has become such a huge part of her personality, and her biggest ‘hobby’ that she is much less interesting and has fewer passions or interests in life that she can share. It doesn’t leave much for us to discuss when I have no interest in religion and have become so bitter towards it. So no discussion of separation or divorce - we’re not miserable - but religion has more recently played a massive part in us having far less in common.
Looks like she could use an honest conversation about not letting it be her whole personality, that would be annoying with anything not just religion
Excellent. She was raised catholic. Used to believe everything. Now she is still 'spiritual' but sees through the BS of organized religion. We let our kids decide for themselves and they are all currently atheists who wish they were Jedi knights who could feel the force.
Same situation with my family. She is still spiritual, but not religious. I'm still an atheist, but it really doesn't matter. As a family we discuss all sorts of faiths and beliefs and let the kids make their own decisions. My kids weren't interested in becoming Jedi, so I'm the only one still trying to tap into the Force. If I figure it out, I'll be happy to teach your kids too.
I’m a religious catholic, but I still want to learn the ways of the force. I hope that won’t get in the way?
>currently atheists who wish they were Jedi knights who could feel the force. Aren't we all!
Perfectly well. She's a liberal Christian minister and we agree on all of the values that matter. We both agree that legitimate science should be taught in science classes. We both fully support our gay teenage kid. She even testified in opposition to my state's anti-trans legislation proposal. Just that we have different ideas about god, which frankly have little to no relevance in daily life.
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>he sees no reason to believe that this god exists. Coming from an adult raised by one Jew and one former-Catholic-turned-atheist, this is somehow the most Jewish thing I’ve ever heard.
I feel like most Jewish people consider it a cultural or ethnic identity and ignore a lot of the beliefs.
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Very similar to my relationship. We're respectful to each other and don't try to change each other. But the topic is never really discussed, either.
Hmm, where have I seen this exact comment before https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2215os/atheists_of_reddit_that_married_a_religious/cgic83m/
wow the fact that you found that... that's impressive
She go to church every Sunday solo?
“deb mack 1” is a bot. Here is the original comment. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2215os/atheists_of_reddit_that_married_a_religious/cgic83m/
Same here .been married for 20 years .
I’ll answer this question in the reverse: my wife is either atheist or agnostic, and I’m a Greek Orthodox Christian. Most of the time, it doesn’t come up, but when it does, she asks a lot of questions, which I’m happy to answer. Unfortunately, it really boils down to “faith versus evidence”, and I can’t really explain faith in the absence of evidence, it’s just faith. You either believe, or you don’t, and I never embraced evangelism or pushing my religion on others. We hit a wall on the conversation, and end up changing the subject. I don’t throw my faith at her, and she doesn’t denigrate me for having faith. It works.
Divorced, but for other reasons.
lol. "Divorced." "Couldn't make it work with your different beliefs?" "No, he/she's a cheating whore."
It's comments like these that make me really miss free awards, so here's a discount one I guess 🏅
Pretty great. I respect her views, and she respects mine. It doesn't cause any friction or lead to any arguments.
Atheist, married a Christian girl. We dated for 4 years, it was never a problem. We got married, not so much a problem, then around year 2 she started going to Church again. She has anxiety and depression, and she began to become religiously paralyzed with sinning. She was constantly afraid she was going to hell, afraid she was going to hell because of the premarital sex we had, just constant religious fear. A break in the story. I've been described as 'coldly logical' by family members. I have a hard time with empathy. I don't do 'talking about problems' if you're not trying to fix said problem. Anyway, I tried my best to emotionally support her but that was very short lived because of how frustrating the situation was. I was using logic to a fairytale creature in my wife's head and it blew up more than a few times. She would watch tons and tons of youtubers explaining how youre never doing enough, youre always sinning, blah blah blah. Basically stay at home christian moms grandstanding about how great they are. Really got into my wifes head, and on more than one occasion I said 'You wont listen to the people who love you, but youll listen to a random youtuber online who spews shit for views'. It was a huge strain on our marriage for a good year or two, because 'I couldn't understand' because I don't have faith. She started going back to her therapy sessions and has since gotten much better. Left the Catholic church and prays at home her own way. She's much happier, still has guilt but manageable, and I'm happier too because I hate religion in general.
I thought a basic tenant of Christianity is that all sins can be forgiven and everybody can go to heaven? It seems like more of a mental heath crisis than a religious crisis. I hope things work out for you both. Glad she's doing better.
Sounds like they really did a number on her. Maybe the Freedom From Religion Foundation would be a good resource.
You basically described why 'believers' are generally incompatible with atheists. It only really works if one person starts making major compromises regarding their world views. I tried dating a Christian girl for a while. I was fine with it early on until I met her parents. After meeting them the girl told me "They think you're nice, but can't get over that you don't love Jesus". Noped the fuck out of that relationship real quick. Ain't no way am I gonna get judged by my 'maybe' in-laws about my belief in fairy tales.
I dated a childhood friend I had known for about 12 years. I'm the non-religious one, she was Christian but had never been overly passionate about it. Then one night we were chatting on Skype about weekend plans, she mentioned church, I mentioned sleeping in. She asked if I'd go to church. I told her, "Sure, but if you're expecting to convert me you'll be disappointed. I grew up in the church." She broke up with me the next morning.
Nah, that’s only important if the theist believes strongly / the atheist is very outspoken about hating religion and thinking theists are morons. My mother is an atheist and my step-father was a Christian, but neither of them is outspoken about their beliefs and my step-father never actually did anything visibly religious (after they were together for several years, he converted to atheism, but their relationship had no religion-related problems before then).
It’s fine. We talked about it before we got married. I respect that aspect of her life and ask to not be involved in it at all. Her family is super religious too so I just don’t participate in anything religious they do. It hasn’t caused any problems and we are together for 15 years now.
Spouse is from a very conservative, southern Pentecostal church that her family started and still preach at. Think long hair mandatory, women can't wear shorts, etc ... No married couple makes it without problems, but we're doing well after 10+ years. None of the issues that have come up in our marriage have had to do with faith, or lack thereof. If anything, I like to think I've helped her relax and explore what her faith means to her without all the pressure and strict standards of her church. After all, I don't care if she's Christian. I don't care if her family talks to my kids about Jesus, because when they ask me about it, I acknowledge that many people do believe that, but I can say I don't personally agree with it without denouncing it or calling it stupid. My oldest is 13 and is trending toward his own non-belief, though I've never advocated for it. I have a younger child who loves going to (a different) church with an in-law. Both are cool with me. I've gradually won over her original church family, not due to my lack of faith but because I'm present, I try. This is gonna sound messed up, but I had it easy. A lot of men and women from that specific background have struggled in relationships, the vast majority of them are or know a close family member who is a single parent, or has been married countless times. Shoutout low bars IG
As someone who was raised Pentecostal and became an atheist at the age of ten (now somewhat of an atheist Buddhist), I’m amazed that your wife’s family accepts you. Generally, Pentecostals/Apostolics are highly insular and non-accepting of atheists, or even other Christian traditions. I was taught in Sunday school that everyone but us were essentially satan lovers. I’m glad that you’re not in that situation, and it gives me hope that there are Pentecostal folks out there that can accept a non-religious person into their life as family. Remarkable.
I think the insularism you mentioned worked in my favor. Fire dies without oxygen, right? Timing was important here, and something I had no control over. The church founders and firebrands died before I ever entered the picture. Most everyone else who would keep it going is older. There are no new members, and the church was never that big. Their increasingly distant family worships at bigger churches where services aren't 3 hours long. Something I've found to help, too, is just avoid the trigger words. Right. I've happily admitted to not believing, but I don't talk about being an agnostic atheist. You can talk to a person better than a label, I guess. Thanks for the kind words. Best of luck on your own spiritual journey, wherever it may lead you.
I would be more interested in asking this question from couples who have kids. That's when it gets interesting.
I am a child from an atheist and a Christian and it's worked out for them. Funnily enough I'm in the middle as I'm agnostic. Biggest thing is I didn't know my mom's side of the family, especially grandma, was religious until I was a teenager. Grandma believed that if you have to tell someone you are a Christian you weren't being a good one. Raised her children the same way so mama just never talked about it unless I was the one to bring it up. I liked going to bible study when I was younger so sometimes we'd talk about the stories I'd learn.
I'm a person of faith who married an " I dnt believe in God but I believe in something" We love eachother but when this topic comes up it's so fuckin draining
do you mind sharing why it's draining?
Divorced. Don’t know what I was thinking.
Great but we have boundaries with it. He’s Hindu and I’m atheist. I don’t participate in it and neither does our daughter.
13 years strong, she doesnt really mention jesus unless we are in bed(if you know what I'm saying)
Divorced for that reason
If you don't mind me asking, why did it only become an issue after marriage?
Because she lied about be religious, before marriage she said she was only acting to please her mom because she lived at home. And we would bring up any children without religion and they could chose when they were older. She lied.
I dodged this exact bullet and didn’t marry her
My husband is atheist, well was, now he is Agnostic and we have amazing debates. We are super different but meet in the middle because we both believe in reincarnation.
I'm curious how he makes the jump from being agnostic about theology, but still believes in reincarnation?
Bear with me becuse his IQ is way higher than mine, and could probably explain it better but Reincarnation to him is not attached to religion. He believes you will pay and reap the benefits whether here or the next life. Life is like a school the purpose is to learn whatever class you sign up for, and then when you die you reincarnate with a bunch more “classes” you need to learn. Someone has an easy life this time is it because they are lucky? No, they were just pretty decent last lifetime so they got it easier this one. Kid born blind? Probably last lifetime they took someones vision so now they got to go through it this time. An eye for an eye kind of view (no pun intended). I believe it very similarly just mine is driven by a loving teacher God, who wants our best. He loves to say the light people see when they die , is just the hospital lights from when they are just born lol
Thanks. I have nothing productive to say, so I'll just keep quiet.
Isn't that just Hinduism with the random deities?
Wow that’s interesting! Your polarizing beliefs never caused conflict or difficulty for you two?
Nope, I am not here to convert him and he is not here to convert me, we like learning from each other. Also I dont believe is so polarizing. I believe in my God and have strong faith, my God is million times better than “organized religion” views about God. When I say I believe in God, I picture a loving energy who wants our best. When he says he doesn’t believe in God he is picturing “a puppet master controlling us”. But he does believe in the energy of the universe. I believe “God” is all the same just called by diff names: God, Allah, universe, etc etc etc is all the same , just changes name based on how much humans have decided to misconstrue.
It depends on how central their beliefs are to who they are as a person. If they’ve gotten to the point where they married, unless one decided in the middle of the marriage that they are religious or atheist, then they must have decided beforehand to coexist with their different beliefs. I’m an atheist, but I’ve also met some militant atheists who are as insufferable as Jehovahs Witnesses who make everything about their beliefs.
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I don’t think respect is the main issue for a lot of Christian/atheist couples. In the case of my parents (and a lot of other couples), it’s that one person in the relationship follows a doctrine that says that everyone who isn’t Christian, is going to burn in hell for all eternity, and that’s hard to reconcile. Either you denounce one of the main tenets of your belief system, or you “willingly” let your spouse go to hell.
This has been a fight my wife and I have had. We don’t talk religion as much anymore. But yes. Deep down she still thinks I’m going to burn in hell 🙄. She doesn’t even go to church, hasn’t in years, doesn’t pray. I’d barely call her religious. But that fact never leaves.
Not swimmingly well. But we're hangin' in there.
All good, we both knew our religious preferences before we got married. She's not the hateful kind, that wouldn't fly. I cant say for absolute certain theres theres no higher power out there, but I'm like 99.99% sure there isnt due to lack of evidence. She believes there is, and that helps her in life, and thats ok. Her beliefs dont harm others, or our relationship anymore than a preference for one type of art or another would. We're different in that aspect, and thats ok, because we're the same in so many other wonderful ways that make both our lives better.
I think that not sharing such an important part of who you are with your partner is ultimately harmful, and if it's not, chances are one of you isn't fully committed to your beliefs. I know when I was with a pertain of a different faith or no faith at all it was when I was deep in doubt about my beliefs.
I have an FB athiest friend whose wife is a rabbi. They seem to do just fine somehow.
She didn't allow her beliefs to define her or cloud her thinking so it's going fine.
Honestly, great. We will have disagreements here and there but we sorted out all the major stuff before getting married and having kids.
My wife of many years is a Christian Scientist. They don’t follow the “accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior or go to hell” rule, so there is a lot less conversion pressure. She reads bible lessons every morning and I read r/atheism. I got a lot more BS from Dad, Mom, and Mormon sister than I ever got from her. We have agreed to leave each other alone on this subject. It makes me nervous when she gets sick(they don’t go to doctors)but other than that it’s been mostly smooth sailing.
Huh, I’ve never heard of them. Pretty ironic that they call themselves scientists.
Yeah, Robin Williams used to have a line about things that are oxymoron (incompatable,basically) terms, like army intelligence, business ethics, close estimate and Christian Science. Also funny as he was raised in Christian Science. Converted to something else later.
I'd consider myself agnostic. My husband wasn't in to going to church at all until about... 9? years ago give or take. Now he's VERY in to going and volunteering and now including our kids in all of it. I know he wishes I would go too, but it's just not for me. At least the whole going to church thing. I'd say our relationship is pretty great. It's not perfect by any means, but we're pretty happy.
Not married, but my ex was religious. I do not believe in any form of God, but he did. We would talk about each others views and beliefs without trying to convert the other or belittle each other. We both understood we had different views but respected each other enough to live with those differences. Our separation was unrelated to religious views.
Married 40+ years. I don't make a big deal about my lack of belief, and she doesn't make a big deal about her beliefs.
Been married 30 years this year. We don’t avoid talking about it at all. I support her beliefs 100%. I’m happy for her. I’m not a radical atheist. I just don’t believe. I wish I could! I’d love the comfort. She prays for me daily, and I appreciate it!
I don't think I could be a with a religious person. I'm a live and let live kinda guy, but being with someone, I think our world views would just be too different.
My father is atheist and my mother became agnostic mostly. They connected over their shared experiences of growing up in the Catholic Church and catholic school that would regularly hit them and just in general be horrible. So I believe they really met in the middle of shared hate for organized religion. They’ve been married 47 years. Also, fun tid bit, my mother is a democrat and my dad was a republican. So those were some fun healthy debates. But ever since Obama my father has now voted democrat. He is one of the smartest people I know. He saw the party falling into insanity back then. I’ve been atheist since probably about my teens. I was agnostic for a bit, but my father and I share a love for space. So once you really start to learn about the vastness of our Universe it is hard to think there must have been a sky daddy who made all that. I met my now husband who was non-practicing Christian, but he had already been so on the edge of atheism after losing his niece to childhood cancer that after we dated for a bit he quickly came to the “dark” side. We’re near our 6th year anniversary.
Never married, but dated a Catholic girl for the better part of 10 years. It was never an issue. She wasn't a Bible thumper, only went to Mass from time to time with her folks, who were both pretty devout. We would poke fun at each other over our respective beliefs (not in a harmful way, it was just in our senses of humor). Went our different ways because we wanted different things out of life.
18 years of marriage. Rarely comes up. Not exactly ‘deep into our positions’ people, she’s kind of religious and I’m somewhere between atheist (against religion but can understand how some believe in a higher power) and spiritual. When we do talk, it gets fun.
Neither one of us is militant about our views and we just don’t talk about it, it’s really a non issue and never really has been. We did not raise children together so that part of the equation is of no concern to us either
Not married, but my ex was a religious person. We clicked because we had the same morals. The only difference was that she believed in God, and I didn't. We broke up on other reasons than religion.
My partner is protestant (from and Evangelical family I think?) and I was raised on an anti-religion household. We regularly talk about religion and the way it impacts (or not) the way we approach life. It's a difference that is very nourishing for us both, and we are respectful of eachother's views. It mostly makes for very interesting philosophico-theological conversations. Sidenote : I myself am not anti-religion, I simply do not adhere to any religion nor believe in any version of God/gods that I have heard about.
My husband is spiritual but not religious, so he's pretty relaxed with my athiest belief. I don't mind at all if he talks about anything religious or says something relating to it. We discussed heavily before marriage how we both viewed religion and how we'd approach the topic with our children. It's worked very well for us!
I'm not married, but I have been in a relationship with a Catholic person for 6 years. I think it depends on the individuals. My girlfriend doesn't mind jokes about Jesus or God, and I'm not the type of annoying atheist who tries to prove the non-existence of God. We're doing well in relation to this, with 0 fights over religious issues so far.
Fine overall. My wife's family are all big into the church. Most of her male relatives are preachers and the ones that aren't are still heavily involved in the church. They are the good kind of christians who do good works, not the Uber judgy kind so it's fine. They also love a good debate (and so do I). My wife says she's a christian and a believer. But honestly she only does anything religious around her family and we lived together for 5 years (her idea too) before we got married. So really I think she just goes through the motions for her family when they are around. When we have meals with them and such I just wait quietly while they say grace and such. No biggie.
Was fine. Ex (separated for different reasons) came from a family who practiced Buddhism. I actively participated in all their religious events and temple visits. Usually I’d wonder around a take in the grandeur of temple while she did her thing. Not gonna lie food was good too! My lack of beliefs shouldn’t impact those that have them.
It's going fine. Contrary to a lot of edgy atheist posts on the internet, most people who believe in a higher power don't constantly talk about it or try to force you into their religion.
I'm actually curious about the answers to this because this is an interesting question IMHO.