Dating and Religion (or lack thereof)

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A couple of weeks ago, there was this guy who was preaching in the Quad at my school (which is a very liberal campus), and was talking in a very loud voice, and believed that anything even remotely amusing would result in eternal damnation.

This is why I stick with Lutheranism, even though I don't attend services.

I'm atheist, happily married to a Pentecostal Christian.

We declared our beliefs before getting serious with each other but weren't put off. I think it's better to reveal myself and risk losing a few potential friends or lovers through religious prejudice. After all, I'd think twice before letting a Jehovah's Witness into my life, though I hope I'd take the time to look at the person and not worry too much if one of their "hobbies" (no offense intended) seems a little strange.

We did go through a difficult phase - at one point she wanted me to go to church with her, I tried it but it made no sense, and I walked out in disgust when this couple with a small child got up onto the stage and committed the child to their chosen religion - they said that because he was too young to make up his own mind, it was right that they should make up his mind for him. My partner was angry with me but she came to understand that religion isn't for me.

We used to occasionally get into quite nasty arguments about whether or not there's a god etc., until we made a deal - I don't tell her there isn't a god as long as she doesn't tell me there is one.

I was worried for a while that she might start trying to use religion as a way of forcing changes into our relationship. I'll listen to anybody's advice or opinion, but for me it has to pass the test of making sense, and biblical edicts usually seem too simplistic and authoritarian to me, I need the reasons in human terms. To my relief, she didn't really try to do that, I don't recall her saying we must do this or refrain from doing that just because God or a priest said so.

She does seem to have a deep understanding that infidelity is sinful, which dovetails neatly with my secular view that it's very harmful. Most of the basics of human relations can be arrived at without religion, or with it if you prefer.

There's a lot of allegorical truth in religious books, as for any literal truth, well we've all got our own fairy stories, it only gets contentious when idiots start saying that their fairy story is better than somebody else's. My fairy story and leap of faith is that Richard Dawkins has got it pretty much right, but I think he pushes it a bit brutally at times, like any other egomaniac on a guru trip.

My partner wanted me to go through a religious ceremony at our wedding (which a priest would have led). Having listened to the details I refused as kindly as I could, but welcomed the priest as a guest, equal to the rest of us. I was sad to have to opt out of the religious thing, but the ritual would have meant nothing to me, so my wife wouldn't in reality have gained anything by getting me to go through the motions, and I wasn't sure my temper would have held up if I had.

We're "lucky" that we never had any kids (both too old) - that would probably have led to some very nasty conflicts. It's probably one of the reasons why I didn't get close to her existing children - I think that, seeking to do good, I'd have wanted to sow a few seeds of "freethought" into them, but it's not for me to intervene. It doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

Paradoxically, it's the very hypocrisy of many religious people that allows me to relate better to them - many a churchgoer doesn't really obey the entire "party line" when you look at them, I'll wager some of them don't believe in the official way. And not all atheists seek to burn down the mission.

If we're lucky, we'll still be togerher when one of us dies. If it's my wife, she'll get the religious funeral, I'll hold my nose and attend, it'd be very hard but nothing compared with losing her, so I doubt if I'll be all that interested in whether or not there's a god. Funerals don't mean much to me. If I die first, I don't much care what my loved ones want to do about my rotting corpse, though I'd like to be sure my secular son isn't made to feel any extra pain from a "religious takeover," so I want a secular funeral.

You are certainly more secure in your beliefs than I am... I'm a practicing christian, and I wouldn't touch a pentecostal with a 10-foot pole... for the most part, I leave them alone if they leave me alone...





Well at least you tried. That is more than can be said for 99% of athiests.

However, in most denominations of Christianity, the purpose of dedicating a child is more to provide that environment to raise the child in, and later on the child can choose to make a statement of faith on his or her own, often referred to as confirmation. I don't know how much there is in terms of coercion involved in Pentecostal Christianity, but most mainline denominations won't really care if someone chooses to not undergo confirmation. One of the guys who does audio work at my church chose not to (he proclaims himself an athiest), and the church still accepts him as he is.

It's similar to the concept of minority law. In the US government, for example, anyone under the age of 18 is seen as not being able to make rational decisions for themselves. The legal guardian (in most cases this is the parents) is supposed to make all the decisions for the child until that time, when the child is no longer custody of the parents.


At least you are able to work from a point of agreement.

I would like to ask what you mean by "biblical edicts" though. In my experience, the church is not really allowed to pass such rules over its adherents in how they govern their personal lives (though I may be wrong when pentecostals are concerned)...


That's my main problem with Dawkins right there... most of the substantive material is fine, it's the fact that he has to be such a prick about it that I don't like...


Forgive my ignorance, but what is so majorly different about a Pentecostal wedding? From what I've seen, the only difference between most religious weddings and most secular weddings is that the religious weddings have a reading from 1 Corinthians... There are a few extremists out there, like the Mormon weddings. I just don't know if Pentecostal weddings are among them...


Then you adhere to the greatest philosophy of them all... the Prime Directive.

(sorry, bad trekkie reference, let me know if that went over your head...)


That's because the party line of some churches (especially extremist churches) actually goes against the Bible in some places. Some extremist churches want to have heavy enforcement of the laws found in Leviticus (which is where the one reference to homosexuality in the Bible appears), even though in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus rebuked such enforcement; when someone found committing adultery (an act punishable by stoning to death), Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone).


You truly have the wisdom that many people, both among religious and secular groups, lack. You and your wife are both capable of overlooking doctrine and seeing each other for who you are, not what you are.

I wasn't raised in any particular religion, denomination, church, etc., so that kind of put me out in the cold in that area. We didn't go to church when I was growing up and believe it or not, Christian kids used to pick on me about that saying I could never get to heaven because I don't go to church. In the denominational Christian schools I went to, I got looked down on because I was the wrong denomination, in fact, I wasn't any denomination.

I spent 4 years in a horrible Lutheran run high school where anyone who wasn't Lutheran and or hadn't attended one of the Lutheran elementary schools or been a member of a Lutheran church was pretty much treated as an outcast by students as well as the school's administration who only cared about my issues if my parents threatened to transfer me out. I begged my parents to send me to another private school, but they wouldn't, even though there were many in the area that would have enrolled me.

Fortunately for me, I met a lady who had been raised Catholic but quit practicing it when she was a child because she didn't like what what they preached and the fact she was physically and emotionally abused in a Catholic school. We wanted to have a civil ceremony, but her parents and extended family wouldn't accept anything but a Catholic wedding and being a non-Catholic, I would have had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get a priest to marry us, plus she wanted nothing to do with the Catholic church that wasn't going to happen. My wife knew a minister of a non-denominational Christian church because he used to shop in a store she once worked in, so she got him to marry us instead telling her family that is as close as it gets to Catholic and if they didn't like it, they didn't have to attend. They gave in and accepted it since we were getting married in a church.

My experiences with organized religion have pretty much turned me off on it, and the same is true with her, so it isn't an issue with us.

Thanks for those thoughts, ToadOfSteel.

I know surprisingly little about my wife's religion, so I hope the following covers your questions reasonably well. In the early days I asked a few questions but she seemed disinterested in the theology and unable to describe the structure of the thing.

In practice, expectations on individuals seem on a par with the Church of England, i.e. they don't really push anything. I went to a kind of musical evening they held once - a work colleague had cajoled my son into going to see his band play, and all three of us went. We'd expected a secular concert just hiring the church hall, but it turned out to be the church's event. It was hard to tell it from any other small community event apart from a lot of references to God, which I can't really remember except that they didn't seem harmful.

There was one part where the priest asked everybody to close their eyes, then he asked anybody who had felt closer to God in any way that nght to raise their hand. I opened my eyes and looked round very briefly - I was reuctant to invade the audience's privacy, but there were no hands raised, though when it was "open your eyes" time, the priest declared that quite a few hands had gone up. It's just possible I could have missed somebody behind a pillar. Worrying perhaps, but there's a secular music club just down the road using more BS than that, and it's the most harmless place on the planet. Both places bend the truth a little bit to encourage "converts." And the church does seem to be doing charitable works.

Yes the child dedication thing may have looked worse than it was. I know there's a split in the church about the baptism of children, which some sects have declared unreasonable because the chid is too young to understand the commitment which always impressed me as a sound argument. It seemed weird that the Pentecostals were doing the exact opposite for the same stated reason.

I sometimes copy religious tapes for my wife. They sound like stand-up comedy routines, or perhaps stand-up philosophy routines would be more accurate. Lots of little anecdotes with moral conclusions drawn, quite nice as far as they go, sounds much like I do when I talk too much, only with the odd reference to God.

The only suspicion of hate in there is maybe homophobia, but neither of us knows any gays these days, and it's a very non-violent church.

Weddings - this one was a registry office, yes the set of promises were much the same as C of E with the references to God removed. I can't recall much of what the Pentecostal add-on would have been - nothing really loonie, I think I'd have had to say a few set words about God, and I felt that would have been a completely false thing for me to do. Luckily the secular option contained nothing to give problems the other way round.

I didn't catch the Star Trek version, though I guess it must be similar to the Witches' Coven which commands us to do what we will but harm no-one? Wisdom comes from the most unlikely sources. Kirk himself said there is no beauty or uginess, you either beieve in yoursef or you don't.


Thanks, I like to think we're good at that. We've sure had our ups and downs, but we don't worry about what badges each wears. It was a near thing with religion - I used to be far more dismissive of it, but I rarely found any group of real people matched up to my stereotypes.

christians are so easy to get the love from, their entire mindset is based on fear. very easy to exploit, for positive or negative reasons. if you have no misconceptions about females and religion, landing christian women is like shootin fish. all you have to understand is how the religion works and you can easily land someone of that faith, excepting serious relationships sometimes.

Sez you. The Christian girls at my first youth club were very picky. And thanks for the exception, my wife will be relieved to know she's wasn't like a fish in a barrel when I first met her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive

Basically there are two principles to the Prime directive (which operates on a civilizational level):
1) Don't interact with technologically primitive cultures (in the Star Trek universe, "primitive" refers to any culture that has not achieved FTL travel). Any contact must be done in disguise (i.e. surgical alterations to look like the species in question), and covert observation is allowed so long as its not discovered. One cannot interfere even if it is to save one's life.
2) Don't interfere in the internal politics of other civilizations (including civil wars, even if one side is being supported by a third party)

Again, I apologize for being such a Trek nerd, but many of the philosophical points brought up in the franchise have found their way into my personal ethics...

Think nothing of it. Doesn't matter where the ideas come from.

i'll be honest, girls who are totally into jesus turn me off a great deal.

i dated a girl not too long ago who was a bible freak. she kept bothering me about church, why i don't go, why i SHOULD go, and it was annoying.

What about girls who are only nominally into Jesus?

I don't care if they believe in god, it's whatever. The ones who try to force religion on you and are like uber <3 jesus are annoying.

I agree - aggressive salesmanship doesn't turn me on at all. But that would be equally true of a double glazing salesman.

I reckon most C of E members are only nominally into Jesus. And probably for all religions, the individuals don't necessarily accept everything the leadership tells them.

Double glaze... (drools)

I'd say that hiding your atheism/agnosticism might hurt you in the long run because any girl you get involved in is going to find out someday and will be upset that you were hiding something from her.

I know where you're coming from. I am from an Italian Catholic family where everyone marries only Roman Catholics. Some of my family members are even anti-Semitic and hate atheists. But, I still make a point of letting everyone know that I'm totally nonreligious and don't believe in anthropomorphic gods. I've always let prospective boyfriends know, too, and so far it hasn't hurt me. My last two boyfriends were agnostic Jews.

I totally agree about letting yourself be known. Better to scare somebody away early on, than let them find out down the line, usually.

Though I hardly met any religious people for most of my life. England's got such a large secular element that you can do that.