I honestly have seen this **** happening too many times from friends of mine. I've been telling all my friends the same thing. Work it out or dump it out.

The following dictum applies more often than not.

"There's the reason they give and then there's the real reason."


PairTheBoard

OP:

Relationships that have strong spiritual content have a bigger chance of lasting in a happiness state than those that aren't. Hopefully, you will come around and finally accept Jesus into your life. If God destines it you will have an inner sense of knowing that you are ready for Christ.

So its down to god whether or not he becomes christian?

...Amen...

This statement isn't valid. The rate of divorce for atheists is about even with Evangelicals and Catholics and lower than other Christians. It is fairly obvious why the rates for those two are lower and it probably is not because of a "happiness state".

She broke up because you are not Christian. What happened to the christian morals "treat your neighbour the same way you want to be treated" obviously a double standard and she thinks she's better than you!

epic resurrection of this thread

I'm going though the same situation but our relationship is on its last leg.

He must not have been a very serious Buddhist to want to convert to a ****ty religion like Xtianity.

This is more about ethnic/cultural belonging and bigotry than religion. It's important to the girlfriend because her Mexican relatives will make her life a constant hell if she marries a non Christian.

Why not just convert? Bend your neck a little for her. You don't have to believe in God to pretend to be a Christian. Just see it as a little undercover project, where you pretend to be someone you're not to be accepted into a group. Live a different life for a while, see it through other eyes. Atheism is boring. And entirely personal. Religion is a social thing, like belonging to a gang.

Some people use atheism as an identity - mostly very foolish young men - but it's a pretty stupid thing to identify with as anything more than a minor philosophical position.

If she has deeply held beliefs important enough to break up seems wrong to pretend and manipulate her into thinking you believe to stay together. Better to let her find someone that holds them and him find someone who is not bothered by his.

She's deluded and brainwashed and socially controlled by her group. She's a victim of religion. If everything else is good in the relationship, I don't see why that's a reason to leave. Bend your neck in the spots where she's completely inflexible and trapped by the bigotry of her social group. She bends her neck for yours. It's how you become happy.

If atheism is a huge part of your identity (lol) and important to you, then ok, it matters, but if not, who cares?

As for why, there's a lot more to a person than their religion. You can get on perfectly in 95% of ways and have religion be a sticking point. If you like them, you adapt. We adapt in lots of ways (how many guys truly want to be faithful?), i don't see why this is different.

I would argue that religious women probably make better partners than atheist women. And are better and happier breeders if you care about having a family. You've got a much larger dating range too.

Who said dating a religious women (ffs happier breeders who is deluded and brainwashed) is bad. Lying about her most cherished beliefs to stay with her is. Why again manipulate them on something thats so important to them that if they found out you were lying they would break up with you. There are plenty of religious women who will date non the religious.

There's a lot more between "lying" and "not lying" when it comes to religion. Religion is a group belonging badge, a set of rituals, a way of approaching life. I probably agree with 95+% of advanced Christianity and Judaism.

And people do it all the time. How often would an acceptably religious person (to her) think about God? 2% of the time? 98% of the time they're not religious, but merely acting like they are. Why does it matter if you push that 98% to 100%, but act the same?
Why do you have to be lying? You're making it sound malicious. I'm talking about opening your mind and heart to another way of living and thinking. As I said I'd be happy to accept 95% of Christian belief and practice. It's ultimately just a way of approaching spirituality and faith, and a vehicle to do things and have communities come to together in certain ways.

As for the moral dimension, I don't believe it's fair for her to lose someone she would otherwise like and love because her family and community brainwashed her and are bigoted.

Which one of those traits that I'm attributing to quite religious women is false?

Do you think they are less happy breeders than atheist women?
Do you think they are not deluded?
Do you think they are not brainwashed?

Even if you're Christian I think only the middle one is in any way arguable.

Give em whatever traits you want.

Seeing how i was a Christian and you have not been...thanks for the rundown.


Yeah we disagree.

And its not necessarily bigoted of a Christian to want to date another Christian. There are even bible verse that call for that. Or say they are looking for someone to be with in heaven for eternity its understandable they would want someone who they believe will or can get in.

We're all God's children.

That said, I don't think looking for another Christian at the "finding a date" stage is bigoted, but it gets a bit weird when you've been dating them for months, love them, but want to leave them if they won't convert.

For some Christians the finding the date stage is the same stage as the finding a wife/husband for eternity.

As a Christian I just had to comment on this post.

We're all God's creation, but we're not all God's children.

Also I don't think eventually dumping someone because they won't convert to Christianity is weird at all. I have to say though the original mistake was to start the romantic relationship in the first place. Seems to me like she thought things could change and when it became clear they couldn't she had to break it off.

Also without knowing the girl in this situation I don't know how you can come to the conclusion that it's more about ethnic/cultural belonging and bigotry than religion, unless you were making a broader statement, in which case I think is a mistake since this conversation is about a specific relationship.

Step back for a second and pretend that Christianity is total fiction, the ramblings of a weird 3 BC and 100AD cult that grew into a global religion after it got a foothold in powerful Rome (a bit like Islam in the Middle East after it or polygamist Mormonism in Utah).

Now examine the situation again. The girl is choosing to dump someone she otherwise loves because she's been indoctrinated in the bizarre tenets of this cult, and her family will give her hell if she marries someone not also indoctrinated.

Seems weird and unhealthy, right?

From that perspective, yes.

From the Christian perspective, she would be opening a huge can of worms by marrying a non-Christian. I suspect you're aware of the reasons why I say that and I don't mind going further into it, in this specific case though I can only speculate about what actually happened.

I'd be interested if you don't mind going into it. What can of worms?

Be good to get another prospective on all of this. I was always of the view that love and compromise was enough to even overcome religious differences. I'm open to the idea that I'm mostly wrong.