This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

The following question is for atheists

Would you marry a theist?

I am assuming that you think believing in god is irrational. Would you be comfortable living the rest of your life with someone who believes morals and our origin come from a supernatural force? As an added question, would you want to get the theist to drop his/her theism?

The following question is for theists

Would you marry an atheist?

I am assuming that you think not believing in god is irrational. Would you be willing to live with someone who thinks that all your religious beliefs are false? As an added question, would you want to get the atheist to accept theism?

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I am asking the questions above on a personal level. Obviously it is possible for atheists and theists to marry and I am sure it happens a lot. Would you do it? Do you see any issue with it?

Well first of all, the assumption doesn't apply to me. There is nothing inherently irrational about believing in god IMO.As to the first question: Why would I care where she thinks morals come from as long as hers and mine are similar? That seems pretty irrelevant To me. To the second, absolutely not, I would regard this as a pretty scummy thing to do. (assuming here that I'm forcing the issue)

More generally, I probably couldn't marry a science denialist evangelical or something.


I imagine some of those questions will be harder for theists, (and I suppose militant athiests) whose identity is inextricably tied to their beliefs.

Probably not personally, but it depends on the person. An important part of a relationship is some sense of common shared identity. This is not true of all or perhaps even most atheists, but for myself my atheism is an important part of my identity and something I have thought, read, watched, and discussed extensively over the years. It isn't impossible, of course, but it would seem to be much nicer to be able to be with someone who shared such a sentiment opposed to felt the exact opposite on a core part of identity. Likewise, as someone who spends a lot of time interacting with politics, and consider this a core part of my identity it would be hard to share this with someone who felt diametrically opposite of me, thinking, for instance, that gays ought not to marry or whatever else. I these things were not impoant to me, if they were not core to my identity, I am sure it would matter much less. Many atheists don't believe in god, but they don't care to spend much time thinking about it and it doesn't for a core part of their identity. I could see it not mattering to them.

As it turns out, my wife and I do have shared identities on these things. And while I am sure there are many examples where people have opposing but nonetheless core identities, I suspect it is harder.

Yes, I could marry an atheist. I don't think that not believing in God is irrational, and I don't know if I've ever met anyone who has. I would not try to convert an atheist as I don't think that can be done through simple argumentation, but I would be more than willing to explain my thoughts and beliefs and all that.

All I would want from the person I marry is that they be ok taking part in some customs, like a Passover seder, and be respectful of what I'm doing on days like Yom Kippur.

A lot of people actually convert to the religion of their partners. I don't see a massive problem with it if the relationship is a good one.

I guess the most important question here is: Can I respect (intellectually) the version of atheism sported by my partner? But being conservative/right leaning would definitely be a more certain deal breaker.

I can't see myself marrying someone who thinks morals come from a "god", but that isn't really a prerequisite of theism anyway... so I think the OP contains assumptions that aren't necessarily true.

This is an interesting point. If the theist's imam/prophet/priest or whatever states that it is immoral not to donate at least 10% of a monthly salary to the house of god and the theist believes it, would this cause a problem?

Also, would you be willing to be married in the church/mosque/synagogue?

I'm not trying to put you on the spot here, I'm just interested in knowing how you feel about this issue. Your point about me incorrectly assuming the atheists view of theism is irrational was well taken.

You are correct. I couldn't come up with a better way to phrase the question and it ended up this way. I should have just asked whether "one would be comfortable living with another who believes in a supernatural force".

A potential problem I see is the idea of an atheist getting married in a church etc. An atheist may say " I don't want to be married by a priest in god's building " whereas a theist may say " I can't be married anywhere else."

Ok. Well, I see no problems with that personally. I would have a problem with very irrational beliefs ala "a burning bush gave divine commands", but liberal beliefs in "something out there" doesn't really phase me.

Then again, there is no shortage of atheists with severely irrational beliefs I wouldn't marry either.

Well, in my country two atheists can easily end up getting married in a church... so it's less of a concern here.

Personally I have no problem with church rituals, as long as I don't have to lie... ie I have been best man in a church (because I don't have to claim any belief in god to fill that role), but I have declined being a godfather (because you have to promise to help raising the child to a Christian belief)... that is not out of "spite" for the religion, but because I personally do not want to stand in a church and lie about allegiance to it. I'm aware that I could just look at those as empty phrases, but I figure some things shouldn't be messed around with.

So that would be the deciding factor if I had to veto a church wedding... that the venue itself is a church or that a priest is carrying out the ceremony doesn't matter to me... but I would not do it if I had to implicitly or explicitly accept the relevant religion as true.

What about someone who believes 'prophet Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse' or someone who is a creationist? Could you marry someone like this? This is much more trivial than a religious moral code but it is somewhat concerning.

No, never.

My long term g/f believes in god but she doesn't attend church anymore or read the bible etc. I think she's getting close to atheism these days and her mother is obviously concerned as she keeps slipping church literature in her bag when they're together

I think this question is more compelling from the theist side.

As an atheist, I see no real reason why you should be bothered or threatened by your significant other believing in God. As long as he/she isn't imposing those beliefs on you and respects your beliefs (or lack thereof), doing the same in return shouldn't be a problem.

But let's say you are a theist who, as a Christian/Catholic for example, believes that those who do not accept Jesus as their savior will burn in hell for eternity. How can you ever really love someone if they don't believe the same? I mean if I believed that, I'd spend every waking minute trying to convert my girlfriend, because I would want to save her soul from damnation. How can you love someone and be fine with letting them burn in hell?

The Christian example should be something like the Resurrection. Christians believe that Jesus was taken up to heaven.

Yes, as long as she is ok with it. I would have thought it more of a problem for her,

Not particular.

The one time I dated a christian girl, it ended in total disaster. We got together on a date and things went well. But on the second date we got together at her place and did things she had never done before. But we stopped short. (She did not exactly lose her virginity, but this is debatable.) Anyway, she did something I was not expecting: she told all of her friends, family and her pastor what we had done. She confessed everything the very next day. All hell broke loose.

Her pastor told her that she needed to cut it off with me right away. He basically told her that I was no good, and that the relationship was doomed. Her friends staged an intervention at her home. She called me and kept me updated of events as they unfolded.

After the initial whirlwind of hysteria died down, she invited me to meet her pastor and church leaders for lunch, which I politely declined, and then made up a good excuse for. I had already decided that I would never see her again, because of the shame I would feel, and the inevitable judgments that her family and friends had already brought against me and us. Then she invited me to go away for a few days with her and her dad to a lake cabin, for fishing and what not, which I also politely declined, and then made up a good excuse for. I could tell that she was rebuffed and smarting by this second straight rejection.

I wasn't sure what she was waiting for. Everybody had told her to cut this thing off now. I was giving her ammo to load the gun with. (And hoping, I guess, that she would just invite me back to her place without the presence of family or church leaders.)

She called and finally told me that we needed to take a break, because "the lusts of the flesh is too strong with us right now." And that was that. I never called her and she never called me again.

The worst part about all of this, is that at the time, I was going to church and praying and everything.

I would probably not marry an atheist, but just because two Christians get together, doesn't mean everything is going to work out.

As to the tithing question I think tithing is pretty silly personally. I mean, if it goes to some sort of charity ultimately great but if its just for the church than nah. However, if she wanted to do this with her own income, then no of course I have no problem with it. If she believed not doing it was immoral, meaning she thought I was immoral for not doing it, and felt that I had to in order to be moral, that would be a major problem. But I doubt very highly I would be attracted to someone who tried to impose their beliefs this way.

I would have no problem getting married in any kind of religious establishment. I grew up catholic and actually find the singing, the smell, and the readings pretty comforting, I have been to a cynagog twice and find much the same. Am I lying when I say I will bring the kids up with theist (christian Jewish whatever) values? I mean, yes and no, I suppose. What I consider to be Christian values when I was a theist I pretty much just consider my values now. Nothing really changed.

Yes to the first one, no to the second.

The first one is just a pure, out of the box faith (meaning no evidence in this context) belief. I don't see how that belief in and of itself could effect our lives.
A creationist ( if you mean 6,000 year old earth, no evolution etc) is someone who chooses to be ignorant in order to believe what they want to believe. I doubt I could respect someone like that enough to want to share my life with them.

There are gradations of belief too. I am a creationist but I am not tied to the Earth being X amount of years, nor have any good idea about where the dividing line is between God making the animals and evolution giving us our diversity. But anyway, to the question.

Uke essentially nailed it for me, except switch "atheism" with "faith":

My faith is so much a part of who I am that I need to be able to talk with that person within those contexts and not just accept that about me, but appreciate it too. She doesn't necessarily have to have the same exact ideas as me (in fact, I may not want that) but they need to be from the same vane of faith, if any of this makes sense? When Im with someone that close I want to be able to be free to express the kinds of thoughts that come out with that scent of God not just from me but also from her because I would hope that she would have things I could learn from her and vice versa...

Sorry, I think I kinda ranted a bit there.

No I wouldn't marry (or have a relationship) with a theist, I couldn't be with someone who's world view so fundamentally differed from mine and who believed in something that I consider ridiculous and extremely negative. This feeling is not limited to religion.

Why do you post here MB? If your views are such I'm not sure why you're interested enough to post?

Do you really think that the views expressed here by all theists are worthy of derision?

I enjoy the clash of views and the aspect of personal development, I think that posting here has changed me for the better.

I'm not sure I could motivate myself to bother in most other contexts but this one gets me going. You might as well ask me why I would post on a Neo Nazi forum and argue with the racists there. It would be for exactly the same reasons in terms of the forum subject.

That really is far too sweeping a question to answer yes or no. Bear in mind also that no matter now much derision I may or may not feel towards a specific viewpoint, the manner in which it is stated or argued or the intelligence of the poster can add a value that keeps me coming back. I post here because of some of the other posters and what I' learning from them, I long ago gave up much hope of actually changing any minds. I wish that my contributions improved the average level of posting, but I can't have everything, at least they spark some discussions...

So you could have a relationship with someone who believes that Evolution not only happened but was unguided (I'm aware that this is still compatible with a small number of creationist views) and that you are quite wrong about god making everything? And this is assuming that they can believe you wrong without any level of derision or shock at your ignorance because I'm assuming that that would kill the relationship.