Does anybody of you is married/lives together with a partner that does not share your beliefs?
I am married with a catholic wife (town hall marriage, not in church) and we are happy together, we do not have any problems. Our kids are baptized and go to the usual catholic stuff for kids, later will decide if being atheist like me or religious like my wife.
I see this as a kind of vaccination: either they will grow up and refuse any other religion and become atheists (like I did) or they will be “moderte” believers like their mother.
I am something more concerned by kids that grow without religion very early and later convert to stuff even more absird than catholicism (Islam, Scientology and assorted rubbish)
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I’m a lifetime atheist who was born into a catholic family of 6. I went to their schools for 9 years before I was able to get out, and I finished high school in a public school, which is where I met my then future wife.
She wasn’t really religious until our son was born, then she decided that she was a christian and was going to raise our kids in the church, which didn’t thrill me. She’s a devout believer, and I’m not, and we butted heads on the subject for decades before we agreed to disagree. We’ve been together for 44+ years, and married for 42.
Both of our kids grew up in the church, and even met their spouses there, so they’re also very devout believers, along with our 4 grandkids. So it’s just me and everyone else in the immediate family.
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I would consider that a partner being, or becoming religious, a deal breaker if children were involved. I could not tolerate seeing my trusting, innocent children being indoctrinated with that BS. The magical thinking, fear tactics, and social bonds formed at such a malleable stage in life are hard to overcome. Many here, myself included, were able to get past it, but it was a difficult, and even traumatic experience for a good many. The Catholic religion seems particularly good at instilling fear and guilt and I would not want to subject a child to that if I could help it.
I would contend that someone raised with critical thinking skills that rejects all religions with an understanding of why, would be less likely to be pulled into any religion than someone raised to believe that a magical god being was a viable possibility in the first place.
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Hi Kellii
I experienced in the growth of my daughters (15 and 12 now) that even if you would you cannot avoid “magical thinking”. What about Santa Klaus? Or Halloween? Or any other “magician/superstotion”? Of course in a way or another they come in contact with it, and it is also a good think, it is parts of “growing” to overcome it.
My wife & me we are both scientist, so our daughters grew up with the scientific method as compass and are able to discern what is true, what is false, what is plausible and what not and how to verify sources. Are they religious? Very little, but they like to attend summer camps at the church (here in EU a summer camp is a place where you just say a prayer in the morning and one in the afternoon and the rest is playing volleyball, treasure hunt or other “secular” activities, it is far from indoctrination) because they like the “social” part and stay together with theur friends.
So, to summarize, as I mentioned before: I hope I am making my daughters just a “vaccination” that would prevent a more serious disease in the future.
I have seen people here in EU that started with secular faith (communism, it is exactly as a religion) and then once USSR collapsed being “lost” for years and then convert to Islam, buddhist or other things.
Anyway I am a parent, and you know the old proverb: Nature VS Nurture: either ways it’s parents fault" 
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Pranking children with the myth of Santa Claus does not compare to teaching religious myths as true. The same trusted people who told the child that Santa is real will also tell them the “just kidding” part. The lie is not perpetuated into adulthood. Any child who still believes in Santa in middle school will be viewed as in need of some serious help to understand the truth of the matter. Halloween on the other hand has superstitious things tied up with religion and those beliefs are perpetuated into adulthood, often to a persons detriment if they truly believe. They can get fleeced by psychic mediums and live in fear of ghosts and witches among us.
I think you do have a point. People do seem to have a need to believe in something. Like addictions, people will replace one creed with another, I just disagree that having them embraced into a religion that you perceive as less dangerous than others is a good idea. The Catholic church is rife with abuse of its power.
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How do they reconcile that their mother, a scientist who uses the scientific method as a job, sets it aside for her religion’s sake? That their mother and their father have different views of what it true, plausible, verifiable?
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supereasy, never seen a problem about it. I had known many scientists in my life, (Nobel included): some are believers of a religion, some have “spirituality”* some other are atheist. As long as during your “observations” you do not expect any miracle and as long as your reasoning follows the scientific method you are a good scientist, we should not be all the same and have the same point of view on everything. One of my best friends is a “distinguished professor” in US, now just retired, a Mormon and supergood scientist. We hang out several times together, I drink alcohol, he does not but we see life more or less the same, he does good because his faith says so, I do good since I like to help people, the important is that we both do good, simple as that
*religion = believe in rubbish invented by someone else, spirituality = believe in rubbish you invented yourself
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Sounds like every mixed marriage. The religious partner is allowed to brainwash the children. They always get their way and the atheist just rolls over and lets them. This is why I avoid religious women like the plague. Its predictable. Enjoy those christmas dinners in 20 years with the whole family praying before dinner.
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Because many of us in the US were either in, or more heavily influenced by, authoritarian Christainity in some form (Puritanism and its descendants), it’s hard to understand that in other countries it’s not always like that, and the teachings of the church do not so pervade the secular social fabric. People can hew to relgiion and not take it very seriously. YMMV.
My previous / late wife was a rural Methodist. I became an unbeliever during her long illness, partly because of that, partly because of other things. It concerned her but did not bother her. She did not let that damage our relationship, for which I’ll always be grateful.
But there were also special conditions.
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Originally she never took her beliefs SO seriously that it was her primary obsession in life. She wanted a church community to be part of but she learned early on with her previous husband the ways in which that CAN go awry. She had firm boundaries from that experience (she and her ex belonged to a “shepherding” church that became very intrusive and controlling of every aspect of their personal lives. She put her foot down and got out of there when they started asking about her sex life).
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She was very ill and more concerned with survival so picking religion as a hill to die on was way down the list of possibilities for her.
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She had the sort of illness where she often looked fine but never knew on a given day how she would feel, so participating in scheduled activities was very difficult. This made her Not A Team Player — people didn’t understand, and so she wasn’t able to maintain relationships of that kind.
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Toward the end her illness became socially isolating anyway so it took whatever “juice” she might have gotten from the social side of church was foreclosed to her. Also she ended up completely dependent on me for her care and financial survival.
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We did not have children together.
Even so my wife and I had a relationship based less on the mutual beliefs we held at the time we met, than on mutual respect and interests. I don’t think she would have ditched me for Jesus in slightly different circumstances – but who knows?
I wouldn’t advise an unbeliever to marry a believer on purpose, and when I remarried to my current wife, I selected an unbeliever. But – it is not necessarily an unworkable situation, either.
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Fortunately, my wife is an atheist like me and has never been a believer. I don’t think I would get along well living with someone fulltime if they were religious.
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I’m twice divorced. My first ex wife was religious (which worked against my relationship with her than it did any good). My 2nd ex wife wasn’t.
My partner is ex Scientologist, interesting convos there. Was most shocked when I showed her the contents of OT3 and more online…she does believe in ghosties ghoulies , parallel universes, Thetans and just about any passing conspiracy theory…
It is a family tradition when we are together to debunk any of her latest fads as they appear. Entertaining to as she does take it (mostly) in very good sprits. (No pun intended)
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My mother is religious, but I have never seen her pray over food, As long as she doesn’t mind doing it while I crack on, I’d be ok with it. I do get the occasional admonishment for using vituperation over Sunday game of cards after dinner, but my brother takes the brunt of that, and he claims to be religious.
Religion is usually not as “in your face” in the UK, as it seems to be in the US, and other places of course.
I tend to do this with my religious mother’s claims, and her regurgitation of right wing / conservative tabloid news via the Daily Heil, it usually involves a strained silence.
Growing up I was always getting rows for being “argumentative”, it was decades before I discovered the Late Christopher Hitchens celebrating being a contrarian. Though even as a child I was disinclined to accept anecdotal claims prima facie, it still seems to drive some people nuts mind when you suggest their claims are dubious. I have learned to just smile quietly when they get annoyed.
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Yes. My case is similar. I am an atheist married to a devote evangelical christian. It is painful to see the extent of her blindness to the truths of the universe based on logic, science and reason. She believes all of that is “demonic”. The only book she reads is the bible, so she is an adult person that willfully decided to become ignorant of everything else. I consider her case a lost battle, as she refuses to even consider anything “outside the word of god”.
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I’m a lifetime atheist who’s been married to a devout believer for 43 years now. She wasn’t religious until our son was born in '83, then something happened to turn her into the person she is today. She raised both of our kids in the church, and now they have families of their own, and are all believers, including our 4 grandkids. So it’s myself versus the rest of my family.
Your attitude has helped me a lot, in my own fight, similar to yours. Thank you.
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