Dating "spiritual" or religious people...

[thelittlefinch]

(Soon after my last post, I had to move into my college apartment and have been trying to get settled in ever since, so I apologize if my participation on this forum is sporadic! Anyway...)

I'm in my third year of undergrad studies at Rutgers -- I know, we've been getting terrible press but this school is actually quite liberal, diverse, and accepting compared to other schools I've visited. Despite this diversity, all of the guys that I've dated in the past month have either identified themselves as spritual, or non-practicing Christians, with no atheists in sight! I'm not out to convert people, especially boys that I'm dating, but it's very hard to take non-atheists seriously.

I wasn't always an atheist and, when I identified as a Catholic in my teenage years, religion had never seemed to be the issue that it is to me now. Atheism is something that has become an integral part of my life and it's become difficult to imagine spending my life with someone who thinks we're going to meet again in heaven when we die. Am I the only one with this problem? Am I making an issue out of nothing?

I've joined the Humanist chaplaincy here and have found that, of the men that identify as atheists, they are nowhere close to my age (20). Younger members of the chaplaincy identify as "spiritual."

That said, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to date as an atheist. When I tell someone that I don't believe in a higher power, I always feel as if I'm being negatively judged. One guy asked, "Don't you believe in anything?" To which I responded, "Yeah, sure. I believe in science and empirical evidence." And I couldn't help but feel that to him, in saying what I had said, I'd just lost all my humanity.

My question to my fellow atheists out there is this: do you bother dating theists (or even "spiritual" people)? To those that do, is it any different from dating an atheist? To those that don't, how do you find like-minded individuals?

[Byronazriel]

I can understand to a certain extent. I may not be an atheist, but I'm asexual... which is just as bad, if not worse in some people's eyes.

I haven't really found any answers to the question of how to find someone great, but I've reached the state of mind where I've stopped worrying about it so much. You just have to keep yorself open, eventually you'll come across someone who'll live up to your expectations... Provided your not too strict on the subject, realistic goals and whatnot.

Besides, I happen to find atheism to be a reasonable position. I've nothing against them, and as long as they're civil to me I'll return that civility.

One guy asked, "Don't you believe in anything?" To which I responded, "Yeah, sure. I believe in science and empirical evidence." And I couldn't help but feel that to him, in saying what I had said, I'd just lost all my humanity.

I'm guessing this was a Christian, or a person from a related relgion. The problem with them is that their holy book explicity frowns upon hanging out with non-believers.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the term "spiritual," it's pretty much a rubbish word with so many varying perceptions of what it means that it's essentially meaningless.

Edit: There's a good show called Ask An Atheist where they adress that very subject.

I've met people who tell the people they date that so they sound deep, and philosophical... It's just meaningless hot air.

[Kylyssa]

I've developed a formula for dating or befriending religious or spiritual people.  

Most liberal religious people can get along well with atheists but I avoid people who are both conservative and religious but not people who are conservative and atheist or agnostic.  So, for dating purposes, I try to stick to people of vague, nebulous "spiritual" beliefs, ultra-liberal members of major religions, atheists, and agnostics.

[Whitney]

I avoided dating church going religious people even when I well within my agnostic-theist phase...I avoided them because I knew I could never seriously date someone who was that into religion.  I was already dating my husband when I started to define myself as an atheist but if I somehow found myself back in dating land I would date only atheists/apatheists/ignostics if I had a choice and would consider others on a case by case basis (If they were spiritual but weren't annoying and didn't' think I was going to burn in hell then that would be tolerable)

Try joining the philosophy club to find people that are more likely to be dating material...next place to look would be the biology department and other areas of study which would require people put aside fundamentalist religious thinking in order to pursue a degree.

[Prometheus]

I have a solution for this. Don't date idiots. My gf claimed to be a baptist when I met her but i could tell she was pretty intelligent. It turns out that she has more against organized religion than i do. She never prays or does any of that irrational crap. She doesn't even believe in any descriptions or expectations the religions give to her god since obviously no ones seen him/her/it. I helped her to figure out that shes actually a Deist. I can deal with that. I couldn't imagine dealing with my someone who wants to brainwash our children into thinking "We are this. Everyone else is wrong and is to be pitied or destroyed.".

Honestly to me a persons religion isn't that big of a deal compared to the other things that could go wrong in a relationship. There are so many people who act like selfish children out there. About half of my friends are slimeballs. They just plan on screwing around for as long as possible. Others have no ambition in life(Which could be a bigger problem than you'd think.) and others are druggies, alcoholics, or emotionally unstable and possibly violent. Most of my gf's before I met Sara were clingy drama queens. None of them were anywhere near my level of intelligence and ambition. I couldn't really communicate with them because it was like talking to a child or animal. That stuffs a problem but religion can be managed.

[Category]

In a relationship with a semi-practicing theist atm, was tough for awhile and almost made the mistake of attempting to "convert" her. Thankfully, this forum gave me some advice and we're now happy with a somewhat "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't have a problem dating theists, so long as she has brains, as pointed out above.

Stupidity is not only harder to deal with, it's harder to fix.

[Will]

I wonder if this is what it's like to be lgbt. You have come to terms with who you are, are only accepted by part of society, and your dating pool is smaller than your average person. You almost wish people could wear shirts that say "Christian looking for Christian" and "Muslim looking for Christian or atheist" or something.

[Croaker]

At first I was going to make a new post, but this seemed inline with what I've been dealing with.

What do you do when you become atheist and your wife (or husband, etc.) doesn't respond the way you hoped?

I guess I couldn't have expected her to be happy for me - I mean, now her beliefs state that I, of course, am going to hell.

We've got two kids, and I told her I'm fine with her taking them to church, I just wouldn't be tagging along. I've tried to convey to her that I have no desire in making her question her own beliefs. Truth be told, she mostly avoids any discussion. She's not the strongest believer, and that was one of the reasons why I thought my telling her might go over better.

Our marriage is fine now, as I've told her that it's a personal choice for myself and doesn't need to affect our relationship or the way we raise our children. I don't feel any need to profess to anyone else in my family my change - everyone, on both her and my own side is deeply religious - but she seems interested in me telling them. I truthfully feel like it would scar my relationship with my family (and hers) and don't see any necessity to it - what do you all think?

I love my wife deeply, and though our marriage was under the guise of the church, I feel that there is no difference between my commitment to her now and then.

I don't mind staying silent about it, and have only been in a few uncomfortable situations - being asked to say a blessing for a family dinner, or my kids asking me to pray with them before they go to bed. So far I've just deflected those to somebody else, but will this become a huge problem?

Anyone in a similar situation?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not in a similar situation, but this did jump out at me:

Our marriage is fine now, as I've told her that it's a personal choice for myself and doesn't need to affect our relationship or the way we raise our children. I don't feel any need to profess to anyone else in my family my change - everyone, on both her and my own side is deeply religious - but she seems interested in me telling them. I truthfully feel like it would scar my relationship with my family (and hers) and don't see any necessity to it - what do you all think?

Do what you think is right, and ask her to respect your judgement on the matter.  It is, after all, your family and your apostasy, not hers.

[Croaker]

So far, while maybe not being 'supportive,' she has at least been respectful in that she's not trying to convert me back or anything. It's not an issue that comes up often, and she hasn't pressed me multiple times to confess to my and/or her parents - but that's not to say her desire has disappeared.

I'm curious as to why she might want me to bring it up - an intervention, perhaps?  In any case, I'm going to continue to keep it cool, and hope she does the same.

[thirtiesgirl]

The last guy I dated was religious.  He's Lutheran and very devoted to his faith and church.  I met him online at Geek2Geek, a dating website supposedly for smart/geeky people looking to date other smart/geeky people (although, as is the case with all dating websites, there are plenty of unintelligent lifeforms seeking casual hook-ups or who just want to send you unsolicited pics of their junk - and I don't mean what's in their storage unit).  Had I known he was religious when we first started dating, I might not have given him a chance.  I'm glad I did, though.  He's one of the least judgmental religious guys I've ever met.  We only dated for 2 years, and it was long distance, so we didn't get to see each other on a regular basis, but during that time, he never once pressured me to believe what he believed, and he respected my reasons why I'm an atheist and a secular humanist.  He did talk about his faith on occasion which, I must admit, could sometimes annoy me.  But in comparison to other religious people I know, it was much less frequent than I've heard from them.  Had we continued the relationship, it might have become more of an issue, but other things got in the way that ended the relationship, so I didn't get to see how the religion issue would play out between us.

I must admit, the other thing that sometimes annoyed me was the fact that he went to church almost every Sunday.  He's a single dad with primary custody of his young kids, so it's important to him to make sure his kids are brought up in his faith.  He tried to get them to church every Sunday, even after he'd had a long week at work and wanted to do nothing more than sleep in on Sunday morning.  The whole thing seemed a bit ridiculous to me, but some Sundays he did indulge in his desire to sleep in, and he also told me that he was open to whatever religious or philosophical beliefs his kids decided to adopt when they were 18.  The fact that he'd been raised Lutheran and hadn't deviated from his family's religious beliefs or spent a lot of time considering other options didn't seem to occur to him.  But I didn't doubt what he said about being ok with his kids' potential rejection of his Lutheran beliefs, should it ever happen, considering how non-judgmental he was of me.

[Inevitable Droid]

It's been fifteen years since I've dated.  In my case, it wasn't so much that I couldn't find atheist women, as that I couldn't find women my own age in my local area who had the kind of mind that atheism would attract; I.e., empirical and logical.  Maybe Geek2Geek would be worth looking into, for me.

Personally, I could see myself dating an empirical, logical woman who also happened to be Deist, Reform Jew, Wiccan, or Buddhist - or certainly atheist, agnostic, apatheist, or any of the other varieties of people who might be happily making their online home on this message board because they know they belong here.

[Gawen]

Try
http://www.meetup.com
Go to the atheist, humanist, secular etc etc etc categories and do a search.

That said, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to date as an atheist.

Even online dating. Not long ago, I did a search (research) for only female atheists at Plentyoffish.com and another site (I can't remember). At Pof, I did a 100 mile search from my postal code and there were no hits. The other site gave one hit. She had the words "cognitive dissonance" in her profile. The search area covers the entire Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex and beyond. Over 6 million people...and one hit???

When I tell someone that I don't believe in a higher power, I always feel as if I'm being negatively judged.

Well, that's to be expected, I reckon. The odds are one out of ten people you tell that to would respond in your favour. The problem is finding that one out of the ten.

One guy asked, "Don't you believe in anything?" To which I responded, "Yeah, sure. I believe in science and empirical evidence." And I couldn't help but feel that to him, in saying what I had said, I'd just lost all my humanity.

Quite the opposite actually. It's the Christian mind set that want people to lose their humanity.

[Gawen]

While personally, I couldn't date a theist now, a great many atheists can and do date and marry theists. Many of them live a comfortable life. The problems are the theist inlaws. The next problem is children. I made it clear that my children would not be religiously indoctrinated at an early age. When their critical thinking skills have developed and they are no longer under considerable peer pressure would it be alright for them to 'experiment' in religious 'studies'.

As it stands, 24 years later, they are both atheists.