Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Atheists Tell us about your long term partner's religious views
Unequally yoked
Before we were married my wife was a somewhat devout catholic. I never thought much about religion before that so I attended weekly mass and enjoyed the restaurant coupons in the back of the church flier (I was a starving grad student). After we were married and the birth of our first child she slowly moved into a fundamentalist church. Again, I continued to go to church and even participate in some of the activities but started to get an uneasy feeling about religion. To make a long story short after lots of reading various versions of the bible, apologetics, web forums, etc I am pretty much a hard core atheist. My kids are young teens and share their faith with their mother. While I still attend weekly services with them, I refuse to participate in any other church activities.
Regarding finances:
My wife actually asked if I was willing to tithe 10% and I nearly choked. She doesn't work despite having a MS in biology, so I tell her she can contribute 10% of her income. I'll put in a couple of bucks just to pay for the air I suck in during the sermon. I was amazed to hear that some of these people regularly cough up a couple hundred $$ per week for the church. When there was talk about building a new church one of the elders was going around asking people to get second mortgages on their personal house to build the new church.
Regarding friendships:
Most of "our" friends are "her" friends from church. Yes, some of them are okay but there can be some awkward moments when someone new to the group asks me to pray or what evidence do I see for creation in human genetics (my field). *None* BTW.
Conclusion:
From my experience, I would say that people tend to polarize their views as they age, especially once children enter the picture. I love my wife but we both know that there is no way we would even date, let alone marry with our present religous viewpoints. Think long and hard if you are a freethinker and are considering getting hitched to even a semi-devout person.
You are a better man than I
I've got to hand it to you ARB, you are a better man than I because I don't think I could do it. I tried dating a Christian woman once, many years ago. She was fairly liberal and not preachy, but it gradually became apparent that it wasn't going to work. When the Holidays came around, she really expected me to go to church with her family. I told her that as soon as I step a foot inside a church I'll burst into flames (she didn't think it was as funny as I did) and the family obviously thought that I was being rude (I wasn't upset when they wouldn't come to my Winter Soltice Sacrifice) But actually the biggest thing that drove us apart was that she finally admitted to me that my "taking the Lord's name in vain" was getting to her. Where I grew up, my dad was constantly "Jesus Christ" this and "God Dammit" that and I guess it rubbed off on me. Don't get me wrong, when politeness dictates that I watch my language, I do. But in the privacy of my own home I feel I have the right to be me.
So obviously, my wife is a fellow heathen. We both have a great sense of humor and of course find great enjoyment in poking fun at the absurdity of religion. I would hate to lose that and I don't think I could stop myself from doing it.
Soltice?
Okay - I understand that someone could celebrate the seasons and remain an aptly be described as atheist -- but can I assume you are kidding about the Soltice Sacrifice, because who or what were you sacrificing to or for and why if you are an atheist?
It bothers me when anti-Christian or persons who thing the Christian concept of god is crackers reference themselves as atheists -- but maybe its me who does not understand the proper use of the term?
Different question
I'd be interested in knowing all of your answers to another question:
How many people have you had some effect on in the realm of atheism?
How many have you either: 1) converted or helped convert, 2) affirmed in their fledgling atheist views, or 3) supported in their already-reached but waveringly-uncertain atheism?
...
For myself, I helped turn one friend from a soft atheist to a hard one, and I think I've had some effect on a number of young people (high school/college age) by talking openly with them about the non-existence of gods and the silliness of holy books.
Considering that the other side is preaching 24/7, working to convert every living human, and even making sneaky and endless efforts to suborn our governments, if we're not pushing back in some way OUTSIDE OUR FRIENDLY LITTLE ATHEIST CIRCLE-JERKS, I think we're losing ground. Worse, I think we're voluntarily giving ourselves up to a coming theocracy.
So: Talk to young people. Bring it up in conversation with friends. Vote. Write letters. Speak up.
Fight back in some way during this free period NOW, so there will be a free time later.
conversion
To my knowledge I've convinced 0 people. I used to spend some time on the chat room circuit (as you know Hank) but most of the people I encountered didn't want to listen to reason. I'm openly atheist at work and have discussed my atheism with many people. I work especially hard on my family because they're all very intelligent people. But faith is a tough cookie to crack.
If you want to convert
If you want to convert people to atheism, reason is not going to work -- except maybe on youth who are jsut figuring out that many of the things that they thought were facts were part of an ideology. This might be hard to believe, but some people might have a more sophisticated understanding than the youth who is thinking: "Hmmm... no Super-man, no Santa Clause, no Jesus! Neat!"
I suggest you start by figuring out what needs that religion fills for the person, and how you yourself fill them.
These youth today
Go for young people. Seriously. Not only will you encounter a higher percentage of open minds, but there are a lot of them already thinking the stuff you might tell them.
I wish I could have met just one person, when I was about 17 or so, who could have reassured me I was on the right track, and that I was correct in my very tentative postulate that mystical superbeings might not exist.
This is hardly child abuse. If you shy away from it thinking that you have no right to interfere in a young person's mind, you DO have the right to have honest input into the experience of people who will grow up to run our society. Idiot godders are shameless about it, as are advertisers.
You have at least as much right as rap musicians and tobacco companies to put in your two cents. And at least you'll be telling them facts, instead of manipulating and lying to them.
If you happen to strike up a conversation with the kid at the sandwich shop (or the hardware store, gas station, gym, etc.) and the subject comes up (right now politics and terrorism can easily lead into it), ask them what they think about the fact that every group has their own holy book, and each one of them thinks they have the absolute truth. And then listen.
It's easy to give your own opinion in a low key way: "I gave up all that nonsense years ago. I started thinking I might be an atheist when I was about 13, and by the time I was 30, I knew I couldn't possibly believe in an invisible Sky Daddy. For every reason I could think of, it was just silly."
EAC Motto
Hehehe...
No closet...but not an evangelist either
Everyone at work knows I am an atheist. I get excited at times (ie faith based initiative) and so no secret....admittedly I work with a fairly liberal group...but none of them are atheists to my knowledge.
Being an Atheist “Witness”
I’m only semi-out of the closet. I live in a very, very fundamentalist part of the country. Hell, the area I live in is considered ultra-conservative and fundamentalist compared to the rest of Mississippi.
So I generally keep my mouth shut and just try to be a cool/smart person. Sometimes it just comes out and then I have a history with the person and they know that even though I’m a hell-bound heathen, I’m still a decent person, committed to my wife, and not going around eating babies or something. I think that has more effect than outright evangelism. I hope so anyway. I know that back when I was a fundie, as soon as someone said they were an atheist, I tuned out anything else they had to say the way you’d tune out a discourse on Quantum mechanics by Forrest Gump.
Different Question 2
Nobody?
Nothing?
Hank, I will say I've had no
Hank,
I will say I've had no luck with people outside of my family, but take full responsibility for my husband and twin sister. I feel pretty damn good about that too! I'm working on my mother, but aside from being a "born again", she's a way over the top "emotional cripple". What I mean by that is, she not only uses her emotions to dictate her religious beliefs, she uses them to dictate what she's having for dinner! With her, I see that as my major preliminary hurdle to overcome, before we even hit the religion BS.
I cheated
I'm not married, and I'm actually not even in a relationship. But my last serious one was with Alon - so I went with A... since we're both very much athiests. After him, in a less serious relationship, I had a guy who just... didn't know what he believed, so he liked listening to me talk about athiesm. He would ask a lot of questions about the other side of things too.
Somewhere between A & B
My wife was raised Roman Catholic, and carries some of the baggage one almost inevitably does when your mother is very religious and two brothers are in seminary.
While I have heard her say "I'm probably an atheist but just haven't admitted it yet," she does express a certain amount of desire/sympathy for the pomp & circumstance of the church.
My husband believes because,
My husband believes because, well, he wants to believe. He thinks my meeting with other atheists (free thinkers, secular humanists)is, for want of a better word, hilarious.
The Wife
In truth I guess me wife is somewhere between “My SO is religious but is OK with my atheistic views” and “My SO is religious but is concerned by my atheistic views.” We both grew up Fundamentalist Southern Baptists, and her father is even a minister. While I have grown away from religion entirely, she is at least moving far, far away from the fundamentalist stuff and has gone from Baptist to Presbyterian, to Episcopalian. With this background you can imagine how concerned she was when I “came out.” She is okay with it now, but still not 100% comfortable. I think she clings dearly to the theology of “once saved, always saved” for her heathen husband. There really isn’t any “friction” just some discomfort maybe.
Butch, You may be on to
Butch,
You may be on to something. This is exactly the road I took to atheism....started with fundemental churches, and gradually went through Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, ending up at Unitarian. By the time I started attending Unitarian, I was too far gone to be saved. I went a few times and decided UU is basically the "bridge" from one side to the other. Now, wild horses couldn't drag me to any church!
BTW, The Episcopalians are great though! They love to get together for any reason that requires a good, stiff drink.
SO and atheism
My wife believes in God, and I don't. But neither of us is religous. She doesn't go to services, or pray, or anything, she just thinks there's a God. This hasn't caused any friction at all.
Let me explain
I answered the poll with Choice 3 (My SO is Religious and concerned by my atheistic views).
This creates some friction in the house. For example, my kids (as you may have noticed in my bio - triplets 13 years old) use the "I don't believe in god" thing when my wife tries to get them to go to church. That's when I get the dirty looks from her. (Long-married couples know the looks I write of.)
I am happy to discuss the subject with my wife, but she gets too angry. The thing that makes her the angriest is that I do not believe in something after we die. (Actually, I believe we rot and continue on in the carbon cycle - know that when you die, you will be contributing to global warming because much of the carbon you carry around with you will make it back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide :-)
The other frustrating thing for her is that I am far better prepared for arguing the atheist side of things than she is for arguing the Christian side - she hates to lose to me :-)
However, I have made it quite clear to her that whether Jesus existed or not, I can support the things he supposedly taught like Do unto others, give because you want to, not so you can get in return, turn the other cheek (or meet force with compassion)(these BTW are the "gospel of Thomas" teachings and the teachings from the Jefferson Bible (Read Jesus without the Miracles an article published in Harpers Magazine some months back.)
Frankly who cannot get behind these rules for living? But why must they come from a mystical being - is that supposed to make them more believable?
I digress. We have been married for nearly 20 years and we were together five before we married. My atheistic views have always been around but have gotten particularly strong in the past five or so years... it could be the end of a great relationship. I hope not.
How do we handle it? We generally avoid the subject. At dinner she insists on grace. She thanks God, "Thank you god for..." when it is my turn, I say, "I am thankful for ..."
I go to church with her only on rare occasions.
How do you deal with the differences?
My Wife...
My wife is buddhist. What I mean by that is that she is Japanese & German, and heavily influenced by her mother's side of the family (non-theistic buddhists). She is a practical deist, believing (without any evidence) that some supreme being or 'greatest intelligence' set the whole thing rolling along, then left us to our own devices. She enjoys the woo-woo spiritual crap, however, and that makes for some fun eye-rolling evenings. She seems to understand and accept that it is just entertainment on the order of a movie in the theatre, which makes me glad.
The odd thing is that this black/white divide in our relationship (she believes in a god of sorts, I do not) creates an invigorating undertone to our marraige that is enjoyed by us both. Whenever we have gotten into real serious discussions, she always backs down and says, "but that is only my opinion. I don't have any evidence for it."
That's fine with me.
Here's the interesting thing: When we first started going out and were getting serious, I sat her down one night on the couch and said to her, "Brace yourself, I have to tell you something."
She looked at me expectantly and I continued.
"I," I said, trying desparately to convey the gravity of the situation to her, "am an atheist."
I had much more to say. Stuff I had been working weeks on. Stuff like, "I will understand if you don't want to continue going out with me," and "Calm down, I am not in league with Satan." You know, the typical stuff I had lathered myself into an anxiety attack about.
She surprised the hell out of me, though. She smiled gently and cocked her head to one side like I love and said in the sweetest voice, "I know. Your mom told me a couple of months ago."
I was literally speechless. I had been steeling myself for an emotional scene complete with womanly waterworks, and my manly assurances that I was still a good person despite my hellbound condition.
But she had known for months. And she still loved me and wanted to be with me, regardless.
I cannot express to you the feeling of completeness and contentment that comes from having a partner-in-life who knows exactly who you are and what you are all about. It has got to be the meaning of life, in my opinion.
Well, that and passing on your genome to the future. Heh. I've certainly got that covered with five kids.
Great poll, ARB! I have been meaning to write a new one for a long time now. I am happy to see that you saved me the trouble!
Hey no prob
Just checking out the new toys...:-)
Less friction here
My wife mildly believed in a supreme being when we met, but she's since come to accept the obvious...
I grew up in Britain, where things are the opposite of here - religious services are compulsory in state schools, but most people don't believe or even give it a second thought. Brits are very uncomfortable with public religion - most people cringe when Blair invokes god.
My wife...
My wife used to be Christian, lapsed briefly into Agnosticism/Diesm when we married, and is now an Atheist.
My husband and I are both
My husband and I are both atheists and we both work in the biological sciences. His parents are hardcore fundamentalist Christians and Creationists. Sometimes things get...heated.
SO/Atheist poll
It is strange to remember my S/O of a few years back and the fact that I cannot remember any discussion of any kind regarding atheism and religion. Oh, we argued and discussed everything from law(her field), to politics, to current events, to architecture (my field), but religion just seems in hindsight to have been a non-issue. I've always been an atheist kind of by default, but it is only fairly recently (Bush II election?) that I have seen the importance of being "out".
Partners of Atheists
My husband is a gay atheist, and so am I. It was my self description as "Anti-Christian" in an ancient Yahoo Personals ad that first made me interesting to him 10 years ago. Yes, for all of these ten years I've been very busy making fun of religion.
My queer husband was British when we met, but I converted him to 'merikan.