Atheism + Friendship/Love Life = ?

[Bunnehhh]

Has you being atheist affected your friendship with somebody, or even your love life?
- Or even, do YOU think it's possible to marry somebody who thinks like this? vvv

For me, it never has until a couple of months ago. I was seeing this guy for about a year. He always knew I was Atheist, and he never actually told me what religion he was, because he said he didn't care. He never questioned me and respected what I believed in. We stopped talking about 2 months a while ago, and recently started again. All of a sudden he told me he was serious about his religion - Jehovah's Witness. He said he didn't care before, but somehow he chose to start taking it seriously now. Suddenly he starts questioning me, asking why I was Atheist. The FIRST time I told him why all he could say is "Oh." He got extremely mad at me when I told him not to get upset and remember he's taking his OWN religion seriously, NOT my beliefs. The second time it got brought up because he was talking about how he just got back from his meeting with his friends at his church, and somehow the question about marriage came up. I asked him, if he's "allowed" to marry somebody who doesn't believe in that. He got mad, once again, and told me he IS allowed to, but he most likely wouldn't do it. And started telling me "I already feel sad when I see couples in church holding hands and being together in front of God, but when I'm actually a married man too, and I STILL can't do that... No thanks." Got very upset when I told him, if WE ever got married his religion and me being Atheist would completely ruin our relationship. He asked me, again, why I didn't believe in God. After explaining to him that I already answered him, then answering for a second time he all of a sudden gets completely nasty with me, telling me how it was stupid, how that WASN'T a reason, how it couldn't possibly be a reason because I didn't believe in ANYTHING. Also asked me if I believed in reincarnation, and when I said no he said I was stupid and wasting my life because I didn't believe in anything. Later that day we had another conversation, and he found out that a couple of months ago 2 Jehovah's Witnesses actually came to my house giving me stuff to read, and I never read them. He told me "I had a chance, but I chose not to take it, because I was so stubborn, and basically denied the help of God." and tried to read me verses from the Bible, which I told him he was just wasting his time with, aaaand he hung up on me.

That was the only huge thing I have dealt with about my beliefs, and it really upset me, because I cared about the guy a LOT!

 

[Le Pere Duchesne]

That sucks... big time.
I have not had too many religious friends, and no religious partners. Not by design, but because religious(I use the term to men active followers of a religion, rather than the passive acceptance of the existence of a particular deity/spiritual force) people generally cannot handle atheism.

I can only hope you find someone who doesn't care about your beliefs, or who likes you because of your beliefs. Don't take this event to mean that you should avoid the religious, but make sure people know what you are, like you did this time, and that you will not put up with them trying to guilt trip you into belief or whatever. After that, if they do anything like this d**k, they are at fault.

But you probably know this.
I can only say sorry to you and hope you find someone decent.  

[Lemon Jally]

My significant other is a very passive christian (I suspect him of being a closet atheist) and we rarely talk religion.
He's a very observant man but refuses to examine his "faith". He just doesn't care enough to question it. That being said, he follows nothing strictly.
I only worry how our kids would be raised (if we ever have any).


My best friend is a baptist and totally annoying. She's a "sinner til Sunday" but has the nerve to try and preach to me. We normally make fun of religion, church, and the concept of god but deep down it scares me to know she takes it seriously...we do not allow it to become a burden in our friendship.  

[PathlessPlot]

I've never had a problem with my SO. He happened to be the one to help me open my eyes about religion in general. I was accousted the other day at work by a preacher giving out pamphlets. It was quite funny. He thought I was a boy at first. rofl  

[Deaths asistant]

most of my friends are religous and it doesnt get in the way of anything, most of them are christian, I met ones parents (I dont know if they knew I was atheist) and I got along with them. but yeah if they are good friends then religion (or NO RELIGION) shouldnt matter.  

[Alloflifedecays]

Quite a few of my friends are christian, we get along fine. Theism is one small part of who they are, and not one I concern myself with.  

[D i v i n i t y]

My girlfriend and I have been going out for a bit past half a year and the relationship is going pretty smooth. smile She is a Catholic and I am an atheist. She is a pretty strong believer... I think. She knows I'm an atheist and I think it sorta bothers her. I think she would prefer if I believed in God. I mean I think she's more uncomfortable with the fact that I don't believe in any deities. If I was a muslim, I don't think she would care as much; it's just the fact that I don't believe in ANY sort of gods. Even though it's an obstacle in our relationship sorta.. I hope she does become an atheist Lol... Maybe I will be able to change her mind if she just lets me talk thoroughly about why I am an atheist... I've sorta told her before and explained why and she accepted it, but I don't think she likes examining her faith, etc. so it probably made her uncomfortable. I don't think her family and close friends could accept her being an atheist as well as I'd be able to Lol. I don't want to convince her right now since I know it would be hard on her so I am simply satisfied with her 'blissful ignorance' for now. o.O
Over all though I think we both realize that we care about eachother and we both love each other's personality so we look past our religion.
 

[[-Erik-]]

Just tell him to get over it.

It's your life and not his, and you will not try to pervert him into our nasty and iky atheist ways c:

If he doesn't, kick him in the nuts.

 

[Paraldehyde Kool-Aid]

Oh, that's dreadful! It's really unfortunate that he took such a turn like that. I sincerely hope he doesn't wind up being seriously hurt by them. I had a friend in high school whose family was Jehovah's Witnesses, and he was rather horribly abused - sexually, it turned out - and he even needed deprogramming, not just therapy, when he was finally able to escape from them.

Religion seems to come up a lot in my relationships, unfortunately. The last one I had saw the end of my days as the lip-service pagan I had been. I always had been a rather tepid one, secretly feeling quite foolish and ashamed of myself every time I did anything "pagan-ish." But, my last boyfriend considered me a "True Believer," and intoned in a mysterious, mystical-sounding voice that he had "seen" it in me so strongly, that I practically radiated it. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing in his face. His Third Eye apparently needs glasses or something, because I knew he was way off base. Actually, his saying that felt like I'd been kicked in the teeth, a little later on.

As far as friends go, I think it's been rather hard for them to really comprehend what it actually means. They are otherwise generally accepting and supportive. Most of them are pagan, but there's a couple of Christians and a few Buddhists, too. Weirdly, I think it's the pagans that are having the toughest time of it. There's one trying to convince me that casting healing spells for my step-mother would actually have an effect on her declining health from all the "positive energy." Since she's over 1000 miles away, this seem highly unlikely, at best. In truth, I never believed such things truly would have any effect, but that the act of casting them can at least make the caster feel like they're doing something positive to help in a situation where they otherwise cannot. About now, some are trying to convince me about the power of healing in prayer, say there have been studies, and, oddly enough there have been. However, the only measurable outcome there's been has been if the sick person prays for themselves. The effect is also about the same for Buddhist meditation or a placebo. To me, it says something about the mind-body connection, but nothing about divine intervention. But, I suppose that if a person seeks to find proof of their beliefs in the supernatural, they'll find it readily enough, even if they don't really examine it very closely to see if it even fits tolerably well.

I briefly had a boyfriend some time back who once described himself as a Wibblian or something strange like that. Believes devoutly in the god he'd made up, Wibble, who wants you to live well and be happy. Declared tht all gods are actually Wibble. This guy also lambasted me rather harshly for buying a Rush album, because he didn't like how overtly atheistic the lead singer had become, and told me to "be careful" about listening to Rush's music. I was pretty offended by that. I like Rush. At that point, I just hung up on him and never bothered with the jackass again. I'd absolutely had it with his treatment of me, and that was the last straw. I think if I ever bother with the dating thing again, it won't be very fulfilling if he's not an atheist too. Or at least agnostic, freethinker, humanist or something along those lines. My experience has been that the alternative's disastrous.  

[Athena_Ritashe]

Hmmm, haven't had much of a problem for the most part. But there was the one case where I had an old friend who was "saved" and "saw the light" and so forth. Last year I still believed in God and she took me out to lunch for my birthday. We started talking and then she started arguing with me about how a person could only have a relationship with god "through the bible". She got very vehement with me, yelling and stuff and it was very disturbing how she caused a scene. I was amazed at how threatened she felt by my lack of faith even though I never said anything negative about her faith.

I cut ties with her because I could not and cannot be friends with someone who thinks I must believe as they believe.  

[Apocryphal Quintessence]

I once went out with a guy who was a very strong Christian but he knew I was and Atheist but he told me that it didn't matter and for that time that we went out it never became a problem. Eventually we went our separate ways only to get back together a little while later. This time around however, after only three days he called me up and said that he had to end it because the bible forbid him to go out with me. It just broke my heart, because I really liked the guy and I felt that he was being way to serious about something, that to me is a load of crap.

Unfortunately I do think that being an Atheist affects my social life, not only romantically but with my friends too. A lot of my friends believe in some sort of god, some of them even strong Catholics. I have to be careful about what I say or how I express my opinion sometimes or face them going off on me, and really it's not fair. I hate how Christians can say anything they want and get away with it but when I say something I get put down.  

[Deadly_Shadows74]

meh, i actually kept it to myself unless people asked me if i believed. its never affected me or my friends, so i'm lucky on that one 3nodding  

[MercurialInK]

Ah, I feel like the lucky one. =D

My friends are all accepting of what I believe, and my quest for faith has caused a revolution in my school - people come up to me and thank them for getting them to question their faith, even if they arrived at the conclusion that their faith was justified (this is aside from the usual crazies and morons, which are always present).

Romantically, being an atheist never changed anything, except that a few months after I decided what I believed, my boyfriend (a devout christian, who my parents would have murdered me for going out with until after they met him), and I split up because we decided that the gap between what we think is just too big. We agreed that when our fundamental views of the universe are different, we couldn't make it work. We have quite wonderful tempers, you see. >.< It wasn't a big production, or anything, and it was us, not or faith that couldn't work. The faith just made it a heck of a lot harder.  

[Sergeant CJ]

My Ex claimed to be atheist, well to be more accurate she just didn't give a s**t, and like..... It made me like her more but she broke up for different reasons. She didn't want to tell her mom though o.o  

[Devaldra]

I've never had such a problem with those I've dated, actually. My "girl"friend was an atheist, and my boyfriend now, is some mix of Budhhist-Satanist-nihilist-solipsist-hedonist-whatever-ist. xd

As for friends, I'm already known as "the a*****e who's going to tear you down from your high horse". So religion has never been a problem, until one of my friends decided that they'd continuously recite that Dane Cook joke about the atheist in the elevator who says he's going to become a beautiful tree once he's dead, whenever I sneezed.

I think its unlikely I'd ever be with anyone who wasn't an atheist, unless they were one of the more relaxed religions [if any truly exist].