The other day, my boyfriend & I were taking a late night walk through the woods, which are a huge part of my college campus. We ended up talking about a lot of things, one of them what we believed, in terms of god, fate, etc. We're both Jewish, but neither of us are very religious, if that makes sense. So, I guess I just always figured he & I were on the same page about what we believed. I found out though, that we're not.
I told him that although I've never believed in god, I like to think that things happen the way they were meant to, & there's some kind of reason for it. I also told him that I felt most spiritually connected with nature. Mostly though, I'm still figuring things out, & trying to make sense of it all.
He said that he doesn't believe in god in the traditional sense. He says he thinks god is everywhere, but he doesn't believe that this god figure has control or an impact over our lives. He also said he believes in Chaos Theory, which says that systems, no matter how complex, rely upon an underlying order. It also says that very simple or small systems & events can cause very complex behaviors or events.
After we had this conversation, he asked me if what he'd told me about his beliefs changed my opinion of him. I told him that of course it didn't. Just because we happen to see things a little differently doesn't change the fact that I'm in love with him & he's everything I could ever want in & more in a lover & a best friend.
Would what you think if you found out that you & your SO believed in different things? Would you ever go into a relationship knowing that you & the other person held different beliefs? Why or why not?
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That be ye not yolked with an unbeliever shit is retarded.. if you both like/love each other..who cares?
welllll honestly, it depends. i'm serious. i'm not super discriminatory, if you're "lightly" religious. but i cant seriously see myself spending my days with a devout anything, a jehovah, a mormon, etc. sorry, but i just can't. i'm agnostic leaning towards atheist, it would really only lead to trouble.
I don't think I can date anyone that tried to impose their beliefs on me. I tend to shy away from religious people though, as far as SO selection goes. It might seem okay at the beginning, but I feel like it could cause some major problems later on. Thankfully, I've never really fell for anyone that believed in God. Not that I have anything against them! I just feel like they'd have something against me.
I did date someone Jewish though. It was never an issue.
I'm an atheist, and I've actually never dated someone with the same beliefs as me. Differing beliefs or religion has never been a problem, but I could see it being one if the other person was preachy or disapproving. Like in all things in a relationship, it's about accepting each others differences. Just as I'm sure my boyfriend (who is catholic) wouldn't like me to tell him that his god doesn't exist, I don't want him telling me that I'm damned to hell. We still can discuss spiritual matters and explore each other's thoughts, but there's never any pressure. It works out.
I honestly always thought it didnt matter if anyone I was with didnt see eye to eye on the whole God thing but after later marrying the man and having kids with him, it makes a huge difference. I grew up in church all my life and what not but it was forced so when i got out on my own i didnt care about going to church except occassionally. My boyfriend (later husband) didnt want to attend church at all and had some weird beliefs. Well i still didnt care and went on with our lives. But once we had kids, it made the biggest difference ever. Him not having a church or godly background like I did also meant he was lack on some of his morals and ideas on what was okay. Once we sat down and really started talking about raising the two kids we ended up having way different ideas. It wasnt that i was trying to raise them all churchy and crap but I was trying to raise them to be good decent people. I always thought you could be a good person even if u werent like a jesus freak but as I became a mom I realized alot of the things my parents instilled in me had alot to do with the fact that they did believe and did attend church regularly. Like for example I told him i didnt want our daughter having sex before marriage and that we needed to teach her that. My reasons werent because its against gods laws or commandments or whatever. It was just because I didnt want to see her get emotionally involved in something like that before she was emotionally mature enough to handel and to make sure she found the right man before she just gave herself away to everyone. He didnt care. He said as long as she didnt get pregnant and live with us then it was okay. This made me mad. And that was because he did those things as a teenager. He also didnt care if she did drugs as long as she was responsible with it. This is because he did drugs. I am divorced from this man now but religion can be a huge factor in the relationship before you know it. I still dontgo to church and I dont talk alot about God but I still teach my children godly principles and morals so they will be good people in the end. You dont have to be godly to do this nor religious. But remember if they are lax in their beliefs they may be lax in more important areas. God Bless and good luck.
seems like something you should figure out before you get serious
Judaism works a lot different than I though, since you can not believe in God an self-identify with it. Just saying.
As a person with no faith whatsoever, I think I could be with someone with general inclinations, but not someone who was super serious about a religion. I think it has a lot to do with where faith is as a priority in each person's life. You made is seem like both you and your boyfriend put it pretty low on the list, so it seems unlikely that it would get in the way. If someone made religion something really important to them, I can't see them getting along too well with me, as our priorities are so different.
Immature me cared about it, but current me knows better.
Considering how much uncertainty about God remains and how many questions are unanswerable/unanswered, I don't think people's personal beliefs on the matter should be held against them.
Upon observation, it seems like atheists, agnostics and the slightly religious/believing are quite likely to tolerate inherent differences in beliefs as long as the extent of the role of those beliefs in their SO's life is not extreme or dominant.
I am no expert in Judaism but I thought believing in God was part of the deal.
dating is just dating. But I don't want to marry and grow old with someone knowing that they don't believe they are going to heaven and me knowing they wont.If I loved someone who was an unbeliever I know it wouldn't work if it stayed that way and any Christian should know that as well. I'm not saying a believer in that situation needs to push their religion on their significant other, but I can see the serious strain it would have on the relationship. A strain that would almost definitely lead to the relationship's end.
How would you raise your kids? It's possible for the relationship to work. But I do know that if I marry a religious man . . . it'd be challenging. Should I lie to my children, telling them that God MAY exist. . . while my husband would say that God ACTUALLY exists? I'm not the sort to lie.. so it just depends on what you're willing to sacrifice for the relationship to work.. and at some point if you have kids.. then that makes it quite more challenging than it already is.
My boyfriend is Roman Catholic and has been in private schools almost all his life. I, on the other hand, don't exactly believe in God. It never gets in the way because we're both already different in our styles and music tastes. We barely fight. We're just meant for each other, despite our differences.
Well, I am a Christian, and my ex-boyfriend is like SuperChristian (I mean that in a superhero-like sense). He goes to church anytime church could be went to and so do his parents. We all went together, to this church, of people no younger than 50, who speak in tongues, and offer to lay their hands on you to heal you. I'm talking hardcore Christians. I was SuperChristian's side kick, SuperAngel (I made that up, just now). No matter how close I was to SuperChristian, I never felt God or as Beyonce would say it, I never saw SuperChristian's halo. He is very un-accepting towards people not of his kind. We broke up because he felt that I wasn't the one that God had for him. We got back together a few weeks later, but then one day I wanted to go to Kohl's and he didn't go with me after he said he would, so I broke up with him. SuperAngel - 1, SuperChristian - 0. That was 11 months ago and it is the best decision I ever made. I have now been dating someone, who is agnostic, for 6 months. He's the most accepting person I've ever met and his halo shines like the sun. :)
So, I don't think I would ever turn a guy down based on his religious beliefs, or lack thereof, unless he like worships the devil and is into witchcraft (I'm just kind of scared of that, lol).
Being religious, it would matter to me, just because it takes a higher priority in my life. It would depend on how the people view their religions and how important a precedence it takes in their own personal lives.
It may change the way I think of my SO, but I think if it was different than what I perceived him to believe, and what I believed, I would love him more. I love diversity in a relationship, and I'm really big on different religions and customs. His beliefs would add a variety to our family, when we have one, and I love that.
I would never break up with him over it, because we're both really accepting of religion.
It's a matter of objective morals in comparison to relative morals. Someone's gotta give, so good luck.
i think it's fine as long as both people can be happy without compromising their beliefs... which is the difficult part.
It depends on if we agree about how we would raise our children, and decide to not pressure the other into our religion, or lackthereof. I think that finding a guy like that, however, would be very slim, so I'll just stick with persuing someone of my own belief. /:
If they accepted my beliefs and didn't try to change me, I'd be fine with it.
@ceece_bryant@xanga - so you would suggest to not be with someone of a different religion? or if one is of religion, to not date someone who is athiest ?
Well, I'm about to get involved with a Hindu...and I'm Roman Catholic. So I'd say our beliefs are drastically different. So yes.
I had this discussion with my cousin just last week. My cousin, who is super religious, doesn't think that it is something that should work out. His explanation is that if you are truly Christian, then you and your other's goals are different in life.
It seriously does suck if you meet the "right person" and the relationship just doesn't work out just due to religious issues.
@i_will_make_it_this_time@xanga - I definitely agree. It's not an issue of intolerance. It's just that people who don't believe in God don't realize what's at stake to a Christian. If a person is atheist or something, then they don't care. God doesn't exist, no heaven or hell, life goes on. To a Christian for example, Jesus is everything. So it's a really exasperating and awkward situation. A lot of atheists don't realize that often times, religious people have a different reality than you. Obviously, it's a reality they don't believe in, but they automatically attribute that separation and trouble of mixing as intolerance.
I would never ever be able to date someone out of my religion. I'm sure there are plenty of nice guys who are of other religions or no religion, but for me I'd never reach that level of intimacy and love with a guy who knew or cared nothing about the thing that matters to me most in life.
On an off-topic, I think it's really strange that Jewish people use their religion in place of their ethnicity. I've heard plenty of people say they're Jewish, but they don't practice Jewish customs or hold Jewish beliefs. Religion isn't genetically inherited. If your parents are Jewish, that doesn't make you Jewish. I don't get it. =/
No one will be able to find an exact replica of themselves. But if they did, it would be boring. My girlfriend is Catholic and I'm Buddhist. However, we don't talk about religion or battle it out. However, we do both believe things happen for a certain reason. I'm a believer in fate and that events always lead to another. It's not that it's predestined, but I feel that things don't happen merely by coincidence. Everything else is merely just preference and you shouldn't aggravate each other just because one of you like a certain style of music better.
I'm okay if he has different beliefs as long as he isn't annoying about it and always brings up his religion in conversation just to spite me.