This August, my friend Dale McGowan will be releasing a book
about relationships between people who are atheists and religious.
And, you know, during wedding ceremonies when, you know,
the officiant says something like,
you know, "In better-- For better or for worse, in sickness and in health..."
Well, Dale's book is called "In Faith and in Doubt".
And in doing the research for his book, he ended up speaking to a lot of couples who are in these
mixed religious relationships, for lack of a better term.
And he got a good sense of what works, and what doesn't.
And I know a lot of you watching this,
you may be in relationships with someone who doesn't share your
religious beliefs, or your atheist beliefs.
And so, we wanted to come up with a list
of the things that work in these relationships,
and what doesn't work.
In another video, we'll talk about some of the things that make those relationships work,
but for now, let's talk about nine things
that Dale says makes those relationships difficult.
If you have any of these issues and you don't find a way to mitigate them,
your relationship may be in trouble.
You had the same worldviews when you got married,
but then, one of you changed.
You know, you always go into a relationship thinking you totally know your partner,
you know them better than anyone else.
But what happens if you met your partner
at church? And all of a sudden you get married,
and at some point down the road, they realize they don't believe in God anymore.
That's going to be a lot of tension right there.
Or what if you're an atheist, and you get married, and all of a sudden you realize your not religious partner starts believing in God.
You know, I married someone who's not religious,
but if all of a sudden she told me she wanted to start going to church,
I'll admit that would probably weird me out a little bit.
It's not the end of the road right there, but it's something we'd definitely want to talk about.
I want to say things will be okay if that happens in a relationship,
but it's one of those things that you just don't expect
after the marriage. You don't expect a big change like that after you've already said your vows.
Both partners intensely believe different things.
You know, if you're a hardcore atheist
and your partner pretty much just shrugs off religion, like,
"Oh, believing in God? Nah, I don't know,"
you're probably okay.
But if you're hardcore atheist, and your partner is a
hardcore evangelical Christian who thinks you're going to hell,
there's going to be some problems there.
Both partners are very dogmatic in their thinking.
And this is not the same as intensity.
This is all about how willing you are
to budge on your beliefs.
You know, if you are with someone whose beliefs are now different from yours,
are you willing to say, "Okay, you have a good point"?
Are you willing to say, "Okay, I might be wrong about that"?
Or are you absolutely stubborn and clinging to your beliefs, no matter what.
You know, if you both are going to cling to very different beliefs,
good luck with that.
One, or both of you, have a strong desire to convert the other one.
You know how hard it is to change your partner's bad habits?
Well, you're probably not going to change their concern for your eternal soul either.
Or, if it works out that way, you're probably not going to change their belief in whether or not you have an eternal soul.
If you're both trying to change each other,
or "fix" the other person,
you're just adding stress and tension to that relationship.
If the non religious person is an anti theist,
that could be bad.
You know, if the person who is an atheist in the relationship doesn't just not believe in God,
but thinks that people who are religious are brainwashed,
or people who are-- Or religion needs to be eradicated
and that person's with someone who is religious,
that's going to be a problem.
And, by the way, that's also
not going to work out if you're with someone who's even mildly religious.
Forget someone who's hardcore in their thinking.
Let's flip it around: if the religious person
is hardcore about their faith, or fundamentalist in their thinking, there will be problems.
I mean, it's one thing if they just, "Oh, I believe in God" and that's about as far as it goes.
But if they're, you know, a Mormon, or a Jehovah's Witness, or an evangelical Christian, or someone
who really believes it's their job to win souls for Jesus,
that's not going to work out so well.
In both cases, it's hard to have mutual respect
when you think the other person is either stupid, or destined to Hellfire.
The marriage already has other high-risk factors.
If you have differing religious views,
and other
high risk factors that often lead to a divorce, it's definitely not a good mix.
What are some of these other factors?
Well, if you have a huge age differential between you two;
if you got married at a very young age;
if you have a history of drug problems or alcohol problems; if there's
a history of divorce in your families.
Those are things that tend to increase the likelihood you may get divorced also.
Throw in a religious battle into the mix,
and that's not going to bode well for your future either.
You experienced serious disapproval
from the extended family or your community.
You know, it's one thing if your partner can deal with your difference of beliefs,
but if you can't visit your partner's parents
because they look down upon you for your beliefs,
or they want to convert your children, if you have any,
or if you can't even hang out with your partner's
friends because they look down on you for what it is you believe,
that's going to make it really tough, because you can't really be part of your partner's life
if you don't know her family members and her friends.
There's a disagreement over religious identity and religious practices when it comes to the children.
Will the kids choose a religious identity for themselves?
Will they go to church?
Will they be baptized, or confirmed, or bar mitzvahed?
Are you even willing to have these discussions?
Because if you're not,
you're going to have to make some tough decisions in the future.
And if you guys have differences of opinions on these things, and you don't
work them out before the child is of age, where all that stuff matters,
you're going to have a hard time dealing with those issues when they come up.
So, those are some of the biggest problems that can occur
in relationships between atheists and religious people,
but there are ways to overcome; there are ways to make those relationships work
and you can see that in this video right here.
Again, all of this comes from Dale McGowan's new book "In Faith and in Doubt".
It comes out this August. You can pre-order it using the link below.
And if you have ever been in any of those mixed faith relationships and you know what some of the warning signs are,
and I didn't mention them,
let us know about it in the comments below and hopefully some of the other people
reading the comments can know what to look out for
if they ever end up in that same situation.