Can Atheists Date the Religious?

Below are two questions I received in the same week.

Dear Veronica,
While I was traveling I found one of the most beautiful and amazing women I’ve ever met. She was incredibly intelligent, passionately dedicated to her chosen field, flawlessly loyal to her friends, and vibrantly full of life…and did I mention that she’s beautiful? We had a lot of fun together and there was clearly a great deal of chemistry between us. By the time my trip ended, it was clear that there was more than a little mutual interest. However, there was also a problem. I am agnostic, but I’m a firm believer in dating for long periods of time before marriage, and I think that sex is a healthy way to build intimacy and understanding within a relationship. She belongs to a small christian sect that believes in transcending sin by surpassing it through purity of thought. Here is how they typically go about relationships… When a man decides he’s interested in a woman, he goes and speaks to a group of monks who listen to him and try and evaluate whether his interest in the women is truly God’s will or if it is just the product of his own desires (which, apparently, would be bad). If they believe it is God moving him, then he goes to the woman and asks her to–as this friend put it–”hang out with him with the intent of getting married.” They go on chaperoned dates for a month or so before deciding whether they want to marry or not, which usually happens shortly after their decision. Clearly we both have wildly differing world views, and yet there was a very definite connection between us. I am sure that we will remain friends, but do you think we will ever be able to develop this connection into something more? Do you think that it is possible for two people who come from such different cultures to transcend their differences and translate natural chemistry into a happy relationship?
–Pensive Traveler

Dear Veronica,
I recently had a great date with a girl in my class. I went over to her place, cooked her dinner, and we watched a movie. The whole night went really well, but I haven’t heard back from her since then. Here is where I think things may have gone wrong. The topic of religion came up, and she learned that I am a fairly philosophical liberal of no particular religious orientation. I learned that she is a born-again christian. I think we each had an “is this really right for me?” moment during the date. I saw her cringe when I told her that I wasn’t sure I believed in an omnipotent creator who guided my destiny on day to day basis. When she told me that she hadn’t read Harry Potter past the fourth book because her parents forbid it on the grounds that it endorsed witchcraft, I blurted out an astonished, “oh….” Despite these differences, we had a really good time and found a lot of non-religious things to connect over. Do you think I’ll get another date, and do you think we have a chance to make it work?
A givin it my best shot Student

Dear Traveler, and Student,

I’m sorry to lump both of your letters together, but the truth is that I can’t help you in a personal way anyway, since I don’t know you; and the thoughts I have on these subjects are relevant to both of you.  Both of you are asking me, in different ways, “Can I date someone whose religious views are different from my own?” — and the only answer I can possible give you is, “I don’t know, can you?”

Atheism is sometimes defined as lack of belief in a God, and sometimes defined as an insistence that there is no God.  Which kind of atheist are you?  An adamant one, or an apathetic one?  It seems clear that both of you are able to respect people with religious beliefs, but how far does that respect go?  For example, would you be willing to let your children be raised within your partner’s religion?

The reason I ask is that my mother’s best friend has had trouble with this problem over the last couple of years.  Actually, with a very different problem, but one which I think is analogous.  He married a woman who wanted to be a stay-at-home-mother and live in upstate New York, despite the fact that he lived in the city when he met her, and he went along with it — they bought a spacious house together and had two daughters, whom he worked hard to support while his wife raised them, and they were all fairly happy.  The thing is, those girls grew up, and got to high school, and began thinking about their futures — and their mother encouraged them to follow the path she’d taken, while their father didn’t.  Suddenly, the values my mother’s friend had had no difficulty accepting in his wife became problematic within their marriage, because he wasn’t willing to pass them on to his children; he felt that they deserved more.  His wife, for her part, found that offensive because of its implications for how he saw her.  They split up in the end, and the kids are applying to top-tier schools, and my mom’s friend works overtime to pay child support.

I don’t repeat this story to denigrate stay-at-home mothers or residents of the rest of my state — I don’t really know anything about either of those ways of life — but to point out that it’s worthwhile to question what kind of an atheist you are and how you think about the religious life.  You’re probably not thinking about marriage right now, but the question is still relevant: is religious belief something you’re hoping to “overlook” in a partner, but which you ultimately don’t respect?  Or is her faith derived from an impulse you yourself share in a different form, something you can admire in her?  You may not have an answer to these questions yet, and if that’s the case, I think it’s worthwhile to try to figure it out.

In general there’s a paradox involved in beginning to date people: you find yourself interested in people who do things you’re already interested in — play blues, read German novels, analyze superhero movies — but what you’re hoping to find is someone who can teach you something you don’t know, open worlds for you, show you things you’ve never heard of, or more subtly, give you a perspective you hadn’t envisioned before.  This is one of the reasons I’m still skeptical about dating sites, despite the fact that they’ve served many of my friends well.  Because if you’re only open to people who meet your very specific standards, how will you find someone who’ll surprise you — who’ll show you things you didn’t know you’d like?

The paradox isn’t fatal; as relationships unfold, there’s usually a gradual shift in the balance of these terms.  You find someone you can relate to, someone who already has a lot in common with you, and someone who fits into a fairly small slice of society that interests you romantically; and as time goes by, and you get to know him or her better, you become inspired, if you’re lucky, by the specific person you’re seeing — by her entirety, by her idiosyncrasies, by her totality.  She might have seemed a rare find at first, but if you fall in love it’ll be more than that: she’ll become irreplaceable to you, as you allow yourself to be won over by her way of seeing the world, and change your mind about the things that once divided you.

Do you see what I’m driving at?  In addition to questioning what religion means to this woman and how she views it,  you have to ask yourself how much you yourself are willing to be inspired, how flexible your own beliefs are.

In other situations I’d tell you to find out by trying, because I’m a sap and an optimist and everything else; but in a case like this, the stakes are so high, and the differences are so extreme, that I think you have to make a judgment call and live with the fact that there’s a good chance you’ll be wrong.  Because it’s impossible to really know in advance.  So go with your gut: if you don’t think you’ll ever meet someone this amazing again, then fuck logic — take the risk.  If she’s deeply religious and you feel deeply compelled by her, it could be that your own views on religion are already changing and are meant to change further.  But if you have hearty misgivings about the whole thing, listen to them.  You’ll end up hurting her, and yourself as well, if you ultimately can’t make that leap for her, can’t move from tolerating her beliefs to admiring them.

Best of luck!

-VVM