Short Guide to Dating and Religion

Religion and dating, a topic that didn’t exist back in the days when religion was as attached to your nationality as an alcoholic is attached to his liquor, is more than a valid discussion today (in the rotten Western world that is). Should we date someone of a different religion if we’re religious or of any religion at all if we’re Godless?

Let’s start with an example of a Godless person with no moral compass widely known as the Atheist (I’m putting to the same basket his ugly brother the Agnostic who can’t commit to an opinion about God and the ugliest of the siblings the Oblivious who didn’t even care to think about it all). The Atheist isn’t an easy person to date for any religious person. It’s difficult to have a healthy relationship when one person (the Atheist) thinks that the other person is an intellectual savage who believes in superstition and the other person (the Believer) thinks that their partner is a lost individual that will eventually find God and change his or her views to the right ones. The more serious the relationship gets the more one side tries to convince the other about their righteousness. The biggest problem appears when children are born. The Atheist wants to keep them far away from any specific religion for as long as possible while the Believer wants them to join the congregation ASAP. I’d say that Godless and Godful people should just spare themselves trouble and avoid dating each other. Compromise is possible, of course, but to compromise on something which requires giving up a quite important part of our beliefs may just not be the best idea.

Similarly, I think that it’s very difficult to make cross religious dating successful. Even though, unlike in the case of the Atheist and the Believer, representatives of different religions are all on Team God, the differences between them tend to lead to romantic conflicts. People can be very protective over their own rituals and as they believe that what they do is right they will want eventually to change their partner. We all know, that starting to date someone even with the most hidden idea in mind telling us that we can “change them” isn’t the right thing to do because it will most probably only be successful in one thing: wrecking our nerves.

I believe that when it comes to dating, people should be honest with themselves and agree on what they’re willing and not willing to accept. After all, there are degrees of commitment and militant/radical representatives of their religions or its lack are very different from its mild followers who actually don’t care at all. If you’re a Christian but you truly wouldn’t mind your child to be Muslim there’s truly no reason not to go for it, but let’s be honest, it’s a rare attitude.

Even though I wouldn’t like to tell my Dear Readers that in terms of religion and dating the more similar the views of the partners the better, I’m afraid I have to say exactly that. Obviously, there are differences in characters and some people really don’t mind converting, but as a general rule we shouldn’t count on it.