Can a relationship between two people from different religions work out?

Yes, and yes.

My girlfriend and I were 1,000 miles apart when we started dating. Since then, she has moved close to me.

And my previous girlfriend, with whom I was involved for over six years, was a “spiritual” atheist, (one who does not believe in God but did have some spiritual practice) and I am Catholic, although not fully practicing. The important thing was to respect each others beliefs and not try to convert each other.

My opinion is that if two people are different religions, but both aren’t very religious, and they respect each other’s beliefs, it can easily work out as long as they agree how the children will be raised.

I think the religiousity usually matters more than what religion. My inlaws are very religious. My FIL was raised Jewish and he “converted” to Catholicism when he married my MIL. I don’t know if there was any formal conversion. They still go to church regularly. All the children were raised Catholic. My FIL says the religions are very similar, he doesn’t get caught up in the Jesus thing, and he says he prays in Hebrew and Spanish every day.

My husband converted to Judaism before we got married, wanting us to be the same. Neither of us is religious, but he does believe in God and I don’t. Religion has never once been a problem between us. He is actually less tolerant of the holy rollers than I am, and he is the theist.

Respect is definitely the biggest thing. I don’t think I could be married to a Christian who talks about their religion all the time, or who believes only Christians can get into Heaven. I just care about my morals and ethics being overall in line with the person I spend my life with.

Of course.

I know people that do it.

I personally couldn’t. I can’t even find the strength to one night stand a Republican.

I can only say that leaving religion at two different times is incredibly difficult on a relationship.

I’ve been an out atheist for almost seven years, and hubby has been “out” as an uncommitted apostate (still won’t say atheist) for about two.

That was a hard four-ish years for me, but at least I was able to help him through the transition.

We are both better people for no longer being Evangelical Christians, and we are a stronger couple for the experience.

It was very, very hard.

I could never be in a relationship with a religious person. It would affect how I felt about their priorities and their ability to reason.

I know a lot of people say that they don’t care whether their partner shares their religion, but I’ve never been able to understand that. If they’re each members of closely-related sects, maybe, but if there are fundamental differences in the faiths (what being they call god, whether there’s an afterlife and how to get there, how tolerant they should be of “sins”, etc.), then I don’t get how they can share a life without first coming to an agreement about those kinds of issues.

There will be difficulties, of course, but it is certainly possible. One of my best friends is the daughter of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. They’ve been together for over 30 years now, and everything I’ve seen indicates that they have a great marriage. Meanwhile, I’ve known Christian couples who can’t get over minor sectarian differences. In the end, it’s more about the people in the relationship and their ability to compromise and communicate with a particular partner than it is about their various labels and demographics.

My grandfather was a catholic, my grandmother a protestant. And goodness knows you should understand how much trouble that can cause! However, it seemed to work for them. Half their children were catholic and half were CofE.

I always find it interesting that Catholics and other mainstream Christian faiths are “different” religions. I regard them as different also, but it seems like that should be much easier than non-Christian and Christian inter-religious marriages, but it often is tricky.

@SavoirFaire But taking your friend’s parents as an example, does the wife not fear constantly that her husband will go to hell? How is that fear not the most important thing in her life, if she actually believes? And if she doesn’t believe, then they don’t actually have much of a difference in religion to begin with.

@JLeslie Catholics call themselves Christians. Various Protestant sects do not consider Catholics Christian.

@zenvelo I know. It bothers me.

@dappled_leaves The version of Christianity that she follows does not contend that Jews go to Hell simply in virtue of being Jews.

It happens all the time.

Yes. I used to live next door to couple. He was from Israel and Jewish and she was from Iran and Muslim and they were bringing up their kids up as Christian as they figured it was a good compromise.

^^You can’t be serious.

See, to me that’s the same as 2 people in a relationship with different star signs, shouldn’t matter in the slightest.

Absolutely.. It they’re smart they’ll recognize that their children should be their main focus and will eventually select the best of both worlds.
There are many statistics out there that show religion has no effect on divorce rates, crime rate, and a small effect on child education.

@ucme So, you would be ok with a wife who goes to church every Sunday, teaches your children atheists are going to hell and aren’t trustworthy, and criticizes your side of the family’s religious beliefs?

I think you are functioning on both of you being semi-rational and respectful. That’s not always the case.

@JLeslie If the sex is fantastic guys will overlook almost anything. ~

Hopefully they worked that all out before they agreed to marriage or having kids. If he can’t respect her and she him, there really is no point continuing beyond the boink.

@ucme I don’t think its quite the same thing to be honest. Because there are a lot of people (even religious people) who do not believe in astrology. So having a different star sign would be a pretty trivial issue.

But when someone is religious; there is a chance they could be very conservative, will try to raise your children through their religion and possibly try to convert you to their way of thinking. Now this is not always the case, but they are issues that may arise.

It’s hard enough on the kids to have grandparents that are a different religion from the parents.

My poor son has had to learn how to identify logical fallacies already, and he’s only seven.

“Grandma, there’s no evidence for that at all. Just stop.”

The astrology point was to say that religion, between couples should also be a triviality, something that shouldn’t get in the way. Ambitious considering what religion does to some people, but hey.

@JLeslie I am. They were hilarious.

I think it’s important to recognize that there is a distinction between being religious and being a zealot. Not every religious person is a zealot, so not every relationship between people of different religions has to involve an irreconcilable difference.

@SavoirFaire I think there’s a big difference between being a zealot and sincerely believing the tenets of one’s religion. The single most important belief in Christianity is that one cannot get to heaven without believing that Jesus is lord and saviour. What I conclude from that is that in marriages in which one person is a Christian and one is not, the Christian is not actually practice the religion that they say they do. How could they, knowing the fate of their spouse?

@SavoirFaire I am in very much agreement with you there.

@dappled_leaves The single most important belief in Christianity is that Jesus is the messiah. That one cannot get into Heaven without believing this is a derivative belief held by some, but not all, Christians. And even if it were true, an additional belief—specifically, that the opportunity for redemption ends at the moment of death—would be necessary to conclude that being a non-Christian in life seals one’s fate.

I, of course, do not accept any of those three beliefs. But many Christians accept only the first, with many more accepting the first and second while still rejecting the third. That all three necessarily come together is fundamentalist propaganda—and surely we’re not going to fall for that, right?

@SavoirFaire Yes, I already get that you think this. I just happen to disagree, and was saying so. We’re clearly not going to change each other’s minds.

@dappled_leaves Okay, but what the single most important belief of Christianity is isn’t a matter of opinion. It is a simple fact that the claim you mentioned is derivative, not basic. That you aren’t willing to change your mind, then, isn’t really a defense.

@SavoirFaire @dappled_leaves I also mentioned above about not being able to marry someone who believes I’m going to wind up in hell, because I’m an atheist and Jewish, which is why it would be incredibly unlikely I would marry an evangelical Christian.

However, there are people like my FIL, who became a Catholic, and he doesn’t really get caught up in the Jesus thing. He feels Judaism and Christianity are very similar. My MIL, a very religious Catholic, I don’t think she worries for the soul of her non-religious children, one of which converted to Judaism. When my Christian (Baptist) friend married Jewish guy, she was fine with him being Jewish, respected they were different faith. He was an ass because he wouldn’t go to Christmas with her family. He was completely disrespectful.

It depends on the individual, their religiousity, and their interpretation of their religion.

@JLeslie Sure. I’m completely on board with not marrying someone who thinks I’m going to Hell. Where @dappled_leaves and I disagree is with regard to whether or not Christians have to believe that non-Christians go to Hell in order to count as “real Christians.” I think that people like your in-laws count as Christians. In fact, I suspect that they are better Christians than anyone who uses their Christianity as an excuse to judge or condemn others.

@SavoirFaire That’s why I brought them up as an example.

However, I do think you are more likely to meet a Catholic who is more open to the idea that you don’t have to worry about a non-Christian’s soul, than the Evangelical Christians. From what I can tell a lot of the Evangelicals feel the Catholics aren’t going to make it to heaven.

A lot of evangelicals believe most evangelicals aren’t going to make it to heaven.

@JLeslie @Seek Agreed. A lot of evangelicals—or at least, the ones with the biggest megaphones—treat Christianity (and Heaven) like an exclusive club. There’s actually an interesting sermon on just that topic from the church I was raised in (though I understand if you don’t have time to read it; I don’t read many sermons these days either). Interestingly, we see less of this kind of cultural isolationism in churches with a strong history of theological scholarship (such as Catholicism and most of the older versions of Protestantism).

In Catholicism, for instance, there is the view that our experience of Heaven differs according to our personal merit (it’s good for everyone, of course, but different because some souls are better equipped to get more out of it). And in Methodism, there tends to be a strong focus on the universal nature of salvation (again, the subject of that sermon I linked). Not all Catholics and Methodists are well-versed in this part of their religion, but it does mean they get less pressure from above to think everyone else is automatically damned.

@NerdyKeith A lot of the discussion here has focused on the Abrahamic religions, but @JLeslie (and her father-in-law) reminded me of a point I meant to bring up before: not all religions are as different as we think, and not all of them are exclusive. If we look beyond our current time and place to various forms of polytheism, for instance, we can see that many people understood their dedication to a particular god or goddess as a way of securing advantages that suited them personally (whereas another person might be better off with the advantages conferred by a different god or goddess).

As far as we can tell, this is true of the Greek and Roman mystery religions. It also seems to be true of certain Vedic traditions. And a similar point of view can be found in the dialogue between Buddhism and Jainism (with sages on each side contending that both can lead to enlightenment, but that their religion does so more effectively or efficiently). This isn’t to say that there have never been “exclusivist” Buddhists and Jains (or Dionysians and Orphics, for that matter, though there aren’t a lot of them around anymore), but it does show us another way in which a difference of religion could be a non-issue in a relationship.

I’ve heard the Buddhists say there are many paths to goodness. I’ve never studied Buddhism. This means to me they are not very concerned with how the individual achieves goodness, and that any higher power or expectation by the universe for us is that we are good. It doesn’t matter if you find the goodness through Christianity, Buddhism, whatever.

In Judaism I have heard it said that each person has their relationship with God. This always meant to me that Jews don’t need to worry about the details of how others believe and worship, and that’s partly why we don’t try to convert people. We are not worried about your soul, because if you are good and worship God, God will know, and your goodness is more important to God than the worship part anyway.

That’s my interpretation anyway. I’m not a religious scholar though. I just pick snippets and twist religion to suit my own feelings about it. Probably everyone does that.