I’m an atheist. I dated a woman once who believed in spirits. I think she experienced night terrors among other things and interpreted them as supernatural phenomena. It didn’t cause problems then but I was a lot younger and I think now I’m less tolerant of that sort of thing. But who knows - I was crazy about her so maybe if I meet a woman I’m crazy about like that again then I’ll tolerate anything.

More recently I’ve dated people who believe in a vague sort of life after death but never someone who practiced any religion. I think I would immediately rule out practicing religious people if I were going through a list (as when dating online) but if I met someone in person, really liked her, and then found out she was religious then I’m not sure what I would do. It would definitely be off-putting.

The problem for me isn’t the lifestyle differences but rather my impression that religious people are missing the point about the basic nature of existence, when it really should be obvious. It makes me feel like I’m patronizing them, because to be frank I don’t tend to think of them as my intellectual equals. (And I know that makes me sound like a pompous jerk.)

If they were personally religious (spiritual) rather than socially/dogmatically religious, then it could work out. As an atheist, I’m not against spiritual beliefs, but their core values must align with mine - that is the important bit here. Obviously, communication about these things would determine where we align, and help determine if we could sustain a relationship, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Note: I include a love of nature, humanism, etc. under the ‘spiritual’ label, as well as traditionally religiously spiritual.

No

I’m atheist, and my partner was Muslim when I first knew her.

People say it doesn’t mater - but honestly it really fucking does.

Imagine being in relationship with someone who never really left North Korea, deep down. There’s so much fear, so much fear-driven obedience, and so much fear-driven defense of the indefensible.

I never really understood the concept of freedom of conscience until I was arguing with one of her friends about Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery - with her sentence delayed until her baby was weaned. Despite being really very progressive at heart, my partner ended up arguing in favour of it - and then later on was seriously pissed off at me for making her defend that.

She ended up deconverting several years later (certainly not at my behest), and things got immeasurably better from then on.

But that’s not a possibility I’d recommend banking on. My honest advice is just don’t go there, it’s far more stressful than you think it is.

As long as they don’t try to convert me, yes.

Muslim here and nope. Setting aside that it’s forbidden in Islam, I’d have to get them on board with so many things they might as well convert.

There’s already several comments saying “depends on the beliefs and how important they are,” and obviously there’s that.

I’ll add that there are beliefs people don’t immediately think of when talking about religion. There’s religious humanism, which is a secular religion based around behaving ethically which also has a bunch of traditions similar to spiritually-based religions, minus the spirituality. Adherents (can) attend church and hear sermons on ways to be a better person, etc.

I’m not a religious humanist but they sound like they’re probably decent enough people. They’re quite different to my generic fediverse atheist/irreligious views, in the sense that I don’t have any desire to attend congregations of people who identify as religiously ethical, but I don’t harbor any strong objections to their beliefs.

Personally, I understand it more as something that might be nice for people who have left spiritual religion but still want the trappings of a place to go and be with a community of like-minded people, but that’s not my experience. Ultimately, that’s probably about as far as I’d be comfortable, where we have roughly equivalent spiritual views but highly divergent religious views.

Sure. My parents had different religions and being an atheist I don’t really have a duty to care about other people’s religions.

Of course it helped that my parents weren’t too seriously religious. And I’ve rejected religious people for having religion-tied views I find appalling. But the religion itself isn’t the issue, just the things that sometimes result from it are.

I’m an aethiset, she was christian. I moved on fairly quickly, it’s just looppy shit i would have started to laugh…

I assumed she’d come to her senses, she assumed I could be indoctrinated.

Atheist here, married to another atheiest. If I were to date, beliefs would be fine as long as we were somewhat compatible. Open mindedness is a big thing here. Observing certain rituals would be no problem as long as I would not have to participate. However, if you are overly dogmatic or bigoted towards other people based on color, religion or sexuality, you can fuck off right away.

Hard no.

The last thing I need is the wife pestering me constantly to go to church.

No lol

I couldn’t be equals with someone who isn’t living in grounded reality.

I’m a Satanist. I would be fine dating an atheist, depending on their morals and ethics. I would probably be okay dating someone that was agnostic, since technically most atheists are agnostics. I could date most reform Jews, since for most of them it’s a cultural religion, rather than a literal one.

I would not be able to date anyone that sincerely believed in a supernatural deity, because I would not be able to respect them, or trust any of their conclusions.

As a former evangelical Christian, who also dabbled in atheism, antitheism, etc, I settled into something that’s probably closest to Zen Buddhism mixed with atheism. I’ve been on dates with people, many of them I probably never knew their religion, but the gung-ho Christians and the Mormons showed their incompatibility very quickly. Funnily enough, ex-catholics dig me and I like them. :-)

I don’t see myself dating someone who is theocratic, doesn’t believe abortion should be allowed, or wants me to go to their church with them. I sometimes tell the story of the time I was figuring myself out and ended up going on a date with a girl who didn’t believe in dinosaurs. I call her dinosaur girl. I wish her well, but man did I dodge a bullet!

Doubt.