Ask John: Can a Christian and atheist be happily married?

[rug]

N. John Shore Jr.
Published 7:02 a.m. ET Feb. 14, 2017

Question: My sister, who is a Christian, has gotten engaged to man who is an atheist. Do you think it’s possible for a Christian and an atheist to be happily married?

Answer: I know it is, because I have a hardcore atheist friend who is married to a devout Christian woman. I asked him to write a few words on what that’s like. Here’s what he had to say:

"It’s true that my wife Rachel and I have differing views on the whole idea of God. We differ in other ways, too. Women and men are different. Christians and people of other faiths are different. Christians of different denominations are different. Republicans and Democrats are different. Bostonians and San Diegans are different. Mice and men are different. Even Milli and Vanilli are different — in fact, they aren’t even themselves.

"I am not a woman who was born in San Jose, California, grew up on a farm in upstate New York, matured in Washington, has six siblings, and is passionate about her family and her faith. I never will be that woman, and while I can understand her, empathize with her, feel pretty in her clothes, and love her deeply, I will never really know the depths of her experiences or the convictions of her beliefs. No one will, except God (if you’re into that sort of thing). And that’s fine. I don’t want to be her Savior, I want to be her husband. I want to spend every day getting closer to her and knowing her more, faith and all."

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/entertainment/2017/02/14/ask-john-can-christian-and-atheist-happily-married/97845390/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I'm an atheist and my former SO was a Methodist. We were together for decades.

Never a problem with our different points of view.

I always joked the rubber would meet the road when we died: If I were right that there was no life-after-death/no God, we'd never know that I was right; OTOH, if he were right (life-after-death), I would be submitted to eternity to listening to him telling me, "I was right and you were wrong".

[rug]

2. Heh. One man's heaven is a woman's hell.

[Freethinker65]

3. Married? yes. Happily? sometimes.

Progressive Humanist/Atheist Midwesterner here. Married to a conservative Southern Christian believer for over 25 years. Are we blissfully married soulmates? nope. Do we argue a lot? sometimes. Do we have things/values in common other than religion and politics? yes.
Would I recommend it? It depends. Neither can expect to change the other person.

[rug]

4. Sounds like you've both found something more important than religion and politics.

[Angry Dragon]

5. I liked his words that he had in the post