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How to date when you\'re an atheist
By Bob Strauss
So, do you believe in God?

I stared across the table at my date. Up to that point, she had been
peppering me with the usual assortment of getting-to-know-you
questions: Where did I go to school, what kind of work did I do, etc.
As I recovered from my shock, I realized there were two ways to
answer this last query: Either by feigning nonchalance (To tell you
the truth, I haven\'t given the matter much thought), or, as I
proceeded to do, by blurting out the first thing that came to mind
(No! What, are you kidding?).

Later that evening, alone in my apartment, I conducted my usual first-
date post-mortem. I decided to split the blame fifty-fifty. Do you
believe in God? is the kind of question eight-year-olds ask each
other on the school playground, hardly an acceptable conversation
starter between two adults. On the other hand, loudly ridiculing
another person\'s belief system (in a crowded restaurant) isn\'t quite
the right way to go, either.

The point is, whether you\'re an atheist or agnostic, dating a person
with religious leanings needn\'t be a non-starter梐s long as you
approach the situation with a minimal amount of sensitivity and tact.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Be respectful. When a gal tells you she was raised Jewish (or
Catholic, or Hindu), she\'s invoking not only a specific faith but an
entire community, including parents, friends, and teachers. Even if
she\'s not all that religious, if your first impulse is to critique
the provenance of the Old Testament or the logic of not allowing
priests to marry, she\'s likely to react on a personal level and write
you off as an irreverent crank.

Know your comfort level. Faith usually isn\'t an all-or-nothing
affair; for most people it operates on a sliding scale. I was raised
Jewish myself, and though I pretty much lost all my religious
leanings by the time I was 13, I can see myself settling down with a
slightly-more-Jewish gal who\'d like to impart some of that cultural
heritage to our kids. But even if I was struck dumb with lust, I
couldn\'t expect things to work out with an Orthodox Jewish woman who
wanted me to attend temple every week and keep kosher. If the
religious gulf looms too wide, chalk it up to fate and move on to the
next prospect.

Don\'t pretend to be what you\'re not. To expand slightly on the above
point: Guys, especially, have been known to say or do anything in
pursuit of a certain goal (which, for delicacy\'s sake, I won\'t
specify here). Look, it\'s dishonest to pretend to be more religious
than you are (as well as vaguely sacrilegious, even from an atheist\'s
viewpoint), and if the relationship progresses, you\'re going to have
to do some spiritual housekeeping sooner or later.

Leave some room for mystery. Although I\'ll never be convinced of the
existence of a white-bearded Biblical deity sitting on a heavenly
throne, as an avid student of physics and cosmology, I\'m open to the
possibility of parallel universes and extra dimensions. So lately,
rather than lecturing dates about my disbelief in God, I\'ll allow
that this world may not, in fact, be All There Is. In my experience,
this reassures gals that I do have a spiritual side, which is often
what they really want to know.

Bob Strauss is a New York-based writer and author of The Big Book of
What, How and Why.




Fri May 25, 2007 9:23 am


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How to date when you\'re an atheist.
How to date when you\'re an atheist By Bob Strauss So, do you believe in God? I stared across the table at my date. Up to that point, she had been peppering... braindeadslut
9:25 am
Re: How to date when you\'re an atheist.
How bugs date and reproduce....LOLOLOLOL..must be plugged into a computer. mangum ... ... Mangum Murdock
mangummurdock
10:07 am
Re: How to date when you\'re an atheist.
... Nope. Tell her you believe in god. The same god in which she believes. Then after you\'ve ed her brains out come clean and tell her she was just... lord_of_the_munch
lord_of_the_...
10:37 am
Re: How to date when you\'re an atheist.
dating an atheist is so easy, first you tell her that she is wrong and stupid for what she believes, then you wrestle.... poopiethedemonslayer
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Re: How to date when you\'re an atheist.
then after a few years you tell her that she is the only moron atheist on earth that you can tolerate and she\'ll melt in your arms feeling special. atheists... poopiethedemonslayer
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Re: How to date when you\'re an atheist.
and if you want good meals, just tell her that christian girls cook better. ... above ... atheist\'s ... have...