Is religion always a deal breaker?

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Seeing as how I'm generally not religiously prejudiced, and have discovered an affinity for handling any negative about people I love, certainly no deal breaker.

I would say that it would depend on the person. As long as both people are fine with each others' situation, then it shouldn't matter in my opinion.

I don't find differing religious views to be a deal breaker in relationships. My boyfriend is non-religious and I'm religious, but we're compatible because we both respect each other's difference, we share many moral values regardless of our beliefs about faith, and we have no interest in converting each other to our way of thinking.
A note on respecting beliefs: My boyfriend knows that I don't like to kill insects because I believe every creature has life and I feel bad about destroying life, no matter how small. He once found a spider in my tub, and rather than just killing it, he willingly scooped it up into a container and brought it outside. I may only have thanked him at the time, but it's really actually amazing that he would respect my beliefs like that.

^^^ See that? Awesome. That's how it's done!

Isn't that better than assuming the worst of someone because of a difference of opinions?

The classic cliché saying is never discuss religion or politics early on in dating. This could be said for anything you are passionate about too. Whether they become deal-breakers really depends on how you deal with it.

Clearly don't rush to discuss difficult/controversial topics but on the other hand don't let it too late. The time for these types of discussions would be when you are leading up to become serious or long term

As far as I'm concerned, people can believe whatever they so choose so it wouldn't bother me. It would only bother me if they try and force these beliefs onto me and try and get me involved with their religion. While I respect that for some people religion can play a big part in their lives, I would not want to be involved in any way as I feel I would be compromising my own beliefs just for the sake of pleasing someone else. If they couldn't respect that then it would be a deal breaker for me, that goes for friends as well.

Killing insects that are minding their own business is also a deal-breaker for me, lol.

No seriously, it's about the general mindset again.

Why does this cliché exist? I don't get it. That's some of the best stuff to be discussing early, to really get to know a person and see if you are compatible.


That sounds like way too late to me. The difficult/controversial stuff is the important stuff. I'd be discussing it on the first date if it seemed appropriate (though I know a lot of people would find that odd). I do a lot of online dating, and I actively filter by religios beliefs. I don't want to be finding out about that down the track. (Though if I didn't have my suspicions until down the track, they probably were hiding a lot of other stuff from me as well. Not good.)

I personally am not religious in any way (although I have had some 'religious' experiences) and to me it would depend on what kind of religion. For example, a fundamental/evangelical Christian or a 'cult'-like religion would not work but a more 'liberal' Christian/Muslim/Jew/Buddhist would not be an issue whatsoever.

If you don't mind me jumping in, as I said I am NOT religious in any way but this sounds like something I would have written when I was young and naive. Without boring you with details I had a personal experience that proves 100% beyond any doubt whatsoever that there is a 'higher power' for lack of a better term. It was not my imagination and can't be understood scientifically in any way (and only ever happened once) but that was enough proof to me. This experience literally saved me from certain death while driving.

Please bore us with the details Maybe not in this thread as it is off-topic slightly. A PM perhaps?

If you're familiar with science, you'll know that personal witness is considered the lowest form of testimony in science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xag3oOzvU68

Btw, don't hesitate to jump into a convo! It's not like we wrote our names on it, after all.

And personal insults for differences of opinion are the highest?

That is so cute!

Good to see I am not the only animals saver here - even with spiders, which I intensely dislike.

I'm obviously a lot more familiar with it than you are if you think "skeptics" like Randi's crowd are scientists. All I can say is that you have a lot to learn and a discussion with you is pointless with you right now. I should know since I used to sound just like you a few years ago. I know many brilliant scientists and none of them take people like "skeptics" like Dawkins, Randi, Shermer etc seriously.

It's almost funny taking a quick look at that link. I'm not trying to be rude but you honestly have no idea what you are talking about. My experience was so real I had to either accept it or lie to myself about what I experienced. It wasn't some vague UFO in the sky or quack magic medical cure. No, I cannot prove it to you are free to call me delusional but I can assure it was absolutely real no matter what "skeptics" say about it.

You might as well try because how else are you going to know.

While I'm a fairly hard core atheist, I don't necessarily have a problem with mild belief in religion. It doesn't come across as particularly rational to me, but so long as the other person is rational in most of how they deal with reality, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape.

Where I do start to feel really weird is when I have to deal with people who have serious problems with rational thinking. I have a friend who has become a devout Christian and while I still like the guy, I often find it hard to deal with conversations with him because what he claims to be reality is so at odds with the reality I experience. It is a bit similar to a conversation I had with a guy who was having psychotic delusions.

The problem I have is that if a person relies on faith, any idea that fits there desired view of reality can be adopted as "reality" whereas I feel only things for which there is evidence can be claimed to actually exist. There is a rather large gulf between these two approaches.

I think the strongly religious and the strongly non-religious have such different ways of interpreting how they perceive the world that there may be no way to bridge the gap.

But by all means, try. You may find she is religious more out of habit and tradition and that when you actually interact with her, her approach to reality might be closer to yours than would seem immediately apparent.

No, in fact personal insults have nothing to do with scientific methodology, nor have I ever stated that they did, so that comment is really coming out of left field there, mate.



This is the opinion of science as a whole, not a small selection of skeptics. It wouldn't matter if the people in that video were professional clowns. By the way, Neil DeGrasse has a Ph.D in astrophysics. You don't get more "scientist" than a doctorate in a hard science, especially physics.



Sure thing, mate. Feel free to not respond to this post, then.



Dawkins received a Ph.D from the University of Oxford, and his work in evolutionary biology is considered top-notch by other top-notch scientists such as Stephen J. Gould (And these two are on OPPOSITE sides of a debate in evolution!). I don't really know or care about the other two.



Let's try to actually explain what it is that I am apparently misunderstanding. You can make baseless statements like that all you want, it's really going to do nothing to sway my opinion. Only well-reasoned arguments can do that.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination

I am not doubting your experience. I am very sure you had one. What I am calling into question, however, is its nature as any kind of UFO encounter. It was probably a hallucination of some kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations_in_the_sane



There you have it, my friend. You probably hallucinated your UFO experience. It's not a coincidence or "funny" how everything always seems to have a perfectly rational explanation.

Last edited by Shau on 05 Aug 2012, 2:44 am, edited 1 time in total.