The possibility of a Christian (particularly a devout fundamentalist)
and a non-believer attaining a stable relationship is what i will
attempt to address in this post. As Richard said (i think - my email
was eaten in a system crash, apologies if i misquote anyone), given
motivation any relationship can work. But perhaps it is important
to decide certain things before entering into relationships....
I have substantial knowledge of one instance of the above type
relationship dynamics. After marrying a women (who was more or
less non-religious), i moved to the southern US (heart of the
bible belt) and she found GOD. She is a charismatic fundamentalist
(which basically means that 1) she believes the bible literally, and
2) She has two way conversations with GOD. Sigh. (I am an indifferent
agnostic.)
So where does this leave us? Well, most of culture (like virtually
all tv, movies, magazines) is tainted. So she has a negative
interest in these kinds of things. Many topics or conversation
become uninteresting - after all, the answer to many (most?)
complex issues can be found in the bible, which was written by
GOD. If one disagrees, one is, by definition, wrong. Nothing
personal, you just 'don't understand. Perhaps you will one day.'
There are (in her world view) two forces in the world. Of course
GOD is one, the other being The Adversary. The battle is continuous
(and i suspect she would see forums like this as being clearly in
one camp - bet you can guess which). This provides her with a
strong protection against new information that disagrees with her
point of view. As an aside, she one gave me a book to read,
called _The Genesis Flood_ (best i can recollect). Having read
it (i am a physicist), i tried to point out obvious errors in it
to her (it tries to reconcile the old testament hypothesis of the
universe being created 6000 years ago with data). It seemed that
claims like the sun getting its energy from gravitational collapse
would be easy to dispell (she has a bs in science and a masters in
educational psychology) but it became clear this was not the case.
The discussion of her book ended with her asking me not to read
any of her books (because i was critical of it/them) and to not
talk about these things. Sigh.
She does get a lot of benefits from church. Virtually all of her
friends are church related. She no longer fears death (which was
probably what caused her to be int iced in the first place). She
sees the world in a way that gives her purpose. BUT. There are
negatives to her view as well (of course). All her siblings,
her parents, her husband (yours truly) are almost certainly going
to hell (and pretty unrepentant as well). This makes her somewhat
uncomfortable but what can she do - the message is just not
received.... and GOD is just, so somehow it must be ok(?)...
Well. That may provide some insight into mismatched religious
relationships. Anything *can* work - but some things are
easier than others... think carefully about what you want now
and what you may want in the future.
ken
PS - She once invited a physicist from her church to our house
to convert me. It was bizarre. He told me a bible story about
some guy who was a disbeliever who died. He went to Hell (of
course). But, while there he could see his family on earth who
also were destined to go to Hell, as well. And so he beseeched
some guy in heaven to intervene, but with no effect.
This was supposed to make me change my ways (or at least my
beliefs). BUT it had an opposite effect - i wondered how someone
in heaven could enjoy themselves while observing Hell. Boy i was
not popular that day... (guess i missed the point of the story?)