Could you marry an atheist? I’m asking this seriously because someone I know is seriously considering doing so and he asked me what I would do. He asked me seriously. I answered quickly because it was easy to me. I’ll say it right now that there’s no way I could marry an atheist. He asked if I could think of an exception. By that he meant if she were really really really gorgeous but I told him I couldn’t.
Looking for exceptions in my own mind I wondered to myself that if maybe I viewed the marriage as something akin to gaining the beachhead with the end goal being conquering her atheism with the ceremonial lowering of the atheist flag and raising high the banner of the cross on our fifth or tenth anniversary. But you know what -not even then. Because I couldn’t live in a marriage like that. I would be exhausting because I’d never stop questioning her or challenging her. And I can be really really badgery and annoying. Then she’d eventually kill me and that wouldn’t be good for anybody.
Now I know enough of my own mania and all around looniness that my inner thoughts don’t often match others. Like I also know that I couldn’t marry a Democrat. Seriously. I couldn’t. Just the battle between watching Fox News or MSNBC would be ugly.
Just to show that I’m not soooo rigid I’ll just tell you that I could marry someone that didn’t cheer for Notre Dame football (as long as they weren’t a University of Miami fan but I think that’s just common sense.)
I’m openhearted enough to have forgiven my wife for not being a NY Giants fan because she was raised in Philadelphia and she just doesn’t know any better, poor thing.
But anyway I’m getting back to the point at hand. I seriously could not imagine myself marrying an atheist and I can’t even imagine how it would work.
I knew a woman who was a devout and wonderful Catholic who was married to an atheist who she says was a very good man and they were married for decades and decades and raised good children. So I know it can happen. I just don’t know how.
I couldn’t marry an atheist because she wouldn’t see our children as miracles, she wouldn’t see our finding each other as God’s plan, she wouldn’t look at the stars or the sunset the same way, there’d be no Christmas, there’d be no…gratitude for living because there would be nobody to be grateful to. And I need gratitude in my life. I do.
So my answer is no I couldn’t marry an atheist. What about you?
December 3, 2010 at 9:15 pm
I put it this way:
As a general rule, I think that Catholics shouldn't marry non-Catholics. If your faith is really central to your life, imagine the pain of having your spouse excluded. Imagine the lack of true unity in your union.
On a more practical level, mixed marriages almost always end up in conversion. Sometimes the spouse comes to God and the Church. But far more often the marriage ends up in a lowest common denominator of faith to which the Catholic converts even if the Catholic doesn't formally leave the Church. For women, there is another concern. Research has found that one of the primary determiners of the faith of children is the faith of the father. So Catholic women marrying a non-Catholic man is playing not only with her own faith life, but the faith life of her children.
But I have to say, this is only a general rule, not an absolute one. There are examples of spouses coming to God through their marriage. I think it is highly dangerous to assume that your marriage will be one of them (because most of them are not) but it is also stupid to deny that it happens.
The answer is discernment. The question isn't "Should I marry an atheist?" The question is "Is this the person that *God* created for me to marry?" If you have taken the effort to discern – and I mean discern like priests and religious discern, and not just fall into it by default – not just the vocation of marriage, but the person for that marriage and God points you to a non-Catholic, then follow God. And remember, it is the exception and not the rule.
December 3, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Who cares? You cannot count on faithfulness anyway.
Glad I do not waste my time getting involved.
December 3, 2010 at 11:34 pm
When I met the man who became my husband, I could have married an atheist; I was — for all intents and purposes — one myself.
Then I changed.
Now, I could not marry an atheist. I apologize, but I just couldn't. My faith is too deeply a part of who I am to marry someone who thinks it's nonsense/fake/oppressive/unenlightened…
December 4, 2010 at 2:51 am
One of the ways Catholicism spread in pagan socities was via marriage, typically of (newly) Catholic women to pagan men this happend in the Greco-Roman ancient world. In the middle ages pagan warlords who converted as a mater of diplomacy to marry girls of Catholic royal families sometimes ended up as truly devout (St. Vladimir of Kiev, King Jagello of Lithuania, etc.) In the Americas the French Jesuits typically had much greater success converting women native-Americans and through them the faith would spread to children and occasionally husbands. Also I think Eric the Red and even John Wayne come to mind as examples of people who converted to Catholicism at least partially due to a Catholic spouse.
Anyway I know athiests are diffrent than pagans, but the precedent of spouses being drawn to the faith, even if the journey takes many decades, is there.
December 4, 2010 at 3:14 am
Folks… he's not asking if it's OK, he's asking if you could do it.
December 4, 2010 at 3:58 am
I converted mine first! Although he was only a functional atheist (believed that God existed, but it didn't have an impact on his thoughts or actions). If he had not had the seeds of Catholicism already (he agreed with a lot of Church teachings, such as sexual ethics), I would have kept looking for someone better.
I think in general if the guy weren't Catholic or almost Catholic (as in extremely likely to convert in the near future), I would not bother, and that's what I'm going to tell my kids, too. I had a former boyfriend who was an agnostic pay my religion lip service, and lead me down the primrose path telling me that he would convert or that things would be fine if he didn't, but eventually I found out that he had no inclination to agree with just about anything Catholicism teaches, and it was a dealbreaker.
Marriage prep classes these days really emphasize that both couples should be on the same page about really important and fundamental things, especially how to raise children. I understand that some people can come to the same conclusions as the Catholic Church without being Catholic (see G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy), but as for even considering dating an atheist… why set yourself up for probable failure?
December 4, 2010 at 8:48 am
What is the purpose of marriage?
It is not to be united with an attractive person or even to a "nice" person. It is not to be united to a person who will merely *tolerate* our religious views.
First, it is to reflect the relationship between Christ and His Bride (the Church). Second, it is to propagate a godly heritage, if God blesses the couple with children.
I think any discussion of marrying an atheist is completely missing the *point* of marriage.
December 4, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I am way too devoted to the Eucharist to consider marrying even a non-Catholic. I converted while married to a Protestant, and it was Catholicism that set me free from the abusive insanity that being married to a fundamentalist can be. I do have atheist friends, but there is a big difference between my relationship with the ones who think I'm deluded, versus the ones who can acknowledge that my completely different reality might actually be valid.
December 6, 2010 at 9:33 pm
For me the problem with marring an atheist would be knowing that my spouse would go to hell. Our Father in heaven may show mercy on their soul, but I couldn't rely on that.
December 7, 2010 at 3:20 am
I was an atheist when I proposed to a beautiful Catholic girl. It all worked out according to God's plan, but I can't imagine most having the same experience. You inspired me to blog about it at littlewayofthefamily.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/marrying-an-atheist/