The UK is now more religiously diverse than ever but at the same time the number of people with no religion is at an all-time high.
So how do you deal with your partner's faith in God if you don't have it?
"I'm a confirmed atheist, I'm a born again atheist, basically I make Richard Dawkins look a bit undecided."
Jez Caudle, 44, is more than clear about his beliefs - or lack of them. He lives in Camberley, Surrey with his wife Heather and their two boys William, nine and Kenny who is six.
Jez didn't know Heather was especially religious when they met - he says it was only when they moved in together and she started going to church more that it became clear she was a practising Catholic.
Now, their children have been baptised. Jez supports them attending church every week despite not wavering at all in his fervent disbelief, which makes for plenty of debate in the household.
William will happily sing hymns, yet like any child he's picked up on his father's cynicism. Preferring to play on his Xbox, William refused to go to church recently saying religion was "a load of rubbish" but then changed his mind - now he says he believes in God but it upsets him when mum and dad row about it.
And then there is the small matter of what happens after this life.
"She has mentioned it a couple of times and I think she worries about that, that we're not going to be together in the afterlife," says Jez.
"But, as I'm not having one," he shrugs, "I can only go to hell, by her set of beliefs, if her religion is the true one."
Heather is more hopeful. She says she sees it "as part of her duties as a wife" to pray that Jez gets into heaven and she quietly hopes that one day he will change his mind anyway and accept God.
He thinks the same - that one day she will wake up and realise there is no God. Both say that's not going to happen.
The issue of the afterlife comes up again and again with these sorts of relationships - mothers who don't think their agnostic children will be in heaven with them, and for one wife, the belief that her place in hell is now decided by her husband's rejection of God. (End of excerpt)
It continues here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30708242
Anyone here have experience of this kind of thing or friends or family in situations like those described in the article?
Originally posted by FMFFaith is empty; and who gives a sewer rat’s @$$ about religion (and beliefs in general) anyway?
[b]The UK is now more religiously diverse than ever but at the same time the number of people with no religion is at an all-time high.
So how do you deal with your partner's faith in God if you don't have it?
[quote]"I'm a confirmed atheist, I'm a born again atheist, basically I make Richard Dawkins look a bit undecided."
Jez Caudle, 44, is more th ...[text shortened]... ce of this kind of thing or friends or family in situations like those described in the article?[/b]
😵
The Protestant church of my youth, which was anti-smoking/drinking/cursing, had for about five years a woman and her three teen kids who attended. The woman's husband only came to services about ten times over that span. He was said to be a heavy drinker. Some there prayed that he would "find salvation," but I never saw any significant evidence that he committed himself to Christ.
My next-door neighbour in my teenage years was a family of five, 4 Catholics and 1 atheist (dad). He went along with marriage in the back room, baptisms and godparents, and even allowed the kids to attend a parish school. Finally, when the children were instructed by the parish priest to address him only as "heathen Daddy", the worm turned. He gave his wife the choice: another church, or no father for the kids. Family converted to Protestantism (not the fundamentalist kind) very rapidly, and peace was declared. I make no comment on the rights or wrongs of this, it was the 1950s.