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Well I just can’t imagine being married to a person that irrational. Let me ask you a question… (and don’t take this the wrong way, please); would you be comfortable being married to a scientologist, what about a mormon, someone who believes in voodoo, a flat earth?
Both my ex-wife (16 years) and my current gf (9 years) are atheists. At times there has been disagreement with both of them in terms of how much we should “keep our heads down” when the topic of religion comes up, but never the importance of rationality itself. Here’s the question you must ask yourself; “Do the benefits of living with/and being emotionally tied to someone who is so totally irrational on this most important of all subjects outweigh the negatives?” For myself, I never wanted to ask that question. 🙂

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My story: raised Lutheran and never was allowed to miss a Sunday (or Wednesday – Advent/Lent) service until I was in my teens. Went to Lutheran grade school but was lucky enough to go to public h.s. I say lucky enough because by that time all of my childhood doubts in religion had come to a head and I was pretty much sure it was nonsense. Dawkins (or one of those guys called it “sinister nonsense” and I think that sums it up nicely. Told my dad it was all crap when I was in my early 20’s and never regretted it. My atheism wasn’t much of an issue until a few years ago when I was a radio talk show host on a station in central Illinois. I was probably the most well-known unbeliever and was fond of telling my listeners “You show me someone who believes in the bible and I’ll show you someone who will believe almost anything”. I think the faithful went to advertisers and told them they wouldn’t shop at their stores unless the station dumped me. Sounds good anyway. I still don’t have any use for belief that falls outside of rational, just such a waste of time. Whenever I hear someone spouting any religious belief I don’t hesitate to challenge them. I think the more these people are challenged the sooner we can move on. But I do have one fear…and that is that is that we never get a chance to move on.
What if… what if skepticism of all things rational and scientific – kindled and nurtured by organized religion – causes people to doubt the reality of our current predicament, i.e. biosphere degradation, to the extent that we blow past the tipping point and all go extinct.
I think there’s a very good chance that’s already happened. I’d say somewhat better than 50/50 actually.
So that leads me to the final statement. I said it on my radio show once. I doubt many people were listening, but I’ll repeat it here. If aliens ever came to the earth and I had a chance to speak with them, I’d have only once question: “How did you manage to get past religion?”

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