I made this because Asia decided to disagree with me
EDIT: And... as I type, I see that my post is becoming long and quite aggressive. It turned out to be a post to those of you who put religion in front of relationships and I don't know if that's what I originally planned or not. Anyway, don't take things personal and read with causion and debate reasonably
If you know me (even slightly) from the I:SB boards, you'll know that I'm very opposed to getting too involved in a religion, and I have very good reasons to be so. I'm not gonna get into those reasons though, but instead jump to the subject at hand.
We were talking with Sloths Rules. He said he was upset because of his girlfriend. Turned out that her being Christian was important to him, and that if she would ever abandon Christianity, he wouldn't be able to live with her.
I can't think of any good reason Religion should come in the way of a loving relationship. Now, I can't underestimate the importance of religion either, if for example a couple of different believes find themselves fighting about religious matters, then that might be a big problem. But I see no reason as to why anyone would say "I love you, but I can't be with you because you don't believe what I do". If a girl would say that to me, my reaction would be something like "What?
"
Whatever happened to "learn from eachother"? I know religion can be quite a hustle, but not even giving it a shot is just plain stupid. You might have found what is to be the love of your life and yet you reject him/her immidiately because he/she doesn't believe what you do?
Then I heard the argument that if they're not of the same religion, they won't go to heaven together. Oh, really now? Last I checked, there isn't even a clear rule for who goes to heaven and who doesn't, because everyone says different. And is it more important to live a half-decent eternity with someone who shares your believes, or have an awesome life with
the one?
And according to christianity, you don't have to spend an eternity with the person you marry either. "Till death do you part". Basically that means you can ditch your wife and start a "Sex and the City: Heaven" as soon as you die.
And I also wonder about Islam. If you die in Jihad and get your 72 virgins, I guess God doesn't mind if you have wife on earth or not. Right?
This whole "spend an eternity" thing doesn't hold up. So why is it so important to some people for their loved ones to be of the same religion if it doesn't matter what happens in life since you can do whatever you want after you die? Then you can just spend life with someone you really like and then hook up with someone else after you die. If you're ready to leave a loved one now, why not later, if she's doomed anyway?
I'm not done yet. Another thing that bothers me is this: If you love someone and simply must have that person convert to your religion, why would you give up on that person, instead of going for it, and maybe, just maybe you'll manage to share your views of life with that person (even better, you might realise your religion isn't the one and only way, you might learn from him/her). If there's one thing I know about love, it's that you shouldn't give up that easy, because relationships take a lot of hard work. Is this something you religious people won't bother with, even?
Another thing I see is a lack of tolerance. I was together with a Christian girl for almost two years, and I respected her believes. I didn't like them, because the way I see it, no religion has more ground than the other, thus commiting yourself to one is like guessing a riddle you know you can't solve. Even so, I respected her believes, and I never thought of them as something that hindered our relationship. They didn't. She taught me a whole lot about Christianity and how it helped her, and I told her my in comparison bitter views of life, and we ended up having learned a lot, and we could also understand eachother better.
Now, why would anyone want to avoid such a thing? The way I see it, people from two different religions should have a
lot to learn from eachother and enrichen their relationship. This is the good side of religion. The bad side is when people are too narrow-minded to learn from anyone, who can only see their point of view. Are you afraid of other views of life, or what is it that makes you turn down someone you want to live with because of something that should be a good thing?
The way I see it, religion should by no means be something that stops you from loving someone. Doesn't most religions teach that love is an awesome thing, even? I can see that problems may arise when two people with strong religious believes try to live together, but if you're not willing to give it a shot even, I suggest you start thinking what is more important to you - love, undertanding and co-existance or an old religion that restricts you from the many things that life are all about?