Can An Atheist Date A Christian?

hi i’m tamwyn and i’m an atheist hi i’m jonathan and i’m a christian and we’ve been together for 13 years i think i am an atheist because i feel like the world already has enough problem as it is and i feel like religion is one of those problems i know that sounds something that you don’t no i can actually understand that because religion is politics you know that’s a really big you know thing that happens in our world every single day i mean the reason why we fight is a lot of times because of the things that we believe so i can understand you know where you’re coming from as far as you know why you chose to be atheist but doesn’t it kind of suck like you don’t never feel empty like when you’re an atheist like i mean you just you just believe in nothing like when you die like you know this this is going to be eternal darkness like there’s no afterlife i think you think that i believe in like absolutely nothing which is not true i believe that faith i believe in hope and you can have hope and faith without having like god in your life i feel like people that are christian they use it as an excuse to say like oh i’m i’m this but i’m a christian so it’s okay and i feel like if i’m an atheist then i could just be free and not like be so you know judgmental well um i’m a christian because i feel like many christians it’s been instilled from us or in us from birth and a lot of times like our parents like really don’t give us an option to be something else but honestly since i’ve grown up with it and like you know and it’s and it’s always been in me like i just i feel it and the big thing that happened to me when i was a child was every night before me and all my my siblings went to sleep my mother came in our bedroom and then took some anointing oil and you know that was our foreheads with it and did uh you know the crucifix and like you know it’s just like a you know it was like a you know a protective like kind of like covering you know that type of thing you know as we slept and um that’s just you know these are some of the things that like has stuck with me throughout my childhood for her to believe in it so much and for her to grow me into believing it as well like it just meant that like just this this is a very strong power this is a very strong you know entity but stuff like that scares me though actually like the cross and all that i don’t even know how to do it it’s just surprising holy cow and you put a little kiss in there too you know what i’m saying it’s something i like to do with kids [Music] the first couple months was really hard for sure i mean the first couple years like the first two years we didn’t have cell phones we didn’t have a car we didn’t have jobs so we were like 14 15 and we made it work we saw each other once a month we would write letters to each other he would hand write me letters and i still have all of them actually um in a box with all the flowers that he gave me that are dead because i used to collect them but starting to kick up a good smell in the apartment i actually like the smell oh my god you see that i think it smells beautiful it smells prettier like it smells better than like new roses i remember on one of the dates your mom asked me what i believed in she did not she did i wanted to say that i was christian just so i could get her approval well i just want to say i apologize for that i didn’t know that i mean it’s the first time i’m hearing this after 13 years i mean i mean i kind of feel bad i mean i didn’t you know you don’t have to apologize i don’t really talk about it because i don’t want anything to be casted upon you you know i understand that [Music] i didn’t really think about it i mean especially not when i met you religion never really came to my mind like growing up like oh okay like he has to be you know buddhist blah blah because my family my parents are buddhists like my siblings i have there’s eight of us and we’re all different from each other which is crazy but i never that was not something that i thought about growing up i think religion started like affecting our relationship when we started becoming young adults i think that’s when your parents started asking me to go to church with you back to when we wanted to move in together your mom would ask me to go to church and i would feel totally uncomfortable but i would still go because i love you his family they’re all like pastors they’re all like super religious and i would go to church with with with you and the most uncomfortable time for me was when everyone would feel the holy ghost and start dancing around and i would have no idea what to do and i’m just standing there like oh my god and everyone like i feel like his mom would just look at me like side eye like is she feeling the music is she feeling the ghost is she really into this i think your parents would love me a lot more if i was christian i think that um because of how religion how religious your family is i think they would really want you to be with someone that’s actually into god because um they comment on my post all the time about god this and got that and i don’t ever respond or delete or anything but i feel like because i respect them they should respect me also and not keep on pushing that towards me and i feel like some of them do it out of from from a good intentions and some of them do it from like a bad place oh god [Music] i forgot that argument that we always have what is it when i ask you are you you mean the one where it’s like well if god exists why is there so much so much evil in the world something like that i always i always ask john like if there’s a god then why is there cancer why is there this that and then i get super emotional about it you know why are there men raping kids that believe they’re christian because then they do it and then they say i’m a christian then it’s okay but that’s their excuse i feel like i do take responsibility by the way that i come off because it comes off like i’m not trying to hear anything like yeah i hate these people why are they doing this to these kids and why are they doing this to the world i feel like you don’t know much about your own religion so when i ask you questions to be more understanding you like you i don’t even think you want me to believe in god i think if you’re a stronger christian i think you would push it more upon me to be honest because like i when i want to know you don’t really say much all right here’s the thing i feel like simply because i do my best to you know be the not the i can say i’m not the best christian but you know i do my best to represent christianity i’m just the type of person to to know enough about the religion to like make my own decisions according to the religion there’s a lot of things that i feel like you know that’s not in christ control that happens you know two people even the best people in the world these are things that you know that are of the world and because we live in this world you know these are things that we have to deal with as a whole that’s why it’s a lot of questions that i say that you know i can’t answer simply because like it’s not that i don’t have the answer it’s just that i can only give you my interpretation a lot of times like i just i just kind of just tune out you know what other people have to say is especially like when it comes to religion because you know they’re not living pure lives themselves so a lot of times all you can do is just stay in your lane and just do what it is that you need to do and not focus on somebody else because i mean let’s be honest like i mean how many people in the church you know get caught doing crazy things it’s a lot of them so that’s all they say is they use it as an excuse i mean they use it as a you know like as a pacifier you know people use religion as a pacifier i remember i used to say all the time that you are the only reason the only reason in life that i would even ever possibly believe there’s a god wow because i wait no stop no but um like i think everyone that have you in their life like as a son as a friend as a neighbor as you know like just a random person i think everyone anybody that meet you is just so lucky because you’re just like to me i mean to everybody i think you’re like the best person in this planet even though you joke a lot even when i’m trying to be serious i think you are you know one of the reasons why i would believe there’s a god for sure i really do appreciate you saying that that’s you know that’s real as far as my religion or you know my religion change changing i’m not atheist you know but i’m more open to people other people having ideas about things instead of just looking at them being like atheists for what you know i’m saying like like because you are this person you know i’ve learned to accept that about you and because i’ve learned to accept that about you it kind of opens my my perspective to a lot more people would you like it more if i was buddhist i like you just the way you are do you i love you just the way you are i definitely want to teach them because like no matter what religion you’re you come from being a decent human being that comes from all religion there’s so many rulings out there i don’t even know all of them you can be whatever you know some people believe in aliens like that’s the religious they can still be a decent person and they believe in aliens yeah of course you can still be a good you can be a christian and still be a bad person you can still be atheist and still be a good person a lot of students do that black and be a good person have to teach that with her parents there’s never a time where i want to say like oh i’m going to make sure my kids are atheist like no because i want them to be as free as possible i want them to do whatever they please and at the end of the day they have a good heart and if it comes with good intentions then that’s all that matters but i want to add also when i was going to the temples i hated being there because they’re so close and believing in buddha that they would judge everyone around them and i definitely don’t want my kids to feel that way there was a time i definitely thought that i would raise my kids i’m just strictly christian nothing else it was a time like in my life where like um you know things were just really really really dark and then you know somebody was like hey i got the answer i mean here why don’t you pick up that bible over there you know i’m not saying that you know i use religion as an escape but i’m just saying that it really really helped me in that time of my life to take a certain direction and just as i became older and as i became you know just more experienced and able to make my own decisions that’s when i was like well you know it’s easy to you know it’s easy to kind of like catch a dying fish at that point i was like well i mean i’m not saying you know my religion is a bad thing like i love being christian but at the same time i want my kids to make their own decision and not be you know and i don’t want to catch them at a vulnerable time just to you know just to place it upon them i want them to make the educated decision for themselves yeah for sure [Music] we actually value a lot like that are the same i mean like you know we we care for you know we care for the world we care so much for other people i think like we both care about family it’s very very important i think our connection is really strong because we’re so different but we accept it like our personalities are so different but we have a lot of like i think our hearts are so similar and i think that’s what really really matters [Music] you know just learn to find the you know learn to seek the true beauty of people and who they are you know in their heart regardless of what they believe in and if something that someone is really really worth it then i think that you should just accept them no matter what way shape or form they come in because if you get into a relationship you have to come you have to take to go with the bad everything that comes with it i definitely think that we should focus on the good times that we’ve had together no matter what religion you’re from i don’t think that’s something that ever really divided us it definitely made us stronger it definitely made us question our relationship but maybe we’re so different it’s a good thing like maybe we believed in god both of us believe in god we wouldn’t be so understanding of each other i just think that uh people pay way too much way too much attention to you know religion and things that we’ve been trained to go through since birth rather than to make their own distinction of what they truly believe so that they that way they can accept other people and the things that they [Music] believe [Music] you