So Mich....

[ILG]

From the start I was OK with him being an Atheist. Though one of the first questions I asked when we were dating was if he was a Fundamentalist Atheist. Because I had no interest in being told what NOT to believe (anymore than the other way around!).

Yes, I joined a forum once that I left in short order because there were a bunch of atheist fundamentalists. I had left fundamentalism and wasn't interested in any kind of fundamentalism in the least! The atheists there thought their atheistic fundamentalism made them enlightened and some of them spent their time saying how stupid everyone else was. I wasn't interested!

And when it comes to just the two of us, there are no issues. We debate and philosophize. (He is big into philosophy and ethics), and we mostly see eye to eye on the big issues (though not always for the same reason).

My kids are big into philosophy so I get an earful often....philosophy was my daughter's minor. She first became interested when she read Plato's Cave and felt like she grew up there.

Of course, Avery was an unexpected blessing, and so we are still scrambling to keep up.

Even if kids are expected, I think we still all spend our lives trying to keep up.

It's weird though, because he was raised going to church, and was really into it in middle school, and early high school. Nothing bad happened there, it was a normal healthy church (Baptist of some kind). No abuse, no major "this person" or "God" done me wrong. He just intellectually decided that faith/christianity/God was not something he could rationally believe. So I am always saying...you grew up going to Sunday School / Church. It didn't hurt or damage you in any way.

I think fear of losing us is at the bottom of it. Fear of me becoming a different person that he wouldn't want to be married to, and fear of Avery exchanging her "my Daddy is the best man in the universe" thoughts to "my Daddy is going to hell because he doesn't believe in Jesus".

That is a valid fear and why I am talking to my family as I go and making sure they are okay with it. (If they weren't, I'm not sure what I would do...) For me, one of the biggest things is in the way the Bible is interpreted. I did some looking on a website yesterday and found one of the differences between the churches I attended yesterday is that the one I walked out of believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible. The one where I enjoyed the service believes in a more scholarly/critical interpretation. Gone are the days for me of the Bible being a black and white rule book.