Do you and your partner have different religious beliefs (both practising and non-)?

[MrsMerryHenry]

If so what impact does it have on your lives?

I guess so, I'm Christian and he is avowedly Athrist but Humanist Atheist

Not a lot of impact tbh, he doesn't prioritise things like me wanting to go to Church which gets on my wick a bit but thats about it

You're included! Doesn't matter if your partner rejects religion; strictly speaking it's still a 'religious belief', i.e. a belief about religion.

Have you not had the issue over christening, etc, then? I often find that for friends things tick along nicely until kids come along.

Yes, I am a non-believing non-practising Anglican and he is a non-believing minimal-practising Jew.

It has very little impact on our lives. We both get a bit fractious about having to attend Jewish dinners at Rosh Hashana, Kippour, Pessah etc. We celebrate Christmas and Easter my way and quite enjoy them. DSS1 had a fabulous Bar Mitzvah party last year and I had a wonderful time helping him write his speech for the synagogue (and everyone knew I was behind it, which was very shocking and hilarious... ).

Anna, did you both do Passover and Easter at the same time this year, then?

I'm interested to see that so few of you find it's problematic; that's incredibly refreshing. Are your families okay about it, too?

BonsoirAnna - have you seen the episode of Frasier where he gets help writing his son's BarMitvah speech in Hebrew! Hilarious!

Yes, we had a Passover dinner on Wednesday and Easter eggs on Sunday! And in between DD made Easter baskets at her supposedly secular school.

I'm an agnostic fence sitter who dislikes The Church (any) as an institution, rather than its beliefs....(christened CofE)
Dp is an Italian Catholic Believer and fully participating.....
Dd was christened Catholic- because it was important to him, and not to me. She goes to a nun-run nursery (although I wouldn't have had her in the nun's class) and has recently "found" religion herself...(she's 5) At the moment, I find it quite endearing...in due course I'll make sure she knows that not everyone thinks like she and daddy do. (including me) I suppose it's easier for me, because it's supremely unimportant whereas if I were an out and out atheist, it would be harder.
I have found myself sticking up for Protestantism since I've been over here...which I never thought I'd be doing...(like at the pre-christening "lessons" when the priest was saying that only Catholics were baptised and it was one of the things that set them apart from 'dem 'dere narsty proddies. (and when dp's mad sister told me that we don't celebrate Easter or Christmas.....)
waffle waffle.
(his latest is that he wants us to go and be blessed by some exorcist type priest as apparently my ex-bonkers neighbour is wandering round town telling people she's put a curse on me)

No I haven't .

Writing DSS1's Bar Mitzvah speech is one of my favourite memories - we had such a fabulous time - we wrote it on the Friday evening, in the middle of all the ceremonial stuff, late at night - and it was so original - almost subversive - and made such a star out of DSS1!

I think our families are OK with it but we are both grown ups and beyond caring what our parents think .

My family care as much as I do.
His, on the other hand.....

Aww, that sounds lovely, Anna.

Bucharest - gracious! Religion itself (not personal belief) often really complicates life, doesn't it? So unnecessarily. Presumably you're all set for tea with the exorcist, then?

Riven - your kids will be embarassed anyway! A friend of mine says if you aren't embarassing your children you're not having enough fun.

I figure the experience will make a great chapter for my book, if now't else!

Yep. DH is RC, I am an atheist. To be fair, he is a pretty lax Catholic. He doesn't go to church every week and disagrees with some of the fundamental principles of the church, but he does identify himself as a Christian, believes in God etc, whereas I obviously am not and do not.

He knows my views. We never argue about it. In fact, it doesn't come up anymore, really. I agreed tio our eldest child being baptised, but changed my mind about him being raised a Catholic when I looked more deeply into it. DH took a philosophical view of it and thinks that DS will make his own mind up later on down the line. Thankfully!

The only time I get slightly uptight about our differences is when we visit his bible-bashing family in the USA. They actually left the RC church when they went to the states and are now Evangelical and they constantly bang on about Jesus. I find myself biting my lip a lot. But hey, they live in the USA, so it's not a huge problem...

We do have massive arguments over religion though- just neither of ours....you should hear us over the Middle East....

I'd definitely read it!!

My dh is catholic and im not religious at all - we got married in church - but a very small ceremony with only immediate family.
The 2 older DS are baptised Catholic but only because it is so important to him - i told him if he wants ds3 doing its down to him to organise - he has just gone 2 - Im still waiting! DS3 should be doing confirmation this year - again he is suppsoed to be sorting it - im still waiting.

I have no interest and it causes problems when we have discussions about it and if the children ask me questions - i tell them i dont believe but they had better ask their dad. and he doesnt like this but generally it doesnt impact upon our lives too much

racmac- I get that with dp too...he has started saying that next year dd will have to be enrolled in catechism classes and then looks all vacant at me when I say "go on then, get it sorted, make sure it's at a time that suits you dearie".

I can always answer more biblical questions than him on Millionaire as well, which makes me think he is never paying that much attention in his beloved parish.

At first, no problem. Dh is RC & I'm CoE. But now that dc are being brought up as RC, issues over transubtantiation, the views of the current Pope, eternal damnation, etc are coming out of the woodwork, so to speak. I'm not okay with all that the dc (in Catholic school) are being taught so when they ask me if such-and-such is a mortal sin or whatever, I give them my personal view, while not discrediting what they're being taught, and we talk about alternative general views on Christianity and other religions & beliefs as well. Dh is very open-minded but my MIL, for example, is not.

Cariboo - would you count yourselves as practising different religions, then?

(IMO MILs are rarely open-minded about anything concerning their grandchildren, religion or not!)

Not really, MrsMH. Which is why I had no issue with the dc being brought up RC. But with all due respect to the thousands & thousands of lives that have been sacrificed over the centuries since the Reformation, I'd like to be a bit careful...

DW is Catholic (lapsed) and me a Methodist (lapsed).

I like her Catholic faith because they allow drinking and gambling unlike Methodists and she likes Methodism because there is a lot less guilt and confessing.

apart from that, dh loves a good nun fantasy