As far as our relationship has gone so far, it’s been fantastic. She knew I was an atheist up front, and her parents learned that only a couple weeks after we started dating. My parents actually have a bigger problem with me being an atheist that her parents do. And this part is just awesome… my future mother-in-law actually told my mom that she needs to back off of me about being an atheist.

We’ve never really had a fight, though we have had many discussions. They’re always civil, never any shouting or anything.

The most “serious” ones end up on how we would raise our kids and it came down to compromise (as if there was another option…). We’ve come to compromises about baptism, when they can start learning about religion, what schools they would go to and conditions that I would be okay with a private school. I get to teach them as much science as I want, so they won’t be ignorant of that at all on that front.

Many people have said this before me… you need to communicate. Don’t just avoid the subject… you need to talk about it, or it will fester until it is talked about.

I feel as though he will not really let our children choose and try to “force” his religion on them. I love him but am so confused about a long term marriage, even though he does not seem to worry. Children should not come between a marriage but I feel as though they would. Whenever I try to discuss this with him it somehow always ends in a fight. I don’t know what to do.

When I was a Christian, I dated atheists and knew other Christians who did, because “Believe on the Lord and you shall be saved, and your house.” In other words, God will probably bring them around, especially if you get married.

When God doesn’t bring them around, this won’t be a mere disappointment for the hell-centric Christian, but a terrifying, deadly important problem. Think about it — who wants their spouse being tortured for eternity if they can take a step to avoid it? This will become an insurmountable problem.

People who have their own unquestionable methods of determining reality are probably people you don’t want to get involved with in the first place.

My view is similar to that of your girlfriend in that I just don’t know. I believe that Jesus has something to do with the accessibility of heaven, however I’m unsure of how stringent the requirements are. A favorite book on the afterlife for me is “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. It offers a very non-traditional and more fluid version of the afterlife that most of us have been told.

The problem, as it sounds to me, is her insistence that she go to heaven with her husband. This assumes that marriage still exists in the Christian afterlife, and in fact it does not. Jesus himself addresses this in Mark 12:18-37 when he says that in heaven everyone is like the angels, who do not have the institution of marriage. So I really fail to see why she is insisting you go with her into the great beyond. Marriage is an clearly only an earthly institution (aka “until death do us part”).