As an adult, I'd place my hand on the outside of the plane while boarding and pray that the "sacred blood of our Lord Jesus Christ" would protect the plane and passengers -- and I believed with my whole heart that it would work (since I haven't been involved in a plane crash, I guess it did). I abandoned all thoughts of God in my twenties, until it became clear that I needed to be sober.

Recovery meetings are spiritual (not religious) and at that point I settled on a God-centric but non-Christian spirituality that worked perfectly for me. My husband's spirituality is absolutely not my concern.

And some default to the belief in the wake of painful disillusionment with God and his people. Respectful listening can reveal root causes, and root causes can give us specific direction for intercession.

So as Peter advised, “If someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.

Not because I have some fancy Ivy League degree hanging on my wall, nor because I’m a published marriage counselor—no, I’m a marriage expert because I’ve been married twice. My first marriage was to a lovely woman of like-spirituality. I know this, because my second wife, an even more lovely Christian woman named Rachel, told me so.

I’m a big believer in the school of you-don’t-know-it-until-you’ve-done-it. We were both humanists (which is a fancy term for do-gooder atheists) of Jewish descent. Rachel also told me that our marriage is a resounding success, and I believe her.

Some turn to atheism to make sense of the planet’s insanely inequitable distribution of health, wealth, and safety.

Some choose atheism for scientific or (like I did) philosophical reasons. Like a good doctor, instead of being distracted and distraught by the fruits of their beliefs, focus on discerning the roots of their beliefs.

I'm an atheist since I'm 12 and I don't feel like changing, so how much can this be a problem in a relationship? My liberal feminist mother couldn't take it and we switched to a progressive Methodist church instead, a return to her childhood religious roots.While I don't feel like I had a particularly religious upbringing, I clearly did. I dumped the idea of a male God and instead prayed to the pagan concept of the Goddess for years.Either way, we won’t be together anymore, and that’s sad. Rachel is a Christian and I am a heretical Jewish humanist. Christians and people of other faiths are different. I never will be that woman, and while I can understand her, empathize with her, feel pretty in her clothes, and love her deeply, I will never really know the depths of her experiences or the convictions of her beliefs.How can we fully be together when we don’t share the same spirituality? Christians of different denominations are different. No one will, except God (if you’re into that sort of thing).When we got sober, my husband tried to find a spirituality that he could accept, but today he's quite happily a staunch agnostic or, as he calls himself, "aspiritual." Throughout our twenty-two year relationship, he's viewed most of my spiritual explorations kindly, supporting me as much as he could. He could care less about church and I could care less about trains, but we're partners so we indulge each other without complaint.But when I returned to my childhood church, he struggled -- just like I struggled when he gave up all attempts at spirituality around the same time. Ultimately, being married to an atheist as a believer is just like being married to someone that loves football when you can't stand the sport; you tolerate the differences because that is what couples do.Then some bad things happened in my life -- infertility and third trimester pregnancy loss -- and God and I broke up for a while. My job is not to convert him to a believer and his job is to leave my beliefs alone and not mock me for having them (the not mocking part is important). We are both "good, giving, and game." Yes, that term was created by Dan Savage and is meant to tackle sexual turn-ons in relationships (if your partner is into something you're not, you should still try to be good, giving, and game even if you don't want to do that particular act every time), but it also works well with most relationship challenges.But in my grief I found myself drifting into another liberal Methodist Church, and I found solace there for many years. He grew up without much religious exposure, although his father was a "spiritual seeker," dabbling in everything before returning to the Catholic Church. My husband and his aspirituality cheerfully join me each Christmas Eve at a candlelight service and I drive the car when he wants to photograph freight trains.When I was a kid, my mother and I joined a very large "non-denominational" Christian Church, one of the earliest versions of the Mega Churches that exist today. I was in the children's choir, the community was lovely, and we sang from a song book with drawings of long-haired hippies.Everything was great until politics began to creep in and the church began hosting speakers like Jerry Falwell, the ultraconservative pastor and political pundit.I kind of miss the brisk fall in Atlanta though decorating for the holidays always gets me in the...Age 38 From Fort Lauderdale, Florida Online - 2 weeks ago Woman Seeking Man Maybe on the shy part but not afraid to stand for what I believe in, I keep my circle small, I prefer quality over quantity and value honesty above all.These beliefs formed my worldview as a young atheist: I sincerely believed that there was no God.When people hear my story, they often tell theirs with something close to agony in their eyes: a son, a daughter, a brother, a mother, a spouse, a colleague—someone they love denies God’s existence. But the God in whom you hope is mighty to save and relentless in his loving pursuit of their souls.