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a very good friend of mine, has been agnostic for the last ten years, and is now converting to being a Seventh Day Adventist, and going to church regularly. Because his Fianc'e wants a big church wedding.....

Currently I am finding this both humorus and a little sad.

What's everyone else's take on this?

Rebecca wanted a church wedding, so we had a church wedding. I didn't have to convert to anyone's church in order to do it.

If they force the guy to convert before they'll do the ceremony, they're being assholes. But a man will do a lot of crazy things for love ... converting religions is not particularly extreme IMHO.

If he was only "agnostic" and not an avowed atheist, he was sitting on the fence anyway. It probably wasn't that difficult for his fiance to swing him over.

Hopefully he's only going so his wife can get the big church wedding (BCW).
If he has to keep going after they are married I hope it is because his conversion is sincere because I can't see anything but resentment further down the road and that's not something a marriage needs, especially when it's starting out.

I would have a great deal of difficulty going to church or whatever religious orginization over the long term just to make someone happy. If conversion was required I hightly doubt that it would happen. Especially since if she's that religious she ain't likely to have been fuckin' my brains out so where's the motivation?

I would go with Mike on this one. Ya dont have to be religous to have a christian wedding, after all its substance that counts not form.

Stuart Mackey wrote:I would go with Mike on this one. Ya dont have to be religous to have a christian wedding, after all its substance that counts not form.

I agree with that as well. I'm just a little concerned that he's been going to regular services. In some cases a good showing needs to be put on before the church will let you use their facilities to get married. Same thing with the clergy. It's not always the case obviously. I have heard of cases where it is voted on by members of the church (usually some comittee) whether someone can get married in the church.


Darth Wong is also right about this guy possibly being a fence sitter. A lot of agnostics can be people who are easily pulled back into full blown religion.

Is this woman very religious or is this solely about her getting a BCW? If that's the case I doubt there's much to worry about. The guy is just doing the prep work so his fiance can get the wedding she wants. I'm hopeing that's the case.

Tsyroc wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:I would go with Mike on this one. Ya dont have to be religous to have a christian wedding, after all its substance that counts not form.

I agree with that as well. I'm just a little concerned that he's been going to regular services. In some cases a good showing needs to be put on before the church will let you use their facilities to get married. Same thing with the clergy. It's not always the case obviously. I have heard of cases where it is voted on by members of the church (usually some comittee) whether someone can get married in the church.


Darth Wong is also right about this guy possibly being a fence sitter. A lot of agnostics can be people who are easily pulled back into full blown religion.

Is this woman very religious or is this solely about her getting a BCW? If that's the case I doubt there's much to worry about. The guy is just doing the prep work so his fiance can get the wedding she wants. I'm hopeing that's the case.

Well you would have to ask Colin about this lady, but for me the ol BCW matters not so long as it is done properly, I cant stand a poorly planned wedding or any other event {that comes from working in the events/theaming industry}

Darth Wong wrote:Rebecca wanted a church wedding, so we had a church wedding. I didn't have to convert to anyone's church in order to do it.

Wow, that's liberal! You'd have had a lot harder time here.

Looks like they take the asshole approach here in good, old, tolerant Finland then. Here in order to get a Lutheran wedding you have to not only convert but actually get confirmed (entails rote memorization of a whole shitload of tripe like prayers, declarations of belief and whantnot) in order to have a church wedding. Most people go through that the year they turn 15 and it's arranged in an organized fashion in a week-long summer camp or something like that. It was fun enough, because there were lots of fun people there, but having to memorize that all that crap... *shudder*
Naturally I forgot everything the second I had passed the exam about it. I hated that part of it.

Basically I agree with what Mike and Tsyroc said, no big deal as such, unless the woman starts making a big issue about religion and he is really an atheist instead of an agnostic who leans toward religion.

Edi

Here in Hungary, the only restriction I know for getting married in a roman catholic church, is that you must be christianed. It doesn't matter wether you believe or not...

Oh...and got to pay a lot of money to the clergy of course.

*Nothing is for free in God's favourite playground*

My mom is Catholic, and my dad is Lutheran, and the only thing they had to do to get the Big Church Wedding is meet with a priest a few times. They're much bigger hardasses about Baptisms and Confirmations--they flatly told my aunt that my dad couldn't be godfather to my cousin unless he converted, and they told me he couldn't by my confirmation sponsor.

The only sad or unusualy part of this is that it's the Seventh Day Adventists. If it was Catholics or Anglicans, who would care? Half of them pay lip service to their faith anyway. The problem with some faiths, like the JWs and SDA's, is that the are brutally efficient at getting under people's skin and instilling rather extreme views not on religion, but on everyday living.

Faith is faith, you believe in bogeymen or you don't. But religions that alter the way people percieve their health, neighbours, or anything else do NOT have a track record of being positive.

Lagmonster wrote: If it was Catholics or Anglicans, who would care? Half of them pay lip service to their faith anyway.

Growing up in an Anglican family I know how true that is. As to weddings I feel sorry for the guy, being dragged into a church like the SDAs. I would expect them to have strict rules about who gets married in them though. To contrast with that, my dad (an Anglican priest) doesn't care much about the denomination/religion of the people he is marrying (although he would prefer that at least one is Anglican/christian), mostly because weddings are a nice supplement to his income.

Seventh Day Adventist?! I'd have to be getting a serious amount of pussy to go to one of their services.

I think this is kinda funny because they have been boinking like Minx for about 5 years now....

For us (UMC), current ministers can only perform marriages for members of the church. Retired reverends or non-church ministers (chaplains, for instance), may perform marriages based on their own beliefs.

So who are the SDA's anyway? Never heard of them.

HemlockGrey wrote:So who are the SDA's anyway? Never heard of them.

In very brief, they *reallllllllly* want the Apocalypse to come. Sooner rather than later. And sweep all those nasty sinners away. They're constantly checking for signs of The End.

Ive stopped going to church. avoid the christmas services if possible, even.
I worship him, but I dont love him.

oh, and in english we had a debate today whether drill sergeants calling new recruits pussies was misogynist. funniest convo I ever did see.

Reminds me of a coupel I met at uni.

Had been going out for years, having sex for years...

Then they got brainwashed by FOCUS (your local on-campus fundamentalist arseholes).

Stopped having sex.

Then decided to get married so they could start having sex again.

So they got married. At age... 21. Now those people are fucking stupid.

Times like that I'm so happy that my g/f is wiccan. Premarital sex, plus awesome festivals and no tiresome services.

Fundies can...just wreck the SHIT out of anything.

An abbreviated conversation I had some years ago with an old university buddy of mine that I hadn't seen in years:

Me: "So, how's the old shit? Still going out and breaking hearts?"
Him: "Oh, no. I stopped doing that when I realized it was a sin to fornicate."
Me: "..........."
Him: "Have you found Jesus, yet?"
Me: ".........."
Him: "Because you really should think about the consequences of eternity."
Me: "Huh. Are you serious, or what?"
Him: "Well, of course. Everyone knows that God is there, but a lot of people don't realize how important it is to follow in His way."
Me: "You are REALLY going to be pissed off in the next five minutes."

Well, it was a legal requirement that I be brought up a catholic.....yay.....

Personally, I dont think any amount of sex is worth becoming a SDA....to even get me back to near a bog standard place
(just for the sake of it) would take at least a three month holiday courtesy of Playboy....

Though I must admit to having fun at the last wedding I attended....there was a lot of people in kilts etc towards the front, then there was me sitting very near the back of the church in a black 3 piece suit, the jacket hung over one shoulder and sunglasses on....long hair tied back and a norse wolf cross on around my neck in place of a tie....

I looked like a bad impression of a mafia hitman....the looks of the priest were more than worth it.

In a nutshell, if this guy just did the Big Church Wedding to please wifey-to-be, no big deal. If she's expecting him to majorly change his values and religious beliefs in order to please her, then she's not even worth the price of a cheap engagement ring and should be tossed on the pile. Pretty simple, I think.

If the SDA's are like JW's and she's one of 'em, then he must not be too bright to be going out with her in the first place. To put it in frankly (albeit harshly), an intelligent man is not likely to fall in love with a moron, and from what I'm hearing, the SDA's are a JW-style collection of morons.