What if you found a person who was really smart, loving, fun, honest, caring, etc. (Basically all of the qualities you would like in a person) But the only thing is that, that person had strong atheist views and made it clear to you that he/she didn't believe in God. Would you still date that person in the hopes of maybe changing his/her mind on God one day, or would you just respect his/her views and deal with it?
Because, what is a person when you strip away all the labels attached to them, really? I say they are simply a heart of a particular kind.
For instance, a fundamentalist christian with extremely hard-line views may not inherently have qualities like sympathy, empathy, compassion, a non-judgmental attitude, a caring manner, an inner-honesty. That isn't to say that religious people can't be these things, of course they can, but it is to say that just because someone has a religious title or a specific belief, it does not automatically make them right for you.
Does that make sense?
God, in himself, tells us that he is love. Jesus leaves us with one command above all things, to fulfill all the law of God; 'Love others as yourself'. He tells us that this command is 'like unto' the first, in otherwords, this command is equal to the command 'love thy God with all your heart', and in practice, the second commandment fulfills the first.
Really, in my eyes, what you have found is a person who actively loves, actively shows honesty, actively cares. I suppose it boils to whether love is something you think that someone simply has because of their religious indoctrination or beliefs or titles or labels, or whether you see love as something that is done, thereby transcending the labels and conditions ascribed to it by many people.
Now, that isn't to say that this person is right for you, nor that this person inherently 'believes' in God or 'believes' and thus has 'faith' in the usual sense, but it is to say that this person has an inner trust in things like honesty, caring, love - these are the things on which Godly character rests.
If I said to you, 'what is the one trait upon which all the teaching of Jesus rests upon?', would you say 'faith'? If you said 'faith', I could ask you what is faith? And the answer is that faith is another word for 'trust'.
I could ask you then, 'well, trust in what?' And you could say 'trust that Jesus died for men', or you could say 'trust that what Jesus taught should be adhered to'. Or both.
The first perspective will make it far harder for you to be compatible with this person, while the second will allow you to see that this person in fact, unknowingly, shares the same trust - she trusts that compassion, love, honesty and caring are life views to be revered and respected and cultivated, because if she didn't, she wouldn't live by them.
So, inherently, nobody can answer your question for you, since the answer to your question lies solely on the order in which you place importance of things in life. If the most important thing to you, for any partner of yours to possess, is the belief that God, as outlined in christianity (remember, there are many views of 'God') sent Jesus who died on the cross, then you will find it very hard to be compatible with this person. If the most important thing to you, for any partner of yours to possess, is the quality of compassion, thus you can look past your differences, then you will find it easy to become compatible with this person.
I argue that the most important thing may not in fact be faith in the act of the cricifixion itself, but trust or faith in the man who was crucified. Does that make sense? That isn't to say that Jesus sacrifice is not important, of course it is, but without trust in his path, his walk, his instructions which he made example of on Earth, his life before his death - without trust in all of this, what is the profession of belief in his death worth?
It is nothing except trust in one act for the sake of everything else that made Jesus special - his love, his caring, his honesty.
Last edited: