Catholic change to Sikh?

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I'm a catholic girl dating a Sikh guy. We are young but we want to get married when we are older. What is difficult is that he wants me to change my religion and he says if I don't if will probably affect our relationship he says he isn't able to change. Can catholics even change to Sikh? I love my boyfriend so much but I don't want to change and I don't think my mom will be happy with that either.

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[+3] - Ceili - 05/12/2013You don't say how old you are. Yes, Catholics can become Sikhs and Sikhs can become Catholic. However, when most people consider changing religions, they do it because they actually believe the...

@Hrecek,

You don't say how old you are. Yes, Catholics can become Sikhs and Sikhs can become Catholic. However, when most people consider changing religions, they do it because they actually believe the tenets of the religion. Converting for the sake of marriage is, of course, done, but it never really made sense to me, unless you a) either truly believe,
b) question or don't give a damn about your own faith or god/s.
I'd be more worried about figuring out what you believe in, than worrying about upsetting mom. And if you're that worried about mom, then you're probably too young to ask your self these questions and get a straight unhormonish type answer.

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@Hrecek,

Hrecek wrote:

he wants me to change my religion

Why can't he change? Lots of good stuff in the Catholic religion. No need to wear a pagri, all those cool saints, fish on Fridays, Easter eggs, Christmas trees, etc. Why should it be you that changes? Do you want to be the lesser person in this relationship? Why don't you both change to another religion, or none at all?

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I question what culture you're in. In the United States--and i suspect in many other secular nations--people of different religious beliefs marry without either party converting to the beliefs of the other. In such a situation, both families accept the situation; it happens commonly. I suspect, as has already been mentioned, that he wants to dominate the relationship, and that he wants you to be subordinate to his will.

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My daughter is an atheist and is married to a purely nominal Hindu. They get along fine.

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Guru Nanak had plenty to say about the importance of tolerance, honesty and truth and how being true to your inner spirit being more important than outward signs of Sikhness such as symbol wearing and obedience to rules. One Sikh told me that "The Guru's ideal Sikh will never be against mixed marriage as long as they see the Guru's will in it".

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

You don't say how old you are. Yes, Catholics can become Sikhs and Sikhs can become Catholic. However, when most people consider changing religions, they do it because they actually believe the tenets of the religion. Converting for the sake of marriage is, of course, done, but it never really made sense to me, unless you a) either truly believe,
b) question or don't give a damn about your own faith or god/s.
I'd be more worried about figuring out what you believe in, than worrying about upsetting mom. And if you're that worried about mom, then you're probably too young to ask your self these questions and get a straight unhormonish type answer.

I believe quite a few Jews have converted to Catholicism, since after marrying a Catholic, and having children, and allowing the children to attend Sunday school, the (young) children surprise the Jewish spouse one day with great tears and anguish, because the family won't all be in Heaven (together), because one member of the family is "a Jew." So, because few want to see their (young) children cry, a convert to Catholicism is made.

What a way to get converts. (Not that anything's wrong with it).

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I question what culture you're in.

I would guess the United States, as she spells mum mom.

Personally I like Sikhs. They usually have a wonderful sense of humour, they are honorable and they know how to party. They can also knock up a mean curry.

I know little to nothing about their religion, apart from the fact that they split away from the muslims many moons ago, one of the main reasons being the awful way the muslims treated women, which makes Sikhs Ok in my eyes.

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@Lordyaswas,

Mom can be a Canajun usage, too, especially among the young (many of the older, "English" Canajuns say mum, but they are, literally, a dying breed). There is a sizable Sikh community in Canada--in the U.S., not so much. According to an article in The Guardian in 2012, there were 250,000 Sikhs in the United States, and they are in small local groups. They are not ubiquitous in the population. According to Statistics Canada, there are more than 468,000 Sikhs in Canada, and about half that number are fairly well distributed throughout the country. It's not just that there are nearly twice as many Sikhs in Canada, but as a proportion of the population--about one and a half percent--they far outstrip the Sikh population of the United States, where they are considerably less than one tenth of one percent.

Sure, she could be an American. However, as soon as i read it, my first thought was that she was Canadian.

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@Lordyaswas,

Lordyaswas wrote:

I know little to nothing about their religion, apart from the fact that they split away from the muslims many moons ago, one of the main reasons being the awful way the muslims treated women, which makes Sikhs Ok in my eyes.

They split away from the Hindus not the Moslems. They still celebrate Hindu festivals like Divali. One of the main reasons being the caste system. In Sikhism all the boys are called Singh, and all the girls Kaur, although more westernised Sikhs tend to use more family orientated surnames, the older generation still stick to Singh and Kaur.

They're very welcoming, I've been invited to one of the local Gurdwaras, and you always get a slap up meal afterwards.

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@izzythepush,

One of our neighbors back in Venice, Harry Perry, good man, is Sikh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Perry_(musician)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/Harry_Perry.jpg

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@izzythepush,

I think she's a canuck too.

A friend explained the split to me like this.
Singh means lion, to signify their warrior caste. Kaur means princess.
Hindus are very peaceful, they didn't like war or killing anything, thus the whole vegetarian thing. They knew they needed to protect themselves, so every family sacrificed one boy to the cause, the holy army (k, I have no idea what they named it, but you get the gist).
The boys were to train in the art of war, remain virgins, pray and be pure, and never marry or have kids. The hindus knew the alternative would cause a divide in the loyalties of their selfless draftees. Obviously, the band of brothers grew tired of this arrangement and rebelled. I believe the some greeks tried this idea too and failed equally in their utopian dream.

Lordyaswas
Sihks and Hindus, that aren't pals with Muslims, are holding on to long remembered treatment at the hands of the Mughal Empire.
Like all holy books, Sikh's sacred pages have more than a few suggestions of mean stuff you can do to women.

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@Ceili,

As for the Greeks, you may be thinking of the Theban Sacred Band. This was 150 pairs of men, each pair to be responsible for "watching your back" in battle. It was often a homosexual relationship, too, in a culture which had no prejudice against homosexual relationships, so long as they were exclusive and discrete. They were also a relationship of an older to a younger man. The older might might (and they frequently did) marry and have children. The theory was that as a man aged to the point where he was no longer so strong and agile, the younger man in the partnership would choose a young man and would then be free to marry himself, while the older man retired. In the brief period of time that the Sacred Band existed, they were formidable, and were considered invincible by most Greeks. Of course, most wars within Greece at the time were small, local affairs, so 300 fanatical warriors was an impressive thing.

Then Philip of Macedon reluctantly went to war with Athens (he would rather have had them as allies), Thebes joined the Athenians, and Philip's son Alexander rode down the Sacred Band with the Macedonian heavy cavalry. That was the end of that ****.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

As for the Greeks, you may be thinking of the Theban Sacred Band. This was 150 pairs of men, each pair to be responsible for "watching your back" in battle. It was often a homosexual relationship, too, in a culture which had no prejudice against homosexual relationships, so long as they were exclusive and discrete. They were also a relationship of an older to a younger man. The older might might (and they frequently did) marry and have children. The theory was that as a man aged to the point where he was no longer so strong and agile, the younger man in the partnership would choose a young man and would then be free to marry himself, while the older man retired. In the brief period of time that the Sacred Band existed, they were formidable, and were considered invincible by most Greeks. Of course, most wars within Greece at the time were small, local affairs, so 300 fanatical warriors was an impressive thing.

Then Philip of Macedon reluctantly went to war with Athens (he would rather have had them as allies), Thebes joined the Athenians, and Philip's son Alexander rode down the Sacred Band with the Macedonian heavy cavalry. That was the end of that ****.

Call me stupid, but you seem to be describing bi-sexuality, even if it reflects consecutive relationships? Or, possibly, confused gays?

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Catholic change to Sikh?

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