My view is that to the commited individual practising their Christian faith, it defines what they do and who they are. An athiest by definition, is someone that believes God does not exist and thus has different elements that define them. On that basis it would appear that living together harmoniously would be a challenge.
However, couples do living happily together when one is an athiest and the other is not. How they do this is unique to each couple. In the cases I've seen, the wife invariably has to compromise the practising of her faith far more than the husband has to compromise on his athiest philosophies. This makes life less contentious for them.
Respect for something is demonstrated by assigning some value to it. That might present as a paradox to some athiests and vice versa.
I also think discussing politics and religion is not a problem so long as it is done truly respectfully and in love. I have devout muslims as friends, jews, athiests, buddhists, etc. We all get on as we do not use condescending land demeaning language when referring to the others faith and belief. Additionally, we appreciate and love the differences that exist in the world and love to know more about what we don't know. Surely, if we can all take that approach with what we dont know, we wont remain so ignorant and many of the major world issues would not exist.
Just my thoughts!
As an aside, God said we should love each other. I'm trying real hard but....er...as a Gooner....Chelsea? Hmmn! Only kidding.
