How Religious Beliefs Influence Online Dating and Relationships at Consonance (Gleichklang)
Religion and Online Dating at Consonance (Gleichklang)
For people who have a strong religious faith, this also plays a significant role in partner search and relationship formation:
- A psychological study shows that shared religious beliefs and religious practices improve relationship satisfaction and strengthen partners’ desire to marry each other. The study also showed that shared religious beliefs and practices apparently have a direct positive influence on communication by reinforcing appreciative components and reducing criticism. This in turn appears to be the reason why shared religious beliefs can increase relationship satisfaction.
Conversely, there are people who reject religious belief systems and instead hold an atheistic or agnostic worldview. When religious and atheistic beliefs meet, it can become difficult in a partnership to develop a common consensus, to work out binding life goals, or to reach agreement on child-rearing.
Consonance (Gleichklang) Matching
Consonance (Gleichklang) is not a religious matchmaking service, but a psychologically founded and alternative-oriented online dating system. At Consonance, you will find people with the most diverse religious beliefs, covering the areas of Atheism, Agnosticism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism as well as the areas of esoteric spirituality and open spirituality or free spirituality. Rare religions, such as the Bahai Religion, are also represented at Consonance.
In order to enable high compatibility in matchmaking and friendship matching, we also include attitudes toward religions in our matching process:
All members are asked about their attitudes toward various religious belief systems, but also toward atheism and agnosticism. In addition, members can indicate whether it is important to them that a positive connection to one or more religions or to atheism or agnosticism is shared by partners. These inputs are used by our psychological matching algorithm to be able to make suitable partner suggestions and friendship suggestions.
In Consonance (Gleichklang) matching, we only take religion into account if the members also wish this. The background is that there are people for whom agreement on religious beliefs is essential in a partnership, but there are also other people who can live well with different religious beliefs in a relationship. We record these individual perspectives of our members and bring them to bear in matchmaking and friendship matching.
Religious Attitudes of Consonance (Gleichklang) Members
- 47% of Consonance (Gleichklang) members indicate a positive attitude toward Buddhism.
- 39% of members name a positive attitude toward Christianity.
- 34% of members rate esoteric spirituality or open/free spirituality positively.
- 20% of members identify with atheism and/or agnosticism.
- 13% of members feel positively connected to Hinduism.
- 9% describe a positive connection to Judaism.
- 4% orient themselves toward Islam.
- Less than 1% of our members identify with the Bahai Religion or with Shintoism.
Which Religion Do Consonance (Gleichklang) Members Seek in Online Dating?
How important are religious attitudes to Consonance members when searching for a partner?
- 31% of Consonance members wish for a partner with a Buddhist orientation
- 29% wish for a Christian orientation
- 26% wish for a general esoteric attitude
- 16% wish for an agnostic or atheistic attitude in their partner
Matching Examples for Online Dating at Consonance (Gleichklang)
These examples illustrate how we take religions into account in online dating and matchmaking:
- A member belongs to the Freethinkers and considers any form of religiosity and spirituality to be socially harmful. In the context of a partnership or friendship, this member would like to engage together with the Freethinkers to advocate for a societal overcoming of religiosity/spirituality. In this case, we will not suggest followers of any religion to the member, but rather people who are atheists or agnostics.
- A member sees themselves on a spiritual path with a strong interest in Buddhism. This member would like to continue this path together in a partnership or friendship. In this case, we will suggest to the member those people who are also interested in Buddhism.
- A member is interested in Buddhism and Christianity, but can also imagine partners with other religions. In this case, religion is not used as a basis for matching, and suggested partners can have the most diverse religious attitudes.
Summary: Online Dating and Religions at Consonance (Gleichklang)
Religious beliefs and attitudes toward religion can be an important basis for compatibility between people in partnership relationships. Therefore, they are also taken into account at Consonance in order to enable followers of all religions and attitudes toward religion to have an effective partner search and friendship search.
However, religious beliefs are always only part of the overall compatibility, and moreover, they only need to be taken into account in partner search if this is important to the people concerned. At Consonance, therefore, the members themselves decide whether religions flow into their partner search and friendship search as criteria or not.
The result of matching in online dating at Consonance is high compatibility, which partners can build on to develop a shared lifestyle and high relationship satisfaction.
