But Not Too Serious About It

One of the things I actually enjoy about online dating is answering the questions. Not the open-ended ones like "Tell us something about you," but the multiple choice ones, like how often do you drink, excercise, etc. And one of my favorite little quirks of dating sites is that they let you specify your religion, but you can tack on a measure of how into it you are. So for, example, on OkCupid, I'm "Catholic, but not too serious about it."

That's important, because no one wants to go out with a True Believer, except of course other True Believers, and they should really stick to eHarmony anyway.

What I like is the idea that you can be "not too serious" about your religion. See, religions are institutions that don't like to be marginalized, cf. "The Lord your God is a jealous god."

I grew up in a very religious environment – not Catholic – and in that style of Christianity there was this basic assumption that if anything you believed was true (Jesus was the son of God, he died for your sins, etc.) then those beliefs required you to stake nothing less than your entire life for them.

A lot of religions are like that. "It's all or nothing." And that produces the people you read aobut in the

news, whether it's the Taliban, abortion protesters or Tim Tebow.

The rest of us, I think, feel our beliefs call us to live good, quiet lives. To do unto others as we would have them do unto us. To give genorously, forgive freely, seek justice, turn away from vanity, and love with big hearts.

Maybe that is taking it pretty seriously.