religion and relationships

[Number 2 Pencil]

Hello folks! Wow, this turned out to be a long post. It's three in the morning and I can't sleep.


To my girlfriend, who I love dearly, religion seems pretty simple... believe in Jesus and you are saved and get to this place called heaven... seems easy enough. No need for deeds, just believe. How did she fall in love with me is beyond me. I'm an ex-Catholic who is wandering around the agnostic zones maybe about to stray into Universal Unitarianism or maybe into atheism (or maybe both or neither or whatever). How I fell in love with her is beyond me too. So far we make it work.

What's weird is that when we get talking about Christianity, I still argue with a Jesuit tongue against her Protestant viewpoint- words and deeds get you places, faith alone ain't much. But that is sort of a vestigial instinctive lashing out from who I used to be as a Catholic. (isn't life amazing without that thing called GUILT?)

I am going to hell anyway I argue about it... at least unless I join forced with this Jesus guy again, though it would have to be in a different way than I used to because I sure wasn't doing it right when I used to be Catholic... so she says.

But I feel like when I left the Jesus camp, I came out of this little box into a really big place, and i don't want to go back.

It kinda sucks to have an SO that thinks that I am going to hell when I die. But i can live with that. Oddly enough, it isn't a big issue. But when we talk about me, Mr Pencil, tying the knot with her, Ms PaperMate, and later raising little writing implements of our very own, I get a just a little worried.

Long discussions and, in some ways, negotiations, come up when we talk about religion and having kids. I don't mind my kids learning about Jesus or being baptized, but learning about hell isn't my cup of tea and it seems important to her (it is where nonbelievers go, GAH!). And I really would want them to learn about other faiths as well, including NO faith. I figure as long as I can teach the kids about science, skepticism, and rationalist, they can figure out the parts of traditional religion that work or don't work for themselves.

Don't get me started on the Rapture, or the age of the universe.

Are there any interfaith couples out there that have found a way to succeed?