People who know me will appreciate that religion and I rarely see eye to eye.

I used to be happily agnostic, but now proudly rank myself among the godless. Maybe it's down to the six years I spent working for BBC Religion and the somewhat unpalatable nature of my departure. Like so many good Catholic schoolgirls before me, familiarity bred contempt, and I needed to rebel. But rather than that atheism's probably just what makes sense to me. Whatever the reason, all I know is that this is my one shot at the universe.

Sure, folks can believe what they want - an individual's personal faith is none of my business, and I have no right to expect them to agree with me on the world's rights or wrongs. Yes, the majority of ancient scriptures have a great many things to teach humankind, but I don't believe any single one to have all the answers. I'm more than happy to co-exist with a whole world of faiths, just as long as they let me get on with writing my own moral code.

My problems start when religions cross that line I've drawn in the sand. Almost always the fault of large gatherings or ceremonies rather than individuals, the more a particular doctrine is shoved down my throat - or even the throats of other unwilling people - the harder I find it to stomach. For example, the fact that BBC2 gave the best part of a day's broadcasting over to the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this year had me almost apoplectic with outrage.

So when Sam suggested I try the Belief-o-matic quiz(Catholic, Quaker, Hindu, Protestant, Scientologist, Muslim, Neo-Pagan - guaranteed to choose you the right religious pigeonhole or your karma back), I was surprised to find that rather than condemning me to eternity in limbo, it suggested I was a perfect, top-scoring, 100% bona fide candidate for the Unitarian Universalist movement.

Naturally a little shocked to find myself prime fodder for any religious organisation, it was only when I did a little more digging that I found that this needn't be seen as a challenge to my identity.

It seems UUs allow their members plenty of wriggle room when it comes to the topic of tenets:

Want to believe in God? Cool! We can dig that. And you needn't stop at one - the more the merrier. In fact Barry over there has wanted to get rid of his for a while. Hey, if he wants to hang out with us, who are we to insist he believes in a higher power? Come one, come all.

What about the origins of life? What with the creation and the science, it certainly gives us a lot to talk about. Who really believes that Adam and Eve stuff anyway? You do? Yeah, well, once you put it that way, who am I to argue?

And how about this Jesus thing? Yeah, we're not sure either. Tomayto, tomato - it's all good. Maybe you can sort it out in your next life - if you want one that is.


And so on. All in all, they have the appearance of being a pretty inclusive bunch - not so much a concerted movement as a relaxed gesture.

Still, I don't think I'll be joining them all the same. Fortunately I'm also a pretty damn near perfect secular humanist. And despite the many wretched things that we've done to this world, people's all I want to believe in.

It's just a question of faith.