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The Christian Longing for Love

I have seen a desperate longing to share their faith in the eyes of many Christians, and I believe it to be in most cases an heartfelt expression of their love for their fellow man and their desire to distribute or disperse widely the joy of God's fatherly love for mankind.  The trouble is that they don't apprehend how difficult it is for us materialists to even converse with them.

For example, the words I have typed above presuppose me using symbols that I don't even believe in, just in order to communicate.  We atheists always feel that way when we are drawn into a discussion about religion and we are forced to use (to us) meaningless terms like 'God.'   We feel that we are abasing ourselves by descending to utilise the unscientific Christian lexicon, which we genuinely see as barbaric and primitive. We feel awkward and vulnerable when we do so. We don't take it seriously, but rather as a quickly disposable verbal tool for contact purposes. Now you know that I am speaking in general terms here, and this is not an attack on any specific religious person, but merely an attempt by me to explain how frustrating it is for guys like us to parley. It must work the other way for them too, and be equally frustrating when they quote the bible to us and we don't respond to their quotes and references to the truth as they see it in the Holy Scripture.  I can feel their frustration and I genuinely sympathise with them sometimes.

On certain occasions or in certain cases but not always, I ask them to imagine what it's like to be within our minds.  It's not the notion of negativity that they probably imagine it to be - it's not a sort of vacuum filled with an indescribable hunger or longing for something unbeknownst and unreachable - but rather an exhilarating, expansible, euphoric, exciting place, full of freedom, challenge and counterchallenge and breathtaking self-sufficiency.

Can they imagine how arduous it is for us to regress into some sort of crude childhood naivety and babble seriously of 'God' and 'soul' - nouns that for us are without substance of significance, denoting nothing.

Strange as it may seem, I can successfully transport myself into their minds by using my natural empathy.     I get a feeling of love and peace and joy, but also detect a yearning for something further - there's a feeling of incompleteness - as if some expansion of their selfhood is required which is intangible and mysterious.

As for those that still have the faith, I hope that someday they find peace, whether the route is by a total immersion in the completeness and love of Christian spirituality, or by opening the golden door of joyful liberation and joining those of us who are waiting for you in the garden of humanism sipping the nectar of self-determination through silver straws.