At the atheist discussion group which, as I said before, I attend once a month, we last night listened to a video in which an atheist applauded any and all efforts of believers to enter into dialogue with their unbelieving counterparts.  He cited various episodes of discrimination against atheists and noted how many Americans instinctively assume that anyone who does not believe in God must be an intrinsically bad person.
     I couldn't really disagree.  Many Americans do indeed discriminate, consciously or not, against atheists.  They tend to shun them.  This is unfortunate, as we will never get along with each other unless we agree to talk with each other.  Avoiding communication will not advantage anyone.
     Aside from rejecting atheists because they believe that anyone who does not believe in God must be a bad person, I think that many Americans also do so because they would like for knowledge to be safe, secure, and settled.  Most of us want answers, most of us want to know, most of us would like to explain the world and our lives in it, to wrap our answers into one box.
     But the atheist does not offer such a neat package.  Yes, she does not believe in God, but she will add that she does not know many other things as well, for instance, how, in some sort of medium or space without time, the world came to be.  Or why we are moral beings, or why most of us would rather love than hate.  An inability to answer such questions troubles many people, often acutely.  We instinctively want closure.
     However, whether we believe in God or not, life simply isn't that way.  We can take black and white positions about morality and God, but we must remember that we are implementing them in a very gray world in which a very gray and unfathomable existence prevails.  Ready answers are not always there.
     On the other hand, if we insist that answers can, eventually, be found (which all of us do), we must also accept that the world is not here by accident, that it has purpose and a point.  And that, like it or not, can only be the province of God.