Act One
Scene 1
N-O-W-H-E-R-E.
An ATHEIST and a BELIEVER are in the middle of a conversation.
BELIEVER
Huh! That makes me wonder. Do you believe in God?
ATHEIST
Hmmm…before I can answer, I need to know: Do you believe in the air you breathe?
BELIEVER
Well, that’s a silly question!
ATHEIST
Yes! Exactly!
The BELIEVER steps back, looks at the ATHEIST, and walks away. The BELIEVER turns around to look at the ATHEIST, shakes his/her/their head, and exits.
Blackout.
Secrets of the Story
Reading Peter Rollins‘s The Orthodox Heretic encouraged me to play around with the idea of what being a faithful atheist might be like. For me a faithful atheist would be one for whom belief in God/Source/Ground of Being/Creator/Etc. is irrelevant or even nonsensical. This belief would not be irrelevant or nonsensical because there is no Divine Reality. The faithful atheist would have such a pervasive and persistent experience of the absolute reality of the Divine that the question of belief in that reality would be completely irrelevant or nonsensical, much as the question of whether one believes in the air one breathes seems irrelevant or nonsensical since air is an absolute necessity for our biological existence.
I get where you’re going with this. Now I have to think about it awhile. Thank you!
No matter how hard people try to fill the God-given desire of their soul with anything other than the essence of God’s Divine Love, there is nothing, not even belief or mental assent to an idea, concept, or power that can compare to experiencing the inflowing of God’s Love into the soul.