Conversations with a 22 year old atheist

My job involves a lot of travel. And occasionally that travel is with a bunch of college students. Today was one of those days. I really enjoy the group of students that are part of this group but you never know where the conversation is going during our hour plus car rides. Today it turned to religion. (That was after the talk about politics :-) - we broke both golden rules of conversation today! ) And the conversation started with a girl declaring she is an atheist. We clarified that she's not just agnostic, but a flat out atheist. Conversation proceeded around the car and found us each identifying that the rest of us were Christian. And I find this conversation totally amazing. Here were five of us, having no relation to each other, other than the fact we are going to a school to talk about computer science, and none sitting in fear of sharing what they believe. There was nothing judgmental about any questions or comments by others, but rather a genuine attempt to understand some individual beliefs.

And I found myself mostly sitting quiet (while driving too :) ) just listening to what they were all saying, but taking a deep interest in the atheist view. She's an angry girl. She hates her parents, she's mad at everyone, her language would rival a whole fleet of sailors, and that's just the tip of what you can learn about her in the first five minutes you meet her. :-) And I've had many conversations with this girl in the past about a variety of things. And found myself coming up with a list of questions I'd love to ask her someday. But here's the one that kept coming back to me: why not believe in God just to have someone/ thing to blame for your anger/ life situation?

We see plenty of that in the Christian community. People not wanting to take responsibility for their life being the way it is, people not wanting to deal with the reality of illness, death, human nature, etc and wanting to blame God for it. I almost honor her position just because she seems to take a better view of reality. But what I also see, is a lot of hurt that has gone unhealed. And while I could tell her to watch her language, or take a strong stand against her atheist views, what I really feel called to do is love her like Jesus would.