Yes... but (Chandelier's and Mistletoe)

"I'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier,
I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist, doesn't exist,
like it doesn't exist".

Sia - Chandelier.

"They are capable, you see, of real repentance. They are conscious of real guilt...
After you have played with them for 70 years, the enemy may thereby snatch them from your claws in the seventy first!"

 C S Lewis - Screwtape proposes a toast.

Life can often be like mistletoe, tenaciously preying on something other to live, whilst perceived as a chandelier - something deemed as pretty, with no practical use.

That's the kind of thinking that's been underlying several of the assumptions I've encountered this past week as I've found myself embroiled in discussions with atheists concerning the purpose of life.

What always surprises me these days is the adamant nature of their convictions - they are atheists, not agnostics... no room for doubt, and yet, as you pry open their resolve, you begin to find there are quibbles... dangerous live fire regions where love and friendship and creativity occur. These are not to be examined too deeply without setting off a tirade of vehement expressions as to why your theism is fanciful and absurd.

Therein lies the rub.
"Religion" is often just below the surface, though it can never be entertained - it's the 'parasite' we cannot allow (because a genuine, beguiling usurper is already jailing us), hence back to the chandelier swinging...
Life is a brief go on the carousel, nothing more.

So why so easily troubled?

If only, in those brief exchanges, people would pause, would think a little deeper about what's going on.

Thankfully, as the arch beguiler notes, they often do.