This is a message I was sent last night from two of our regulars, Yorker and Veronique. They met here on the site, and are now getting married! The following is a message from them. - Josh

As a species, humankind has come far from its brutish evolutionary origins. We have shown ourselves capable of great works of art, music and literature yet seem pathetically unable to carry out the simple unifying organisation required to ensure our continued survival on this planet. This is our home; the only home we have and as far as we can see, the only home we'll ever have.

We have moved forward at breathtaking speed in the sciences but sadly our emotional development lags far behind; we lack the ability to reach international agreement on even simple matters having a direct bearing upon the future of our species. We allow greed, religion, culture and political doctrine to divide us; we are reduced to the level of the most irrational among us while intellectuals are mired in a morass of useless ego massaging that wilfully ignores the inexorable march on the road to disaster.

As the years roll by it seems increasingly likely that humankind will be a short-lived species, a smear on the Earth's surface that time will slowly eradicate. Science, the best tool we have, cannot help us, abundant food and water will not help us; our plight can be solved only through an unprecedented level of understanding, tolerance and above all, cooperation. Should no change take place, the outlook is bleak indeed. We face an adversarial future that may well result in our extinction, a self-selected extinction.

Some thinking people share this vision of the future and are brought together by the contemplation of it. These pitifully small groups do their best to warn of the danger but are generally ineffective in achieving meaningful change; sometimes the feeling of despair causes them to turn inwards in search of consolation. They turn to the thread that still runs unbroken through the history of humanity. They turn to love.

If one asks philosophers or dispassionate observers, they might possibly say that love is a temporary mental condition that can cause those in love to have feelings of euphoria not supported by reality. That is possible, but it's also true that through times of extreme stress and hardship, lovers find great reserves of strength in each other that would be impossible to muster individually. Empowered by love, they are often able to overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles. This sends a potent message concerning the nature of love; it shows how love persists no matter what; it shows that love is an emotion humans cannot live without.

Love is a dynamic process; we all perceive love in our own way, from the idealistic hormonally-charged love of youth, to the deeply-connected mentally-inspired love of the experienced. Love always feels right and engenders mutual trust. Those in love live fuller and, we would claim, better lives than those not in love. As Veronique aptly puts it, love between older persons is usually a blending, a fitting together of curves of experience and mutual respect. Once forged, such a blending is virtually impenetrable by outside influence. Joining forces in the fight against unreason softens the feeling of despair for the future that impacts on us individually.

Over a period of more than a year, two long-standing followers of the RDF realised that something more than understanding and mutual agreement was happening between them. Being the same age, it became increasingly clear that their remaining lives would be better served by facing the future together rather than struggling on to die alone. They had in short, fallen in love. Some would call it a practical love, born out of mutual respect and perhaps even loneliness, but that description falls a long way short; it was a deep love, deeper than either had ever felt; the indestructible connection had been forged.

Much has been made of the similarity between freethinking atheists and cats, both supposedly being difficult or impossible to herd, but humans are not cats, they can be easily herded if a common cause is seen as more important than individual agendas. We simply must herd; we must convince others to see via the light of reason; we must do it with understanding; conflict is not the way; cooperation has to be the corner stone of any future human endeavour. It will be a long slow process and the grim prospect that it may already be too late, must be faced.

To end on a lighter note, we hope that our fellows on this site may recognise others with whom a strong connection might be made; let them unite and join that special RDF club founded by Veronique and Yorker, who found each other here and discovered the persistence of love.

Veronique & Yorker