Dear enki,
Yes it does help and I would love to have a conversation with your wonderful Angel of Mercy, one question I would ask, has she always been a atheist or did she lose her faith.
I would ask what drives her compassion, yes brotherly love would be one of them but are there other factors.
As I type this I am treading on eggshells, not wanting to say the wrong thing, your post is a beautiful post and should be treated as such but I will add, your good lady walks with my God every single day, she worships the Father every single day, I have said this before, but there are atheists who have more Christianity in their little finger than most Christians I have met, God Bless her 
Gonnagle.
I might be wrong but I think that we would have much more in common than that which divides us, Gonners.
She would hate to be called an 'angel of mercy'. She is simply doing what she feels is the right thing for her (perhaps this is the main reason she went into nursing in the first place). and, I would like to add, she has plenty of bad and irritating points(although she might well disagree with me on that). What drives her compassion, I think, is what drives most people's compassion, inner feelings of empathy and a wish to alleviate some of the bad things in life on a personal level. Being such a single minded person, when it comes to such things, she doesn't dwell on sentiment, but actually acts in a practical way to help.
She was never religious, so the idea of losing one's faith isn't really of any real significance in her life. However, she can react unfavourably to the things she hates about many religions, and, I suspect that this was partly the result of a very traumatic experience, when she was fairly young. What follows will explain that comment, and is something that I put on this Forum some years ago on a different thread. At that point I called her a very dear friend. With her agreement, I would like to say she is a very dear friend and also my wife. This is what she wrote, in her own words, spelling mistakes and all:
At the age of eighteen I was unmarried and pregnant. This was in the early sixties. It was considered by society, at that time, that to be pregnant and unmarried was unacceptable. So my only option was a mother and baby home resulting in adoption. The home that was chosen for me was run by a group of catholic nuns.
The home consisted of two large Victorian houses, one to house girls until six weeks pre birth. The last six weeks of pregnancy, birth and time spent waiting for the adoption to be arranged, was spent in the adjoining house.
We had to pay our board and lodgings. Except that each week our personal finances were reviewed by the nuns and if they considered we had too much money, they took it. I hid mine to avoid this!
Food was often inadequate, yet if questioned the amounts changed temporarily.
We were allowed little in respect of personal items.
We were not allowed post, we had to use the local Post office.
Friendships were discouraged and girls were split up when these became obvious.
We had little freedom, times allowed out were rigid with one late pass per month til 10pm.
No telephone, no family visitors allowed.
Little pre or post natal care.
No discussion or advice whatsoever about having a baby.
No understanding shown about the situation we were in.
Little or no conversation with nuns.
We worked constantly doing household tasks.
No entertainment, no tv, radio, music.
We had to attend the 'in house church' every day, being repeatedly told about the error of our ways. Constantly riminded that we had no one to blame but ourselves. We had to pray to God for forgiveness or we would go to hell.
No information about the actual adoption, the nuns were doing us a favour in removing the baby, giving it a chance for a decent life!
Any girl wanting to keep their baby was put under huge pressure to change their mind. Most did.
We felt that this pressure indicated that the babies were being sold, but I know of no evidence for this!
The whole experience was one of being in a prison with hard cold people who cared nothing for us or the babies.
Girls were not allowed to help each other when a birth was imminent.We were locked out of the delivery room.
I have no memory of the birth, except a dark room and a strange smell. I cannot remember having a baby.
The nuns were cold. They did not appear to care about us at all. Their regime had to be followed at all costs and it was an arduous one.
We were not allowed to care for our babies, the nursery being locked after feeds so that a mother could not attend to a crying baby. Consequently the house was always full of the sound of screaming babies.
I was lucky in some respects. My baby had a low birth weight, so I had to do an extra feed at 2am. I would spend most of the night nursing my baby going to bed about half an hour before 6am. (Time to get up and feed)
When the time came to give up the baby we were told the night before and given no information whatsoever about this process.
I had to find my own way with all my luggage and a baby, to a central building in the city, where the head nun just said "hello", took the baby and told me to leave.
We were not allowed any information about the adoptees and had to sign a form giving up all rights to the baby.
The ethos was coldness and punishment with the constant reminder that we were sinners and had to pray daily for Gods forgiveness.
As regards your last paragraph, I don't have any animosity at all for you saying this. This is what you think, no problem, and furthermore, I'm sure you are saying it with the best of intentions. Obviously both my wife and I don't think that way at all simply because neither of us are religious.
I would also like to thank NS for putting my last response on the Forum's Best Bits, and also Rhi for her lovely comment there. I did not expect this, and it came as a pleasant surprise.
