The original point of this thread was to suggest that even if the evidence of God’s love is not apparent, maybe we still have good reason to hold out hope. Let’s not be hasty to shut the door on the infinite, the highest ideal of which we can conceive. Even if it didn’t correspond to anything metaphysical, to strive for it could be noble and purposeful. Can even atheists hold God to be important? That’s the question that’s really interesting.
I think that you have hit on a point here. We are indeed talking about “the highest ideal of which we can conceive” and those conceptions have a variety of appearances. I think that an Atheist can consider several ideals valuable, particularly those related to morality and human well-being, grounded in reason, evidence, and empathy rather than divine command.
We know that Atheists, like anybody, have a moral compass, valuing fairness, protecting vulnerable individuals, liberty, and rational thinking. However, they tend to place less emphasis on group cohesion values such as loyalty to a group, respect for authority, and sanctity compared to religious believers. Instead, Atheists often judge moral actions more on their consequences in a case-by-case manner.
In whatever way they see the issues, protecting vulnerable individuals from harm, fairness and justice, liberty versus oppression, evidence-based beliefs, and judging actions by their outcomes rather than religious rules, are specific areas in which an Atheist shows their moral compass.
It is a big mistake for religious people to mistake their belief as the only moral compass available, while at the same time falling into every failing that they accuse a non-religious person of.
If someone rejects very good evidence that eternal love (the good) is true (demonstrated), and they are open to the possibility of it becoming true … it is not the eternal Being they are after (find important). Maybe they would be open to it if they had a direct encounter… but maybe until then, they prioritize lesser “love”s. And maybe even after a direct encounter, they are still drawn by those lesser “love”s to the point they crowd out their awareness of that encounter… they don’t try to reconnect… they forget. See the parable of the Sower.
Friedrich Nietzsche thought that God was important. Dawkins not so much. But Dawkins is a cultural Christian in spite of his atheism so maybe God more important to him than he knows. We are not always conscious of what is important. Our liver is important, but we don’t give much thought to it unless there’s something wrong with it.