Finding meaning and value, in the connections that form between us and all that we consider to be real.
As a metaphor, we could listen to this moment in the movie, as:
Neo being a de-converted atheist.
The Frenchman, in the metaphor, would be dominant cultural mechanisms.
That's the means by which ideas in the secular and religious world are able to enter each other's domains.
It also accounts for migration of minds, between paradigms.
From the outside looking in, ...
The artificial religious system, its narrative, and many of its characters are not real; although many of the players are real in the same sense that you and I are real.
From the inside, it's all regarded as real.
But it's the sense of connection, and the emotional investments they have in those connections, which are given the greatest value.
Theists would do anything to protect their emotionally-valued connections; especially those they define themselves in "relation" to;
such as a sense of relationship with a mysterious, larger-than-life parental figure, or a relationship they have with their daughter.
The family of believers (minds; programmed within the matrix; thus they virtually exist within it) are trying to find a loophole in their religious system, or a migration to a somewhat different system, to allow their daughter to be spared from the threat of destruction.
The architect of their matrix (himself actually being an artificial construct, created by long-dead humans)
normally schedules everyone for deletion if they don't have a functional purpose which serves his own.
To elevate their fears, they may need to move her mind into a different perceptual paradigm; such that her mind will exist and function outside the confines and rules of their established system.
Neo is confused when semi-autonomous intelligences claim to "love" someone who doesn't exist outside the context of the Matrix.
Rather than trying to haggle for an agreed meaning for the term "love", Rama reminds Neo that words don't have an intrinsic meaning, but rather get their meaning from the way we connect ourselves to concepts and entities;
how we relate
and
how much we value those relationships.
--
As for the term "atheist", for me at least:
it's not relevant, and thus not valuable, in terms of how I relate to the great mysteries, nor the "known" facets of existence.
In that context, it's comparable to my not believing in leprechauns.
But in terms of how I relate to the Matrix of Abrahamic religions (for example), it matters to me, in most conversations I have about it; because:
Then it's a way of saying "I exist outside of that system".
That's the relative position from which I speak.
I don’t need that word. I can convey all meanings without it.
But if I were to employ that word in that context, it would be meaningful in ways that it’s not meaningful in other contexts.
Clarifying my relative position, when speaking with someone still mentally confined to a religious matrix, matters because:
I value the connection and potential-connections I have with other humans.
I've noticed that religious systems create artificial walls; limiting mutual connection, mutual understanding, and mutual benefit between us.
Thus, while I wail against those walls, it's not me attacking them. I'm attacking the walls that stand between us.
If I do not identify myself to them as being 'outside of that system', then they won't see what the problem is.
However, the way the Institutionalized depend on their prison (which they see as "protection") ... renders all such efforts moot.
They will still feel threatened by the effort.
They must first want to be liberated from that system of control.
Until then, logical arguments about that system ...
will not prove effective.
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