Cristianos

Here there are the Católicos and the Cristianos, the latter being of course evangelical Protestants. I've encountered many, and many more who say they are getting there - between faiths, not part of any religion, simply believing in God - still Catholic because they were baptized that way but soon that too will change.
I've seen as many Cristiano churches as Catholic ones: there are the Baptists, 7th-Day Adventists, the 'Biblical Christians', the Methodists, I assume but haven't seen Pentecostals. This makes sense of course. Evangelicals are fragmented, their churches smaller - there is no protestant equivalent to the cathedral, or the other great church. Greater number of churches does not entail greater number of worshippers.
Still, though, I feel smothered here. Expecting to find a Catholic country, I found a more religiously American one than my part of the one I left. It's very unsettling; and I can't help but feel that even here, even in Latin America of all places, the Church is on the verge of disappearing.

I wonder how much of that has to do with the name. In English or French we would never let Protestants accaparate the title of Christians. Is that because Europe has always had to accomodate different sects and recognize them as Christendom together, against the Infidels? Simply because of a more educated population? Of a long tradition of Protestantism?
Here, though, Catholics are not Christians. Even some Catholics talk about Cristianos as being more true to the original intent.

No creo en Dios.

My atheism has come up a surprisingly large number of times. I've been asked by three people on the floor, and each time greeted by a general shock. What do you mean you don't believe in God? What do you believe in then? When you have a problem that men can't solve, who do you ask for help?

I try to explain. I try to say that it might be a comfort but it's certainly a dangerous one. I try to say that I refuse to believe in universal guilt, especially if it comes from an act comitted before the guilty party knew it could be wrong, knew there was such a thing as wrong. That whatever the aims the biblical story strikes me as rather cruel, unable to explain away the misery of the world.
It's really hard to say this in a language I don't speak very well, to a group of people convinced of the rightness of their joint position. It's harder to hear them condescendingly say it's not her fault, it's her culture, if people there don't have faith...

But the hardest thing to bear is to hear my own condescencion. Hear myself thinking that I'm sure I've thought more about my atheism than they about their faith. I've read some Augustine, as well as some Camus and Diderot and other atheist thinkers. Have you? I should not look down on people. Instead I should consider whether atheism might be a luxury of the lucky.