I don't think it's a coincidence that Utah, the home of the highest percentage of Mormons, is the leading state in antidepressant use.

I don't doubt this at all. Half of my family (the Christian half) are on anti depressants. I would have thought this was blasphemous behaviour, but apparently not.

We can only roust those things out of people and their hearts with honesty amongst ourselves and other people. If you scatter light onto your pain, the pain is often diminished just by acknowledging its existence.

I think this is how I have tried to handle things in my life. Only because it seemed natural. It seemed right. Making no claims to perfection, and having no fear of those imperfections. In fact maybe even learning to embrace them.

and in order to grow there must be a kind of love. A love for life and for your fellow species.

I find when things are going well, and feeling right, I have a sense of appreciation for my place or my roll in the flow of life. I guess this is love, inward and outwardly expressed. More than that - it just is. I don't have to conjure up anything, or force anything. There is no looking over my shoulder to see if God, or psuedo-gods are watching me, judging me. The times when I use the word God (its like a semantic nightmare that keeps returning) I refer to this 'flow of life'. Whatever that is. But like you say, I see nothing in the Judeo-Christian God. Just blackness.