Hmmmm..... Makes you wonder. According to the CIA fact book, China is officially atheist. Japan is largely atheist(Budhists>70%), so is Russia, North & South Korea. If you add the more than 30% atheist population in the Western world, one would say that close to 1/3 of the people on Earth are atheist.

Another has argued on this thread that those who find god are happier than non-believers. For a country that is rabidly religious such as Kenya (or Nigeria) I'd hardly describe the general populace as a happy lot. Not least when compared to the Chinese. If you juxtapose the two African countries with Japan, no prizes for guessing where you'd find the greater fool.

I'm lost @tycho

A good place to start is by considering @mv_ufanisi's point that most of us have highly simplistic definitions of God. When one declares himself to be a believer using such simplistic definitions how can he be different from the atheist who is reacting to these definitions? Clearly, in this case both are backing the wrong horse, and are oblivious of the right one.

A second point to consider is the common thread that atheistic mysticism has with theistic mysticism. The Eastern mystical systems are a good place to start. Within what we may call 'Hinduism' we find atheistic belief sharing common ground with theistic belief. The mystical nature of Buddhism is the same as that of Sufi, it's the same as Christian mysticism. Only symbols and rituals differ. Yet Buddhism or Confucianism aren't necessarily theistic. For example, in Zen the monk is told to kick the Buddha if he meets him on the way.

Thirdly, in the history of Western thought many thinkers have been labeled atheists even when they have considered themselves to be theist. Like Schleirmacher. Others like Camus, or Nietzsche have been considered atheists at some point yet the more we study and think about their works the more we realize their commitment to love, and power, aspects we may consider theistic.

Fourthly: My favorite atheists have been Carl Sagan, and one Eustace Chesser. Both have shown that they aren't immune from seeking a cosmic connection between Man and the universe, and love without fear. Both positions are the stuff of all mysticism. Matters to do with God. Work at the scientific labs across the world are moving humans to a deeper kind of mysticism. From neuroscience to particle physics, even to artificial intelligence we are seeing such common ground between religious mysticism and science.

It seems some of us haven't studied Russian history. But here's something interesting born of these times http://english.pravda.ru...014/128293-mark_beast-0/