Atheists and Theists aren't that different, in that each has their own culture and arguments.
Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They use arguments such as “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science” to explain that evidence and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But just because you believe in evidence based, scientific research which is subject to strict checks and procedures doesn’t mean that your mind works in the same way.
Closer to the truth perhaps is when you ask atheists about why they became atheists, and find they often point to eureka moments when they came to realize that religion simply doesn’t make sense ... in their mind.
Atheists are no more rational than theists. Indeed, atheists are just as susceptible as the next person to “group-think” and other non-rational forms of cognition. For example, religious and nonreligious people alike can end up following charismatic individuals without questioning them.
Even atheist beliefs themselves have much less to do with rational inquiry than atheists often think. For example, nonreligious children of religious parents cast off their beliefs for reasons that have little to do with intellectual reasoning. Often the decisive factor is learning from what parents do rather than from what they say. So if a parent says that they’re Christian, but they’ve fallen out of the habit of doing the things they say should matter ... such as praying or going to church ... their kids simply don’t buy the idea that religion makes sense.
This is perfectly rational in a sense, but children aren’t processing this on a cognitive level. Throughout our evolutionary history, humans have often lacked the time to scrutinize and weigh up the evidence, needing rather to make quick assessments. That means that children to some extent just absorb the crucial information, which in this case is that religious belief doesn’t appear to matter in the way that parents are saying it does.
Even older children, adolescents and many adults who actually ponder the topic of religion may not be approaching it as independently as they think. Atheists (and others) make available and pass on their beliefs in a similar way to religious people ... through sharing their culture as much as their arguments.
Some parents take the view that their children should choose their beliefs for themselves, but what they then do is pass on certain ways of thinking about religion, like the idea that religion is a matter of choice rather than divine truth. It’s not surprising that almost all of these children end up “choosing” to be atheist.
So it is that perhaps the idea that being atheist is down to rationality alone may appear to look distinctly irrational. But the good news for all concerned is that rationality is overrated. Human ingenuity and perseverance rests on a lot more than rational thinking. The ability to make quick decisions, follow our passions and act on intuition are also important human qualities and crucial for our success. Abilities and qualities shared by Atheists and Theists alike.
It is helpful that we have invented something that, unlike our minds, is rational and evidence-based: science. When we need proper evidence, science can very often provide it ... as long as the topic is testable. Importantly, the evidence does not tend to support the view that atheism is about rational thought and theism is about existential fulfillment. The truth is that humans are not like science. None of us get by without irrational action, nor without sources of existential meaning and comfort. Fortunately, though, nobody has to.
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