Why Atheism is Impossible to Hold?

There is no need to evade a critical engagement with atheism. It need not be tabooed as if it were an insurmountable intellectual fortress or an unstoppable force.

- Mugees Ul Kaisar

Many atheists tend to align with a particular strain of popular religious thought, which, by and large, lacks a proper recognition of the theological, philosophical, and mystical dimensions within the religious traditions.

This is observable in the works of prominent atheists of our time, particularly in the literature of the "New Atheist" movement, which often falls short of seriously engaging with the theo-philosophical themes within religious traditions.

Such a reception of religious thought, for example, reads God in extremely narrow terms. In the same light, religious rituals are (reductively) perceived as mindless, senseless, repetitive mechanical exercises.

In truth, atheism as an intellectual position is not possible to hold. Once we (re)define God in terms of Zahir wal Batin (that is, the apparent and the hidden), atheism becomes redundant.

A simple but critical point to register is that there are two aspects to reality, and both are undeniable.

One is the "apparent" part, the present reality in which we all participate, that which is available and accessible, that is, the zahir, which no theist or atheist can deny.

Everyone lives in this "given" reality, which is not disputed. Irrespective of the nature of this "given" reality, the fact is that there is something which is (given), and we find ourselves in it. This element of tively refers to as God? The answer is no.

That would be an incomplete picture. Atheists (like theists) accept that there is this present, apparent reality. This present existence is accessible to us.

What, then, is the additional aspect that religion proposes? What is it that the atheist supposedly misses? What is it that differentiates a so-called believer from an atheist?