A profound point BB. So many hardcore materialists live in a perpetual state of suspension, never making a choice. All balls are in the air at all times. They therefore never take anything into their life, cherish and nourish it, and believe in it deeply. They may tell you they "believe in science" but a bunson burner is a poor substitute for a living God.
"Stone-dry atheists," Isaiah Berlin once wrote, "don't understand what men live by."
I gather that what they very much take to heart and into their life is the "stochastic" nature of our universe: Probability rules. Yet probability cannot become actuality without a choice.
At the same time, the materialist typically understands the universe as "causally determined." If the universe is causally determined, then what role is left to human choice? For there can be no free will in a causally-determined universe.
Still the fact is we all seem to be living in an "actual" -- not a hypothetical or theoretical -- universe.
Materialists seem self-determined to settle into an epistemological -- not to mention an ontological -- dead-end. Given the foregoing premises, this is hardly surprising.
If they must reconcile the unreconcilable in order to maintain a world view that, in addition to the daunting analytical challenges to rational understanding involved, also flies in the face of the way "unmanipulated" human beings actually live their lives, then no wonder they "believe in science," or even in far less noble things than science.
The point is, they've got to believe in something, human nature being what it is. If they can't believe in God -- or even in themselves -- then I guess they have to take advantage of whatever lesser opportunities for self-understanding and self-validation they can get.
Isaiah Berlin nails it. To repeat your cite: "Stone-dry atheists don't understand what men live by."
Thank you so very much for writing, beckett. Your last was too brief but glorious all the same.