Scenario: A huge volcano has erupted and lava is fast approaching. You see a hill you can run to and run up away from the lava. But you also see that the lava will quickly overflow the top of the hill. The last rescue helicopter has already left totally full of passengers. From radio communications you know that no one else is left to rescue you. Logically you know that you're going to die.

Do you bother to run up the hill away from the lava? Or since you see that the action is futile and will only prolong your life a minute or two, do you just stand there and let the lava kill you now?

Of course you take off up the hill. And it turns out the going is quite tough. It's muddy. You keep sliding and falling. You're getting out of breath. The going is really quite tough indeed. By the way, why exactly are you going up this hill anyway?

You realize you're hoping that another helicopter will appear and rescue you. In fact, running up this hill is so tough and you've wanted to stop so many times, that in order to continue running you've gone beyond hoping and into believing in the existence of this helicopter.

Whoa! That's illogical! That's ridiculous crap worthy only of derision.

So... how is running up the hill in the first place not illogical?

Such is life. This is the predicament we're all in. There is no logical action to be taken. The fact that we're going up that hill at all is illogical. It is the belief that the helicopter is coming. It is a futile action much like all of life which just has nonexistence waiting at the finish life. And if you do anything other than just stand there, no matter what you say, by what you do, you are showing quite clearly that you believe in the existence of that helicopter.

And so atheism is a contradiction.

It's maybe a very small point. And contradictory atheism certainly appears better than organized religion. Certainly the belief in the helicopter doesn't mean you have to be against evolution, intolerant of homosexuals, etc. And you certainly don't have to run up that hill chanting praises to the great helicopter god and persecuting anyone else running along whom you notice isn't singing.

But this contradiction of atheism. The problem is that in the attempt to know one's self. In the attempt to understand our own subconscious and unconscious, pretending that there is no contradiction in atheism really makes such knowledge impossible. It keeps us instead just floating on the top of our minds, ignoring what is in the depths.

Because so much of what actually makes us happy from day to day is tied into subconscious symbolizations which aren't logical.

But what would happen if these things are uncovered?

Would that not just destroy them?

Is it perhaps better to pretend they're not there in order to keep them there than it is to instead see them, and see how illogical they are and thus destroy them?

Maybe. Perhaps it's more that I just wish my fellow atheists would at least give a bit of respect to the nihilism which is inherent in atheism instead of pretending it's not there....

Why do they pretend it's not there?

I think because they feel locked in a battle with an adversary. Admitting the nihilism would be giving a point, a very big point, to the competition. And, unfortunately the competition, in attempting to combat nihilism is also doing incredible harm. They are against science. Which is a horrifying thing.

Is it actually possible to stand on the fence between the two?

The one trying to combat nihilism but turning earth into a dystopia along the way. The other simply turning a blind eye to their own subconscious, in other words kind of not truly being scientific. The one wants to believe a fantasy. The other wants to ignore crucial data...