In light of my above comments, I would like to start a respectful conversation with anyone, but especially atheists, as to the benefits of ruling out with certainty the existence of a higher power or god. (I know not all atheists do this, but some do, as some heated debates on this board in the past have revealed....)
One can be an atheist, i.e. have nonbelief in the existence of a personal god, yet still find spirituality. Native American religions, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Wicca (which is not satanism) stress the direct experience of the divine, which is unexplainable in words and accessible only through experience.
Any words these spiritual philosophies use, such as God, Goddess, the Tao, the Void, are used to help the student to understand and eventually directly experience the life force, energy, power, whatever you want to call it, that flows through everything and is everything. Then words become unnessesary. It can't be experienced from someone else's account.
No one can rule out with certainty the existence of the Biblical God, just as no one can rule out with certaintly that aliens from other planets walk among us. For me, that makes the question of the existence or nonexistence of a personal God a semi-interesting subject that goes nowhere. Even if the nonexistence of God could be proven, I don't see any benefits resulting from it. People do not practice Christianity because it's logical. They practice it because it fufills their emotional needs.
Substance abusers for example can join AA or other 12 step programs. Who would argue, even if you are dead set against god and religion, that it is better to believe in a superstitious god then to continue with a deadly addiction?
AA and other 12-step programs do not require a belief in God, only in a higher power, which for atheists can be the Tao, the Zen concept of the void, or even the AA group itself. Anyone with an addiction and a desire to be free of it, whether or not they're religious, is welcome at the 12-step meetings.