the goal is an Untheistic society, not an Atheistic one—one in which the question “What’s left, when God is gone?” is greeted by a puzzled look and “What exactly is missing?”
People will still ask, why do things work the way they do? Why should I (and why do I?) have faith in various things? And it is human nature to give a name to this mystery. The God that theists believe in is a mystery, not an “entity”. (The “He” pronoun is just a convenient analogy, something that both theists and atheists misinterpret.)
In a science context: saying that the universe was created by God is basically saying, “the universe was created by Mystery”. So obviously the unatheist would be unsatisfied by that answer. But outside the science context, I believe that the unatheist wouldn’t protest for evidence—he would already understand that scientific empiricism is incomplete for understanding his world. He would be clamoring for answers that extend it—while he would rightly doubt whether anything can be said that is as reliably trustworthy in the same way as empiricial truths, he would still be curious about such things and will find that some meaningful things can be said by people who have thought deeply about them.
People will still ask, why do things work the way they do? Why should I (and why do I?) have faith in various things? And it is human nature to give a name to this mystery. The God that theists believe in is a mystery, not an “entity”. (The “He” pronoun is just a convenient analogy, something that both theists and atheists misinterpret.)
In a science context: saying that the universe was created by God is basically saying, “the universe was created by Mystery”. So obviously the unatheist would be unsatisfied by that answer. But outside the science context, I believe that the unatheist wouldn’t protest for evidence—he would already understand that scientific empiricism is incomplete for understanding his world. He would be clamoring for answers that extend it—while he would rightly doubt whether anything can be said that is as reliably trustworthy in the same way as empiricial truths, he would still be curious about such things and will find that some meaningful things can be said by people who have thought deeply about them.