If you did not find the words of Buddha sufficient challenge to Mills lets draw on another eastern philosopher.

"Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them."
― Confucius

The distinction between the deeply religious man and the ardent atheist is not that of man versus pig or Socrates versus fool. The true distinction is that of habit, tradition, and faith.

The religious man accepts a tradition of values and morals that has been the foundation of human existence for centuries. The atheist rejects these traditions. Since these habits and traditions are on whole healthy one would expect to see detrimental effects in atheists (as we do) when they select replacement habits inferior to those that have survived millennia of competitive selection. The choice of religion leads to happiness not because it is selfish but because it is healthy.

If it is possible for 'reason' to develop a new system of habits and traditions that actually work such a system would be its own cause.  It's own system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. If it had merit it would not require the destruction or suppression of tradition but establish its own tradition welcoming those who voluntary wished to join. If it had merit its practitioners would be more happy and healthy not less.

I don't agree that atheists reject these traditions, their rejection is superficial, they merely reject the explicit belief in a deity, but keep most of other traditional beliefs intact, it is the same with habits, they reject the explicit material habits of religious practice, but keep the ideal habits of values and thought patterns. Only when this rejection becomes deeper can reason (where knowledge replaces faith, not becomes another object for faith) begin to form its own habits and practices. To keep the world in darkness just to make people eat healthy seems absurd.

Imagine for a moment that this is not an abstract philosophical question but a walk down a twisting and branching alleyway. First there is a single way with no choice but soon we come across a fork and from the single path we find two. To the right there is carefully laid cobblestone engraved with the words of theism. To the left there is newly pressed brick and a crisp printed sign labeled atheism.

As we walk down these paths we find the walls of our alleyway glowing with living and undulating writings. These are runic words and assumptions indeed the core of each choice. As we accept them they detach themselves from alley walls gently merging with and setting over us forming a fine film over our skin, eyes and ears. Their function is that of a filter interpreting and cataloging the world around us.

If we choose the brick road we soon come across a second fork. Here we see a dark and shadowy opening into nihilism and a large and particularly well worn path into hedonism. Small branches into esoteric philosophies can also be found. The road of hedonism leads to a smaller opening into ethical hedonism and finally a tiny path into utilitarianism. Here the road ends and we find ourselves facing a brick wall covered with the words and beliefs of the choice we have made. This is were my own journey took me the blind alley where I spent 15 years thinking I had arrived at end of the road.

Does rejecting atheism on purely utilitarian grounds bother me? On the contrary it is the purest, cleanest, and most liberating rejection of atheism, ethical hedonism and utilitarianism that I can possibly imagine. It is the final realization that the complex writings on the brick wall translate into a single sentence. "Wrong way turn around!"

The arguments in this thread should not be thought of as strong theist arguments. Indeed a true and strong believer will likely find them all a little off and a little odd like a TV whose tuning is sort of correct but just a bit wrong throwing static into the picture. They would correctly argue that it is through faith not through happiness that creates a true belief in God.

The words of faith, however, cannot reach those far along the brick road. They are blocked or interpreted as nonsensical by the filter of assumptions those on this road have adopted. To grasp these deeper arguments one must first turn around travel back to the original fork in the road. Only then as the assumptions of atheism peel away is possible to hear and truly consider the deeper arguments of faith.

The arguments herein will not prove convincing to all atheist as the filter each atheist had adopted is different. My sense of self preservation kept me far away from the shadowy road of nihilism but there are branches there that teach that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. That life is insignificant without purpose and that even continued existence is meaningless. For those that have fully accepted this belief it is possible that even utilitarian arguments of health and happiness will be filtered out as nonsensical.

My argument is that atheism is false. As for what is true I cannot help you for I have only taken a few steps down the cobblestone road and do not yet know where it will take me.

Could nihilism be true? (in principle)
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If nihilism was true - if there was no meaning in anything - then we could never know it to be true because we could never know anything.

Any evidence that nihilism was true, would refute nihilism - because if there is no meaning in reality then there can be no evidence.

What is peculiar is that people behave (and speak) as if there could be evidence in favour of nihilism - for example that the 1914-18 war or the Nazi Holocaust revealed that life was meaningless or whatever - but this is non-sense for the reasons above.

If there really was no meaning in existence - if it really was all random, contingent, purposeless - then we could never know this. We might suspect it, we might even believe it - but we could never know it and could never point to anything at all as evidence in favour of it.

Even one single piece of knowledge or evidence about anything at all would refute the idea that the universe had no meaning.

How, then, could so many people come to believe that the universe was meaningless and also to believe that they had strong grounds for believing that the universe was meaningless?

How could they believe this?

Yet this is the mainstream contention in the modern West.
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...Atheists often reject the idea of a deity but keep many of their prior traditions, habits and values intact. This is mostly a matter of self preservation for the farther one travels from those traditions the greater the potential for self harm.

Existential nihilism does not imply epistemological or moral relativism, nor does ontological contingency imply everything is random. Sure, there is no piece of empirical knowledge that would say anything about whether or not the universe has meaning, there is however empirical knowledge of true congingency at the quantum level and a priori knowledge against the universe having a meaning. And nihilism is far from being mainstream in any form.

Quantum Mechanics is not simply a mechanism for guessing things. It offers us a deep insight that the world is not as it appears to our senses. It is quantum mechanics that leads us to the conclusion that we may actually be living in a Holographic Universe. The idea the the the world around us indeed the entire universe is simply the projection of a deeper reality.  

In his essay The Universe Anonymint draws our attention to the the holographic principle. Specifically the fascinating notion that when you combine the the holographic principle with the thermodynamic quantities of heat and mechanical work it is relatively straightforward to derive Newton’s classical equation of gravity.

These ideas are difficult to grasp and at this stage they remain theoretical physics. However, there are a growing number of scientist who are taking them very seriously.

Below is a simple but nice introductory video on the topic... I recommend it to anyone who has difficulty accepting the possibility of a deeper fundamental truth and reality.  
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMBt_yfGKpU
(part I only)

The only religitards that might get pissed off from what I say are Muslims and atheists. You sound like you are playing, with a touch of irritation underneath.

 

Arguments at the quantum level can just as easily (I would argue more easily) be used to argue for theism as I have done upthread.

Quantum Mechanics is not simply a mechanism for guessing things. It offers us a deep insight that the world is not as it appears to our senses. It is quantum mechanics that leads us to the conclusion that we may actually be living in a Holographic Universe. The idea the the the world around us indeed the entire universe is simply the projection of a deeper reality. 

In his essay The Universe Anonymint draws our attention to the the holographic principle. Specifically the fascinating notion that when you combine the the holographic principle with the thermodynamic quantities of heat and mechanical work it is relatively straightforward to derive Newton’s classical equation of gravity.

These ideas are difficult to grasp and at this stage they remain theoretical physics. However, there are a growing number of scientist who are taking them very seriously.

I have argued against atheism on three axes.

1) Metaphysically because the choice (in isolation) voids the existing moral structure rendering the decision itself morally incoherent.

2) Biologically because a sound moral structure is necessary for a healthy life and rejecting traditional structures appears to reduce health, happiness, and fertility.

3) Anthropologically because religion is a critical and perhaps primary mechanism for overcoming our species-specific upper limit to group size which is set by purely cognitive constraints.

While I would concede that nihilism is internally metaphysically coherent in that it is impossible to prove nihilism is false. It is likewise impossible to prove theism is false.  My criticisms of atheism, however, do extend to nihilism.

You argued above that nihilism allows one to form a positive doctrine for re-evaluate of ones values and that the end of tradition that produces the possibility of new things to come. However, there is no reason to think the goals of progress and improving our value system and cannot be achieved from a framework of theism. With this in mind why choose a philosophical belief that is potentially unhealthy and detrimental to the progress we have made so far?

this is a question of apriori not empirical facts....
Metaphysics is ontology and epistemology, not morality. Biology has nothing to do with truth.
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I think they (progress) will be achieved from a framework of theism, but in a slow way, that will leave behind piece by piece the spiritualism from theism, until it is reduced to the pure belief of transcendent perfection without content. That kind of theism would be compatible with nihilism and the two could coexists as mutually agnostic. The problem is that traditional theism brings spiritualism, and that spiritualism is just a more primitive type of thought, and that its bad when applied to knowledge, or morality. For example its hard to understand and artificially reconstruct the mind, if people think its an eternal substance completely separate from matter. Basically, I don't really care what anyone believes, as long as it doesn't determine knowledge, but because spiritualism practically always does, I'm against it.