Introduction

Most websites and articles that present the atheist view are philosophically based and rightly so.

While amongst the people that consider themselves religious only few base their position on clear philosophical reasoning and most of them rely on "belief" and "inner feelings", almost all people that adopt the atheist position do so out of logical and rational reasoning.

Therefore the tendency on the atheist websites and newsgroups is to stress the validity of the atheists' logical arguments. Once an argument is proven, the issue is then discarded and the theists' arguments become irrelevant.

This may work for the few professional philosophers amongst us. Unfortunately, most atheists I know, and especially "weak atheists" (people who dont foster belief in god, but do not positively negate his existence) are average people with no specific philosophical background. They come to the atheist conclusions on basis of their own logical reasoning.

Only too often have I seen atheists like this, who for quite a while proudly held on to their opinions, and were then swept back again into religious beliefs in times of stress or depression.

When asked, they would often come up with answers like: "I know that there is no proof of a God, but then why do I often get this awfully strong feeling inside, almost like knowing, that God is there" or: "Why do I find myself praying in spite of myself" or: "Religion seems to be such a strong drive throughout history and amongst nations -- it has to have something to it, in spite of what my common sense tells me".

On most atheist websites and newsgroups the issue of widespread religious feelings, both the personal private yearning as well as the cultures and history spanning phenomenon, are only superficially dealt with and (of course) philosophically done away with.

When I encounter people struggling with these feelings I realize that the simple, so very logical, arguments like the ones mentioned on those sites don't help - after all they already know them and accept them, but yet this feeling....

I have found that all questions mentioned above and similar ones that plague the minds of so many would-be or practicing weak atheists (come on - lets admit it!)can be quite easily answered by psychological rather than philosophical means, since the problem bothering these people is of psychological origin. Once aware of the psychological reasons behind their feelings, many of these people are soon capable of returning to unchallenged atheist positions.

The explanation, based on psycho-analytic research, is called the "Embryonic and Parental Shell Theory".

Let's turn to the next page that will describe the theory in detail!