Atheism versus Skepticism

It's often held that skepticism leads to atheism. But it can easily lead to religious faith. After all, if you reject reason and logic--which is what hardcore skepticism is all about--faith may appear as the only alternative if one wants to get through life. (Nihilism is an alternative, but many people have no stomach for it.) So radical doubt is by no means the path to follow. Doubt is a poor principle to live by. Doubt, properly conceived, is contextual; one should have a good reason to doubt. In fact, to reasonably doubt one proposition, you necessarily express confidence in other propositions. As has been said, you have to stand somewhere. You may try to reject reason, but you can't escape it, no matter how hard you try.

Skepticism and religious faith (at least by one of its several definitions) both constitute the rejection of reason, so they have much in common. In fact, there is no atheist cause (in the sense of struggle), but there is a rationalist cause. Atheism, far from being a primary, is a mere byproduct, a derivative, of the commitment to reason. That reason and logic are self-validating is a feature not a bug, contrary to some celebrated skeptical atheist celebrities.

You can reject theism because you doubt the case is logically sound, or you can reject it because you doubt human beings can know anything. The latter route is surely a dead end.