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Your analogy fails because it is not necessary to believe in god for spiritual enlightenment.
Well I see this topic goes over like a lead balloon on this site which is to be expected. I was hoping for one with a bit more curiousity but it doesn't seem so yet but who knows.
If we are in Plato's cave psychologically what is the sense sense is believing in anything? The solution is not in belief but in acquiring an impartial mind that neither believes or denies but remains open.
"To believe in God is not a decision we can make. All we can do is decide not to give our love to false gods. In the first place, we can decide not to believe that the future contains for us an all-sufficient good. The future is made of the same stuff as the present....
The unification of religion and atheism isn't through belief but rather through conscious impartial attention within which imagination is no longer dominant. It is imagination that attaches us to false gods including the secular gods such as money at the expense of a higher more human perspective.
Plato suggests that the path to wisdom is in the practice of "Know Thyself." Once one begins efforts at self knowledge we see how far we are from it. Socrates experienced this which is why the Oracle said he had wisdom. Socrates came to experience that he knew nothing.
The topic went over like a lead balloon because the point of all of this is not being expressed very well. First start off by explaining exactly what you mean by the unification of religion and atheism.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
