This passage from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables struck me, and I thought it worth sharing:
There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, classified as pathologic, that denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
To set up a theory that lacks a source of truth is an excellent example of blind assurance.
And the odd part of it is the haughty air of superiority and compassion assumed toward the philosophy that sees God, by this philosophy that has to grope its way. It makes one think of a mole exclaiming, “How I pity them with the sun!” (from Book Seven, chapter VI).
As far as I can tell Hugo was no orthodox Christian. Yet he nailed it with this description of the atheistic worldview: to deny the existence of God is spiritual blindness, to dogmatically assert a truth with no foundation to stand upon is blind assurance, and to feel sorry for those who believe in God is truly ironic.
Scott's Thoughts 