I believe some atheists have taken the path of reason to the living God of the Bible but it requires an honest view of the reasoning and it would appear that most atheists have an a priori way of reasoning about God.
It seems that you are confusing terms. They're atheists because they are critical thinkers and empiricists. Knowledge come from properly understanding the implications of the evidence of the senses according to a prescribed set of rules of inference - the same ones used in academia, in a court of law, and in scientific peer review.
As for that being an a priori way of reasoning, it's a skill that needs to be learned to possess it. There's a passive and prelinguistic form of reasoning children and animals do based in experience and a set of preferences and aversions, and when children acquire language, they can articulate their experiential reasoning, like where to get a good cheeseburger.
But there is another way of thinking that as I said needs to be learned, one that allows one to evaluate arguments for soundness including arguments for gods. Once one does that, he understands that god beliefs can only be held by faith, and if the critical thinker is committed to avoiding accumulating false and unfalsifiable beliefs, he is by default an agnostic atheist.
the notion that atheists know more about the OT than than religious adherents who study it can still be accurately described as myth
Agreed, but also, the notion that the motivated (zealous) reader of scripture has extra insight into the meanings of those words is a falsehood. The skeptic need never defer to the self-proclaimed expertise of the believer when their opinions differ. Good examples include the interpretation of biblical myths and the fulfillment of prophecy. We each decide for ourselves what to make of all of that.
What do Atheist believe, which is higher than themselves?
That's a religious notion based in the psychology that a god exists that outranks them. This atheistic humanist doesn't think in such terms. There are things bigger and more powerful that I am, like the sun, but I don't think of it as my superior. I am an autonomous moral agent limited by the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology, but I also don't think of such things in terms of superiority, just magnitude and power
there is no "external reality" that can be accessed or assessed except through me: the subject of the term 'subjective reality'. Which is the antithesis of 'objective reality'. Such that the only reality any of us can ever access or assess is subjective.
The empiricist understands that. When he refers to objective knowledge, it is a relative term referring to that which can be known through the senses and understood by the reasoning faculty, that is, which qualities are reproducible in experience and which ideas allow one to reliably predicts outcomes. That's what mind can do, and that's what the empiricist is doing and calling knowledge.
you don't know what the universe is, or does. You just choose to believe you do. And you are doggedly determined to keep believing it, even though you can't actually know it to be so.
We can know how it appears and we can learn to use that knowledge profitably. The myth is that one need know more than that, that empiricism and knowledge gained through it is insufficient. It's not. The myth is that if one doesn't know everything, he knows nothing. The myth is that whatever goes on outside of consciousness is more important than how it is experienced by a subject.
objectivity is a sacred myth to the materialist, and why you fight so hard to maintain it as the truth
There's no fight or struggle there. Naturalism works. Empiricism works. It's the untethered thinker who lets his imagination tell him what is true that has to struggle to maintain his chosen beliefs if they contradict reality. Think of the creationists, the vaccine deniers, the election integrity deniers, and the climate deniers. That's who has to struggle to maintain an illusion of self-correctness, but not the empiricist.
Theism is an innate concept within the human experience.
Abrahamic monotheism is an outlier. Most religion has been earth-based, with gods being symbols for natural phenomena like the rain and suffering. Theism as most Westerners understand it is Christianity and related religions (Judaism and Islam), and that kind of mindset and worldview is not innate to humanity. It's also been destructive exporting the sacred from nature and investing it in a ghost that exists outside of nature, has no respect for nature, and issues commands and threats to mankind through spokespeople.
I think people believe what they want to believe, and no one can stop them, or make them.
People are born defenseless against indoctrination, and most never learn the method that prevents it. The church understands this, which is why it is so anxious to get to children before they can defend themselves from religious indoctrination, and why it promotes stagnation in the childlike mindset of magical thinking and accepting dogma uncritically. Look at the effort the church made to get prayer and creationism back into public schools. As Aristotle said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”
the vast majority of humans globally, and throughout history, have felt exactly that need.
And they are the worse off for having such a need. The one to envy is the one who is comfortable living outside of religions and is comfortable free of a god belief.
assuming that people pass on beliefs culturally that they don't need or want or agree with is what's weak-minded.
Assuming that most feel qualified to decide such things for themselves is the naivete. Most people acquire all of their information passively, whether through experience or indoctrination, by which I mean teaching dogma whether religious, political, or even advertising. They generally inherit their parents religions and other culture and cling to them for a lifetime, the exceptions being the ones who have access to a liberal education whether formal or through a wise grandparent.
they haven't the courage or wisdom to reject that cultural religious indoctrination as you superior atheists have.
Courage? Wisdom? They just haven't learned how to life outside of religion or without a god belief. As for atheism being superior, I consider it more desirable to be able to live without any of that than the alternative.
It's the atheist that is the modern-day anomaly, turning science into his new 'oracle' of truth. And therefor discarding the old god-deals that so many others still need, want, and employ.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Yes, the critical thinker and empiricist is a modern-day anomaly, a product of the Enlightenment, the others the product of the earlier traditions that preceded the rise of humanism. And this is what allows him to live without the gods others "need, want, and employ."
You seem contemptuous of all of this. Your language is tendentious and emotive. But why should you have any emotional response at all about what atheists believe or how they think? Atheism is not for you. I get it. But it seems that you also resent atheists for being atheists, as if their unbelief and reasons for it are a personal offense to you.
