The atheist and theist(in most cases) are playing the same game, a game of ignorance, either way. The theist chooses a book to base their opinion on, in most cases, and concludes all of the answers lie there. The atheist simply chooses a dogma of skepticism, materialism, and other scientific tidbits to fashion the same assumptions. The only thing that has happened between these two is they shifted what data represents suitable evidence. Neither are interested in learning a thing! They are not really interested in what is there but rather that their selection criterion are correct.
Some people, when faced with such dilemmas, play the safety square and state boldly: "I'm agnostic!" However, this person falls into the same trap; presuming things are just unknowable or cannot be known. Again, this person wants to be right because they are pretty sure those other two are wrong but can't put a finger on the why.
Any sort of statement made on these matters without a direct experience of them is merely presumption. For example, we have cultures who communicate with gods directly and have done so for all of their recorded time -- we can assume they're idiots, or find parallels between them and other cultures and at least agree that "something" has been happening. This sort of proof, btw, is not considered valid to science even though they use it themselves to prove that psychology or sociology exist.
You're basically putting the cart before the horse -- you can't intellectually discern something which violates all of the conditions of your rationality. It doesn't make sense, and it never will. But, it doesn't have to.