It is interesting that devout/militant atheists, like I once was, seem to have no doubts about their philosophical commitment and worldview. Just ask the Illuminati of the “new atheist” movement (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al) — or our good UD friend Nick Matzke — and they will tell you that there is absolutely no question that materialistic processes can explain everything.
Most of the Christians I know express doubts, and struggle with difficult questions, as I do, always have, and always will.
I therefore put myself in the camp of legitimate skeptics, as a former mindless Dawkins clone with a bunch of Hitchens, Harris and Matzke thrown in for good measure.
It was in no small measure that ID theory brought me out of the intellectual stupor of materialistic philosophy, just as it did for Antony Flew, perhaps the most influential intellectual atheist of his generation, shortly before his death.
The really interesting thing is that my liberation from the Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris-Matzke nihilistic stupor in which I lived and suffered for so many years was to a great extent the result of my interest in science, mathematics, and engineering.
Since becoming a Christian in 1994 I’ve discovered an incredible world of intellectual, philosophical, and scientific profundity that I had no idea even existed when I was an atheist.
Atheism and materialism closed my mind to possibilities, questions, and evidence that I would have investigated much earlier had I not been infected with this pernicious philosophy.