They may contemplate as they wish but their minds can only take them so far.
They will remain closed to the possibility of true spirituality because ultimately they believe only in material things and they take themselves to be the real thing, and the Spirit to be more or less a dream.
Sure they may have some interesting experiences but often they turn away from these experiences and dismiss them as no more real than dreams.
If the belief in the heart is absent so to will It be absent. It is a game of hide and seek but you must have the belief in that which is being sought. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
Your argument is with materialism or rationalism, not atheism per se. Atheism is the rejection of theism. There are many varieties of theism but they're pretty well defined (by the theists themselves, even painstakingly so).
They will remain closed to the possibility of true spirituality because ultimately they believe only in material things and they take themselves to be the real thing, and the Spirit to be more or less a dream.
Sure they may have some interesting experiences but often they turn away from these experiences and dismiss them as no more real than dreams.
If the belief in the heart is absent so to will It be absent. It is a game of hide and seek but you must have the belief in that which is being sought. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
Intellect alone is not enough.