WHY G-D LOVES ATHEISM ~ Rabbi A. I Kook / The Pangs of Cleanings

The greatest impediment to the human spirit, on reaching maturity, results from the fact that the conception of G-d is crystallized among people in a particular form, going back to childish habit and imagination. This is an aspect of the offence of making an idol or a likeness of G-d, against which we must always beware, particularly in an epoch of greater intellectual enlightenment. …

Since the thoughts concerning G-d in their basic elements are unclear, G-d is conceived by the masses and even by individuals who should be their leaders, as a ruthless power from whom there is no escape and to whom one must necessarily be subservient.

No grandeur of G-d is then manifest in the soul, but only the lowliness of wild imaginings, that conjure up a form of some deceptive, vague, angry god that is dissociated from reality. It confuses everyone who believes in it, depresses his spirit, blunts his feelings, inhibits the assertion of his sensibilities, and uproots the divine glory in his soul.

If such a person should repeat all day that this faith is the faith in the unity of G-d, his statement would be empty, and it would register nothing in his soul.

Every sensitive spirit must turn his mind away from this. And this is the atheism which is due to arise prior to the messianic liberation, when the knowledge of G-d is due to run dry…