“It left this huge vacuum, and that vacuum had to be filled with something.”
That is what I don’t get. I can easily see being perfectly content in the vacuum, I know people who are total materialists; some of them are even Constitutional Conservatives who know the Federalist papers backwards and forwards and the Bible quite well, too.
I am never going to judge another’s faith or lack thereof unless or until it picks my pocket or requires/restrains my actions.
Some people are content in that spiritual vacuum. Maybe they’re the well-adjusted ones. Maybe they’re just empty shells. To each his own, and let whatever Judge there is be the final arbiter.