The way,
although existing in everything,
controls nothing
and seems nonexistent.

Everything follows it
although none of us know how
so it must be something great.

Quality is known
by the lack of its demonstration.

Inexperience is a form of knowledge as is experience, like virginity and sex.
Virginity is what we think of as the natural human state from birth through childhood. Carnal knowledge is what we think of as the natural state of an adult. Children may not know what it is like to be virginal because they have nothing with which to compare it, but adolescents begin to know that there is something else, and virginal young adults definitely know that carnal knowledge is available but absent, for whatever reason, from their lives. In forms of Christianity virginity is considered to be a more perfect state than carnal knowledge -- why? It's been said that the consequences from the original "Fall" of humanity in the garden of Eden doomed humanity to the state of carnal knowledge. In the beginning, accordingly, carnal ignorance was bliss.

Atheism is an experience as real as blindness or virginity. It is not "simply" a lack of belief anymore than blindness is simply a lack of one particular sense or virginity is simply a lack of carnal knowledge. Natural atheism may be considered a privation for those who do experience deity, but this is more projection than reality.