How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Even a man who wants to believe, you sometimes note kidding his way to Jesus. (13.164)
This touches on the question of authenticity, which would become a major theme in existentialist philosophy. There's a difference between wanting to believe and believing. See, for example, Mulder and Scully. Those outfits make us want to believe.
Quote #8
Everyone tries to create a world he can live in, and what he can't use he often can't see. But the real world is already created, and if your fabrication doesn't correspond, then even if you feel noble and insist on their being something better than what people call reality, that better something needn't try to exceed what, in its actuality, since we know it so little, may be very surprising. If a happy state of things, surprising; if miserable or tragic, no worse than what we invent. (17.111)
From an atheist perspective, religion is a fabrication. Do you think Augie sees it this way? Augie has his own illusions—or hopes that he's willing to concede could be illusions. He might not believe strongly in God, but he believes in a better future. He talks and acts as though life owes him distinction and somehow and at sometime he will find it.