Asimov was an atheist. He preferred the term 'humanist' with much of his life involved to that end. One of the many notable cosigners of “an expression of a living and growing faith” called the Humanist Manifesto II, Asimov spent the last seven years of his life as the president of the American Humanist Association. Leon Wieseltier helps layout the ground of humanism in his 2015 essay “Among the Disrupted”:

For a start, humanism is not the antithesis of religion, as Pope Francis is exquisitely demonstrating. The most common understanding of humanism is that it denotes a pedagogy and a worldview. The pedagogy consists in the traditional Western curriculum of literary and philosophical classics, beginning in Greek and Roman antiquity and — after an unfortunate banishment of medieval culture from any pertinence to our own — erupting in the rediscovery of that antiquity in Europe in the early modern centuries, and in the ideals of personal cultivation by means of textual study and aesthetic experience that it bequeathed, or that were developed under its inspiration, in the “enlightened” 18th and 19th centuries, and eventually culminated in programs of education in the humanities in modern universities. The worldview takes many forms: a philosophical claim about the centrality of humankind to the universe, and about the irreducibility of the human difference to any aspect of our animality; a methodological claim about the most illuminating way to explain history and human affairs, and about the essential inability of the natural sciences to offer a satisfactory explanation; a moral claim about the priority, and the universal nature, of certain values, not least tolerance and compassion. It is all a little inchoate — ­human, humane, humanities, humanism, humanitarianism; but there is nothing shameful or demeaning about any of it.

Asimov’s humanism was "the antithesis of religion" and deserves the sneer quotes - ‘secular’. Asimov has many nuggets to quote in this regard. The following elegantly encapsulate his mature opinions:

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.    - Free Inquiry, Spring 1982

On religious life:

I would not be satisfied to have my kids choose to be religious without trying to argue them out of it, just as I would not be satisfied to have them decide to smoke regularly or engage in any other practice I consider detrimental to mind or body.    -Brummond

On the Bible:

If you suspect that my interest in the Bible is going to inspire me with sudden enthusiasm for Judaism and make me a convert of mountain‐moving fervor and that I shall suddenly grow long earlocks and learn Hebrew and go about denouncing the heathen — you little know the effect of the Bible on me. Properly read, it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.   -Jeppson 2006, p. 58

On Heaven:

What human being with a modicum of intelligence could stand any of such Heavens, or the other that people have invented, for very long? Where is there a Heaven with an opportunity for reading, for writing, for exploring, for interesting conversation, for scientific investigation? I never heard of one.    - Asimov 1994, p. 333

While these quotes more than suggest his prejudices, Asimov’s widely acclaimed short story “Nightfall” shows that he is not so transfixed on atheism as to be incapable of a criticism of its pillars, namely modern science and humanism. Four groups of characters emerge in this story: The Scientists are testing hypotheses with evidence or at least making reasonable speculations. They feel their slow deliberate progress towards knowledge is far superior to the Cultists in both methods and results. The Cultists represent an Abrahamic like religion whose sources are all couched in the language and practice of mysticism. By the end of the story, the Cultists are shown to be technically correct about nearly everything, much to the dismay of the underestimating Scientists.

Isaac Asimov - "Nightfall" (1941) - uni.edu

A third character, Theremon 762 is a self-confident and critical newspaper reporter who regards both the Scientists and Cultists as cranks and expects both groups to be embarrassed by the failure of their predictions. His motivation is to make personal gain by siding with the Scientists to improve their situation after their embarrassment. The last group is the hoi polloi, who merely react to the events and instigation of the other three character groups.

To say the cultists ‘win’ in this story would be incorrect as the story ends with the group’s ultimate belief unsupported. Actually, the cultists are dealt with in a very one dimensional way. Even though the Scientists are shown to be both arrogant and wrong in fundamental ways, Latimer - the only cultist character in the story with a speaking part - contrasts himself as a fideist Bible thumper. When asked to justify his belief, he responds with an emphatic “I know!” instead of citing the rather substantial body of attending evidence and his own experience.

The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov - hermiene.net 

This pitiful response from Latimer highlights one of the weaknesses of Asimov’s view of religion, albeit a weakness supported by millions of fideist Bible thumpers! The hypothesis testing of science and the facts attending the experience of God are both forms of induction. Induction is the gaining of general knowledge from particular instances. In short, determining causes from effects - also known as science.

However, as the English empiricist philosopher David Hume famously showed, effects do not logically (ie. a priori) lead us to causes or vice-a-versa:

When I see, for instance, a Billiard-ball moving in a straight line towards another; even suppose motion in the second ball should by accident be suggested to me, as the result of their contact or impulse; may I not conceive, that a hundred different events might as well follow from that cause? May not both these balls remain at absolute rest? May not the first ball return in a straight line, or leap off from the second in any line or direction? All these suppositions are consistent and conceivable. Why then should we give the preference to one, which is no more consistent or conceivable than the rest? All our reasonings a priori will never be able to show us any foundation for this preference.    - Hume, 1777, p 28

There is no law of logical deduction connecting cause and effect. It is only out of habit or a construction from outside principles that causes are matched to effects. Our typical habit is built upon inventing causes or perceiving patterns after observing some repetition of effects. We then invent falsifying or affirming tests for our hypotheses and establish knowledge upon the results of our tests. With continued repetition of this habit, that may seem well and good - we might even establish a "law of nature" - but if all our observations have produced white swans, how do we know the very next observation won’t produce a black swan.

Since induction is dealing in probabilities, induction can never absolutely prove itself, which leads to the statistician's mantra, “correlation does not imply causation.” ‘Proof’ is for alcohol and ideal axiomatic systems, not science. All of us must take with a measure of faith that the sun will rise again or, as in Asimov’s Nightfall, that a sun will remain risen.

The Hebrew concept of Logos doesn’t come from Greece or Egypt but from Mesopotamia, ultimately through the early Sumerians - the oldest civilization with the oldest known writing and literature. The Sumerians were polytheistic during their written history, but the lineage of all their gods trace back to the God of heaven An. An (literally ‘heaven’, 'sky' or 'above') was the 'father' of Enlil (literally ‘Lord Wind’ or ‘Lord Spirit’) and Enki ('Lord of Place'? Possibly 'Lord Benevolence'). Together they are the triad of gods who created heaven and earth. Their equivalent conception to the Logos is called me. A me was an ordinance or specification of existence uttered or written by the Sumerian triad of creator gods to create, define and sustain all that is. Used as either a noun or a verb, me is also the common Sumerian word for existence and being - "to be." Unlike our modern words for existence and being, me is not at all religiously neutral as it is always referring back to the speaker which is ultimately one of or a confluence of the triad. The me word-concept is found with the very earliest writing and is even one of the easier logograms to write - 𒈨. 

Even though theirs is a polytheistic theology - me was extended to four other gods during and after creation to make the Seven Gods who Decree - the means by which the triad creates through me is not what we would expect as the "normal" polytheistic way. The normal assumption is that each god represents an etiology - a cause or explanation of some specific phenomena in the universe. People who study ancient religion can therefore routinely talk about a god being a personification of some phenomena such as Adad the storm god, Bacchus the god of wine (and the effects of wine), or Thoth the god of writing and magic. The birth or creation of a god creates a mythology that completely accounts for the phenomena. Some of these types of god eventually take on composite etiologies, often by merging with or replacing other gods in the pantheon. The ultimate example of this is Marduk the city god of Babylon, a barely known minor god in the 3rd millennium BC who largely replaces Enlil and several other Mesopotamian gods by the 1st millennium BC in the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish.

With the Sumerian theology, all was created through me, including the gods themselves. The gods were then delegated to govern specific parts of creation tangentially related to their created attributes by Enki (eg. Enki and the World Order). This is not our normal conception of polytheism. In fact, it is redundant - the me and the gods serve the same etiological purpose. This is demonstrated most powerfully in the Sumerian text Enki and Ninmah (ETCSL 1.1.2, lines 44-51) where Enki is praised as an embodiment of the me of destinies.

All the senior gods praised him: "O lord of wide understanding, who is as wise as you? Enki, the great lord, who can equal your actions? Like a corporeal father, you are the one who has the me of deciding destinies, in fact you are the me."

The wisdom of Enki in this text is precisely the ability to create purpose and place in all the futures of gods and men. Therefore, who needs the gods? If the lesser gods had any power at all, it was granted power - destined power. One could eliminate all the gods besides the creating triad and still have a finely functioning theology. The triad would be a trinity and an otherwise Abrahamic theology would be produced in all essentials. This is about what happened - the administration of Abraham denied the efficacy of idols which is the same as denying the authority or existence of the lesser gods. With this it can be seen that the early Sumerian conception and worship of the lesser gods is not fundamentally different than the angel and saint veneration of Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

The embodiment of me, Enki was not merely a Sumerian god. He was known across Mesopotamia and the Levant as Ea which in the Sumerian/Akkadian script literally means "water house." There are several variations on this name such as Hayah and Ia that all call attention to fresh water - living water - that comes up from the ground. The control and source of fresh water and the plant and animal life that it makes possible is the other great association of Enki/Ea so much so that the cuneiform symbol for water and semen 𒀀 was often used to represent the me concept. Incidently

In Old Hebrew this is true as well

Sumerian Enki and Semitic Ea can not be seen as denoting a divine concept from a certain exclusive area or linguistic group. Rather they are concepts in continuous development and change and the main core of their nature is represented in some way or another in every religion of wider Near East and bordering regions.     - Espak 2006, pg. 38

Monolithic attributes of Enki/Ea 

to be, me turned to water.

The Hebrew conception of the divine word follows the Sumerian pattern. 

In Proverbs chapter 8, wisdom and folly are personified, with the “Wisdom of God” matching closely to both the spoken ordinances of creation and the Heraclitean Logos. The text emphasizes the Wisdom of God is prior to all creation in both order and time. Later this Wisdom will be encapsulated as the phrase “the firstborn over all creation” (eg. Col. 1:15), but one can easily see how the more secular term “ground of all being” fits just as well.

The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way. 

Before His works of old. 

From everlasting I was established, 

From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. 

When there were no depths I was brought forth, 

When there were no springs abounding with water. 

Before the mountains were settled, 

Before the hills I was brought forth; 

While He had not yet made the earth and the fields, 

Nor the first dust of the world. 

When He established the heavens, I was there, 

When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, 

When He made firm the skies above,

When the springs of the deep became fixed, 

When He set for the sea its boundary 

So that the water would not transgress His command, 

When He marked out the foundations of the earth; 

Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;

And I was daily His delight, 

Rejoicing always before Him, 

Rejoicing in the world, His earth, 

And having my delight in the sons of men.    - Proverbs 8:22-31 (NASB)

Other Hebrew writings not in the canon of the Bible - known as the apocrypha - also emphasize the Logos with the Wisdom of God such as the Wisdom of Solomon written around 100 BC:

O God of my fathers and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things by thy word, and by thy wisdom hast formed man, to have dominion over the creatures thou hast made, and rule the world in holiness and righteousness, and pronounce judgment in uprightness of soul, give me the wisdom that sits by thy throne, and do not reject me from among thy servants.    - 9:1-4 RSV

Also, the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach written around 175-164 BC:

Wisdom was created before all things, and prudent understanding from eternity. The root of wisdom -- to whom has it been revealed? Her clever devices -- who knows them? There is One who is wise, greatly to be feared, sitting upon his throne. The Lord himself created wisdom; he saw her and apportioned her, he poured her out upon all his works. She dwells with all flesh according to his gift, and he supplied her to those who love him.    - 1:4-8 RSV

The usual personification of the Logos is the Angel of the LORD (ie. Yahweh), as distinct from other angels (ie. messengers). He often shows up in visions receiving reports, planning or in command of workers. Zechariah chapters 1 and 2 for instance has all of these elements. 

The phrase announcing prophecy is an example of God’s command, “The word of the LORD came to . . .”, where ‘the word’ is typically a translation of dabar, which, when translated into Greek, naturally becomes logos.

LORD of Hosts

Targums

MEMRA (= "Ma'amar" or "Dibbur," "Logos") by Kaufmann Kohler - jewishencyclopedia.com 

 The Targums and the Memra/Word of the Lord by Stone Crier - youtube.com

The Letter Mem - hebrew4christians.com

A contemporary of Jesus, the Alexandrian Jew Philo attempted to mix in the Greek philosophers :   

Philo's conception of the Logos, therefore, is: the sum-total and free exercise of the divine energies; so that God, so far as he reveals himself, is called Logos; while the Logos, so far as he reveals God, is called God.    - Vincent 1887, pp. 25-33

For those who lack all this background of the Logos outside of Greek thought, it seems fairly radical when the New Testament declares Jesus the Christ (ie. the Anointed) as the Logos incarnate, especially the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel.

In [the] beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and God was the Logos. All things through him became, and without him became not one thing which has become. In him life was, and the life was the light of men; and the light in the darkness shines, and the darkness it not overtook.   

- word-for-word translation after Marshall, 1980

With the extensive background of the Word, the only questionable element in the entire first chapter of John is the assertion of Jesus in particular as the Logos.

Logos - The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon - biblestudytools.com 

Because the Logos became incarnate and fulfilled prophecy, the most commonly used analogies and terms changed. What was once Yahweh, His Word, and His Breath, and then the LORD of Hosts, the Angel of the LORD, and Spirit in the Old Testament, was now consistently addressed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This became apparent with Jesus’ most authoritative early convert - John the Baptist.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” 

- NIV Matthew 3:13-17

When not speaking in parables, Jesus usually let his actions speak for him, as in the calming of the seas found in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” 

- NIV Mark 4:35-41

Consequently, the Logos was the primary concept forming the synthesis of Greek and Early Christian thought and found often in the writings of the church fathers. Nearly every father called an apologist demonstrated a clear conception of the Logos.

The Logos, steers men and ever preserves them in the right way. Man has the power of calculation, but there is also the divine Logos. Human reason is sprung from the divine Logos, which furnishes to each man the passageway of both life and nourishment.    - Clement of Alexandria (Wheelwright 1959, pg. 19)

We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word (ie. Logos) of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably.    - Justin Martyr (1 Apology, Ch. 46)

The orthodox concept of the Trinity was deeply involved with this concept of Logos. The Trinity was set forth to fix within the church the relationship of Jesus the man as the Logos incarnate with God beyond the Logos (ie. the Father).

The chief monument of the fourth-century consideration of Jesus as Logos was the dogma of the Holy Trinity, as enshrined in the Nicene Creed. Through most of Christian history, the doctrine of the Trinity has been the unquestioned - and unquestionable - touchstone of truly orthodox faith and teaching.    - Jaroslav Pelikan (1987, 58)

In the history of ideas, the Logos is not news to Asimov. He does an admirable job explaining the Logos in the section called ‘The Word’ when covering the New Testament book of John (AGB pgs. 960 to 965). He even recognizes the Logos as the foundational presupposition of science. It would be hard then to call Asimov a naïve atheist. However, in his zeal to describe the Logos as a random development of religion (a common issue in the AGB), he insulated himself from what could have compelled him towards theism. 

This is made clear in a debate billed as The Great Debate: Does God Exist? (audio). The Reformed apologist Greg Bahnsen - a protégé of the theologian Cornelius Van Til - presses the importance of the Logos home debating the naïve atheist Gordon Stein. Bahnsen’s argument is interesting as it conceptually contains the Logos without ever directly referencing it. Most debates of this nature are fruitless, with people talking past each other, using debating tricks or merely scoring points with their side of the audience. In this case, Bahnsen clearly dominates by arguing that the presuppositions of knowledge do not fit within an atheistic worldview. He asserts they only fit within the worldview of Christian theism. Afterwards, he had a hard time booking debates with atheists!

The Great Debate: Does God Exist? - bellevuechristian.org (audio)

Bahnsen showed that there is no “neutral rationality” to which one can appeal. This is one of the great fallacies posited by ‘secularism’. Everybody comes to the table with prejudices. Nobody is really neutral. The better of us admit as much and make efforts to mitigate those prejudices. This is called epistemic humility. However, Bahnsen’s assertion for Christianity from worldview is a bit too bold. One cannot get all the way to Christianity without immersing in why such a debate is important in the first place and addressing the actual products of knowledge and revelation. The more recent debates featuring John Lennox arguing more explicitly for the Logos are as convincing without over-asserting. 

John Lennox addresses his debate with Richard Dawkins- Grasping the Nettle 2018 - youtube.com

The mortality rate for all living things is eventually 100%. We will all die. The species will eventually go extinct - more quickly as mankind further becomes masters of our own destiny. Suffering will be involved all along the way. Consequently, everyone has and will continue to ask and must practically answer some variation of the question, “Is there permanent significance?” Or is life…

...but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing. 

- Shakespeare’s Macbeth

If the Logos, or reality beyond the Logos, communicates as a person, the answer to significance is a quite rational ‘yes’, for two reasons. First, the cosmic God cares enough to communicate with an otherwise insignificant human. Our closest human analogy to this relationship is of the greatest king acknowledging the concerns of his lowliest subject, thereby imbuing the subject with significance.

Second, any exchange of information requires some analogue to memory. Communication from an infinite eternal God implies infinite eternal memory. God communicating to an individual confirms a (hopefully positive) place in God’s memory for that individual. Eternal memory is one of the great analogies to eternal life (ie. heaven), most explicit today in the theology and practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church which ends every funeral with a chant of "Memory Eternal." At the very minimum, a communicating God will eternally recall life with extreme, but perfect, prejudice. Even if God wished to forget about the evil and the bland, they are recalled with prejudice wherever their stories intersect the saints. Death then is only evil to the evil and the bland.

Notice that the mere fact of God’s communication provides us with significance. The content or effect of that communication further spells out the concern and character of God. If mankind would submit to a simple existence, this theology would be enough. However, mankind long ago embarked on the project of knowledge and ideals we call civilization, opposing God and complicating everything. Revelation became necessary to steer this haughty unstable species away from its own destruction and back towards life. Ultimately, that is the purpose of the Bible - a cohesive collection of texts highlighting God’s communication with a people chosen to be an example and idiom of redemption for the rest of mankind.

This author is part of a large minority of believers who can lay claim to communication with God through answered prayer. After following to some small degree the example of George Müller - the prayerful creator of a large benevolent orphanage for the poor during the era Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist - I have experienced many specifically answered prayers that have had profound effects on my life and that of others. My confidence in God answering prayer is such that I am often ask no more than “God’s will be done” for fear of the inevitable character building answer. Remembrance of the experiences which bred this confidence trump the doubts generated by knowledge (scientific or otherwise) that doesn’t turn out as expected.

George Müller Books - georgemuller.org

Although I have been careful with my words about the Word to highlight its place within orthodox (and Orthodox) Christianity, I needn’t be. Anyone who asks the Universe and receives an answer beyond that required by law has a stark and durable religion. Because this rational mysticism rhymes so well with the Bible and the tradition of Christianity coming down from the Church Fathers, I do not feel required to defend every nook and cranny of the biblical text. Nor do I need to approach it with overly rigid principles such as inerrancy or literalism. If someone could convince me that the Bible was a fraud - as Asimov and his cadre of modern scholars seem to want to do - I would have to find religion just like the Christian one to take its place. This experience of God affords a measure of critical distance that some others do not have. I can ask questions, support what is good, constructively criticize what seems in error, and occasionally be wrong without a strong concern for upholding my faith.

Works Cited

Asimov, Isaac (1994). I. Asimov: a memoir. New York: Doubleday.

Bahnsen, Greg and Stein, Gordon (1985). The Great Debate: Does God Exist? Bahnsen/Stein. Nacogdoches: Covenant Media Foundation.

Hume, David (1777). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

Jeppson Janet (2006-06-06). Notes for a  Memoir: On Isaac Asimov, Life, and Writing (1st ed.). Amherst: Prometheus.

Pelikan, Jaroslav (1987). Jesus Through the Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Steer, Roger (1997). George Müller: Delighted in God. Tain, Rosshire: Christian Focus.

Swinburne, Richard (1993) “The Vocation of a Natural Theologian.” in Philosophers Who Believe Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.

Wheelwright, Philip (1959). Heraclitus. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.