As a follower of the middle path I consider myself to be neither a theist nor an atheist.
However, you have failed to be clear on what is this "middle path".
Empiricism is certainly not wrong but, without rationalism, it is a shallow and incomplete world view. In the purely empirical world view, a person is seen as just a "collection of atoms" and since it is not morally wrong to use, abuse, or manipulate atoms to one's own ends it is, therefore, not thought morally wrong to use, abuse, or manipulate people to one's own ends.
That doesn't make much sense, either. You seem to be describing a position at the extremes of materialism. So why do you call that "empiricism?"
Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity