Little Hawk, I'm not disparaging anyone. If asking questions and sharing thoughts is disparagement, then we might as well conclude this conversation. I was responding directly to mousethief's assertion that I can't know what the evidence is that supports a belief in a higher being. Also defending my position that I've never been given any reason to think that gods exist, a position which has drawn some fire. You are, once again, using the word "belief" in a way that is not supported by the current context. I was very specific that I wasn't referring to the fact that "a human being's concept of "God" proves useful or comforting to him in some way". You do, by the way, have a lot of evidence that should lead you think that your car will start when you turn the key. Blindly expecting that it will happen would be stupid, but that's not the same as a lack of evidence that it will. The stupidity would be the conviction that a fallible mechanical object will always work. That's not what we're talking about.

All I'm saying is that I don't see any evidence for the existence of gods. I've been told that such evidence exists, and I want the people who say so to support their assertion. If it is based on personal experience, that's well and good; I have no problem with personal spiritual experience. But perhaps we can find other conclusions that could be drawn from those experiences, ones that don't make the logical leap to a supreme being that thinks and acts. I just want things to make sense and to understand why things make sense to other people. For me, gods don't make sense. Apparently they do to many other people. I just want to know why.