I think you touch on something that I've thought about for a while: I think that in actual practice, we build our beliefs as mental models: we come up with ideas about how the world works, and then see how the predictions of our models compare against reality. If there's good agreement between the two, then we conclude that our model is a good one, and that the assumptions it is based upon are sound.Oh wow, mball - thanks for clearing all that up. Now I realize it wasn't God at all. Your pristine logic has convinced me otherwise.
OK back to reality. I hope you don't think that I haven't seriously considered the theories that you just presented. However, the CUMULATIVE experiences in my life, of which this is just one, prove the existance of God to me over and over again.
It's sort of like this. Something can happen to you, and you can say, "Oh well, it must be because...blah blah blah" to disprove the existance of God. Then something else happens and you say, "Yes, but maybe it's...blah blah blah"
Or - it could be God.
I believe in God. I guess you don't. Neither of us will be able to prove or disprove God's existance to each other using simply logic. You can say that you believe the preponderance of evidence in your life points to the theory that there is no God - and I can say that the preponderance of evidence in my life points to the existance OF God, and we may both be right - but our positions are un-provable.
So... what do you make of the fact that, apparently, a non-theistic worldview is just as good a model for reality as a worldview that includes a God that's active in the affairs of humanity? If there was really a miracle-wielding God running around out there, don't you think that atheists would find that their worldview is rather unsatisfactory in explaining what they experience and look for something better?
Here's my take on it: all else being equal, if two worldviews differ on some significant objective phenomenon, then one will be demonstrably better than the other. For instance, if you think that gravity works one way and I think it works another, one of us will probably find it much harder to juggle or balance on a high beam.
However, I think (and from what you've said so far, I hope you'll agree) that neither the theistic worldview nor the atheistic worldview are demonstrably better than each other. So what does this mean? I think it implies that the difference between them (i.e. an active God) is not a significant objective phenomenon; IOW, God is subjective... and therefore not objective.