I thought you might be interested in my best effort at figuring out whether I'm an atheist or not. To me this seems like a logical argument, but I hear other people's 'logical arguments' for their religious beliefs and they seem desperately unconvincing. It makes me think that perhaps logic is just a fig leaf on your primal emotion.
I think of animals, and the obvious limits on their model of the world. A cat is aware of a TV, and after a while realises it isn't 'real' and ignores it. That's the best model of 'what a TV is' that he can manage. Another cat somehow realises that the pictures on the TV are a representation, and when there's a bird on the screen she smacks it with her paw. That's the best model of 'what a TV is' that she can manage.
The cats have two different models of what a TV is. Is one model better than the other? Not hardly. The reality is so far from what a cat could possibly comprehend that the differences between their views are unimportant. And if a cat could understand TV, it wouldn't be a cat. It would be some kind of sad mutant.
Yeah, well, I'm sure you are ahead of me on this analogy. Sure, the human brain can handle more complex concepts than a cat's brain. Let's be generous to us, and say we are a million times smarter than a cat. But surely god is more than a million times more complex than a TV?
My conclusion then is that all our models, and I include atheism, are likely to be as far from the truth as a cat's understanding of adverts. This seems like a logical argument to me. Dissent welcome as ever.