route to belief? believers only please...

[Sarith]

I've noticed something about the many religious people i've met in the last year or so and that is that their belief in God comes first and their analysis of its logic is secondary. Religious people don't 'arrive at the conclusion that god must exist' but rather 'believe that God exists' and try to match up the facts to support this. I know this is completely contrary to the scientific method but it seems to work for some very intelligent (yet equally religious) people.

In most cases belief is inspired by some sort of life changing (and usually depressing) experience which allowed these people to "feel" the presence of God. That's unfair! Assuming god really does exist, the people that go through some dramatic experience have an edge when it comes to faith.!

I'm an agnostic, sitting on the fence. Although i do find the existance of an omnipotent yet benevolent god highly illogical and unlikely, i don't find it impossible. I've had glimpses and 'feelings' of presences in my life that i can't quite explain at times when things were looking down... but now that my life's generally on track i haven't had these for some years, leading me to believe that the 'feelings' are most likely to be some hormonal artefact.

Believers! What do you make of this? What do you feel that lets you 'know' god's listening... to have such complete faith? I feel as if i was teetering on the edge of something big and lost it. I really want to make sense of what i went through, but at the same time so many things don't make sense... why is there a hell? Why can't god create a perfect world? Can god build a house he can't break.?? My head hurts... help????