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> Carl writes: "[i]Atheists will never completely understand theists unless they allow for divine revelation.[/i]"  - Dawkins calls it delusion, and I&apos;m with him on this. Gut feelings and intuitions are all very well, they could be evolved faculties, though I would still want independent evidence to confirm they were leading me on the right lines. But believing you have received a divine revelation is a different order of insight, bordering upon insanity. Mental institutions are, or were, full of people who fancied they could hear supernatural voices giving them advice and instruction. - As regards: "[i]how atheists can believe in abiogenesis without proof[/i]. We don&apos;t. We are just "joining up the dots". We have an explanation for the origin of the elements needed for life (cosmology and atomic physics) and we have an explanation for the development of many different living forms (evolution by natural selection). There is a gap. We just think it more likely to be filled by some natural chemical and physical process than by the intervention of some outside miracle-worker. - Carl writes: [i]Most Christians I have talked to come to their inner conviction through a spiritual experience with a personal God. Having once established the validity of this knowledge, ...[/i] But this is the main problem. How do they "establish the validity"? Presumably by asking the advice of their local holy man, who came to his belief by a similar "spiritual experience" and was confirmed in it by consulting his local holy man, and so on ad infinitum, ab initio.