In my family, we have varied views on God. My father was born and raised Jewish, but at a time when Jews were more "rational", if you will allow me that, and less truly religious. Judiasm, then, seemed more dominanted by a sense of culture and nationality (even before Israel), though his mother always said prayers at our holiday gatherings, and remained, to her death, a believer in God. Of my grandfather's views I'm unsure, which suggests to me he wasn't particularly religious. My father was less so than either of them, and was further disenfranchised from religion by the opposition he experienced over his decision to marry a non-Jew.
One thing he was told by a Rabbi was that if he married my mother, his kids wouldn't be buried in the family plot (I'm still broken up about that).
My mother was raised in a mixed Christian heritage. Her mother was Catholic and from Germany. Her father was Anglican, being of English descent (Scottish too, I should mention, as it's not the same thing). They had their own reasons for disenchantment, when the church they attended during WWII refused to allow my grandmother to attend because she was of German heritage. But she remained deeply religious her whole life, and unlike almost every other Christian I've ever met, would attend whichever church she found herself nearest, take from it what she agreed with, and leave at the church that which she did not (her own words to me).
But my parents, a mixed heritage union as it was, fermenting during the 60s, raised us without religion. We did not go to church, or synagogue. We celebrated Christmas, Easter, Chanukah and Rosh Hashanah as more or less secular holidays at the respective grandparent's homes (my sister once described us as half Jewish, half Christmas), got together en masse only on Thanksgiving (sometimes birthdays), my favorite holiday which I saw then and still see as secular. They raised us, or me at least, as agnostics. I say this because though my father calls himself an atheist, when I asked him, as a child, about God, he told me that some people believe one thing, and some another and left it at that. I don't know what he told my siblings, but that's how I remember being guided in my beliefs. As a parent now myself, I have been asked more than once, by people here in the south, ignorant of the results of child rearing without Christ, let along God, how my children would turn out without such a foundation for morality, and I always reply that they'll turn out like their dad, moral, but like everyone, with the inherent potential to be different than their parents.
For, in the end, we siblings, are also varied in our beliefs. My sister, who as befits her beliefs married a teacher of science, calls herself an atheist. I'm not exactly sure about my brothers, in truth, but from conversations I have had with them over the years, I think them agnostic at least. I, personally, have been through the gamut of atheism, then agnosticism, but have, to date, found myself closer to Deism, the religion of many of the US of As founders.
Though I would like to put a label on what I am, and even to consider myself bonded with these great men and women, Deism does not fit me exactly either. Like Deism I believe in afterlife and the spirit. I believe that we can observe God in nature, and I am, like Deists consider themselves, monotheistic (more so than Christians I would opine). I also, like Deists, do not believe we should strip away reason for a faith in something that makes no sense to us. Nor do I believe in "miracles" that break the laws of nature. And though I don't require proof for my beliefs, I do require the absence of proof to the contrary and the theories I hypothesize must at least be consistent with evidence, personal or otherwise.
But I differ from Deists in that I don't believe God is outside ourselves, a creator who set the world in motion and then stepped aside. I see us as a part of the All, define God, even, as a mathematical summation of everything. I believe that, as part of It, we probably, must have somehow, created ourselves, and true to form, should feel obligated in our journey to continue to do so. I believe that we can tap into a collective wisdom that can influence us, and through us, the world around us. In this way, unlike Deists, I believe that God can have a continuing influence.
Some might say that this definition of God is more like a congress of Men, or conversely that it demonstrates the conceit to think of us all as divine. Yup to both. But it is not Atheism, nor is it Agnosticism, so what else can I call it, but God?
I first decided to give up atheism when I accepted that you can't really prove something doesn't exist. I decided to give up agnosticism because I realized that there was some mystery to life itself that warranted the daring of consideration, rather than the resignation of having no opinion (everyone's entitled to my opinion, especially me). And I can best defend my reasons for believing in afterlife (the essense of a spiritual or religious belief, I think), simply:
That I consider it more probably that I should continue to exist after this particular life, than that I should ever have existed at all. And since it is self-evident that I do exist, why not accept the possibility, at least, of something I find less improbable than that.