I think the idea of a comforting, personal deity or of human growth toward a divine goal can only come from an already held belief or a will to consistently 'see' such things. I have neither. Reality as I experience it doesn't hold their existence to be likely at all. Though I could subjectively frame my experiences to find meaning in them, I would be constantly aware of the bias I was applying and any emotional benefit I might otherwise experience would be negated. Even if I did have some sort of revelatory experience, I'm fairly certain I would dismiss it as a product of my psychological state. I would be suspicious of any newfound sense of certainty that would follow and would likely chalk it up to wishful thinking and self-delusion.
In the end, it's not just that I don't want to validate a comforting falsehood - I don't think I
can.
I avoid participating in any kind of online discourse where atheism/theism comes up because it always ends up becoming an exercise in
question begging on both sides of the fence.
I have seen other atheists use this argument that people who are spiritual are looking for some kind of false sense of comfort, when by already concluding that it is "false", they are in fact begging the question.
Moreover, perhaps some people who believe in the spiritual do so simply for a sense of comfort against the perennial "big questions" involving death. Some people want certainty and want to just close the book on the issue. But these people are NOT spiritual. They are religious, but not necessarily spiritual.
Spirituality involves having an itch that only delving into the realm of the spiritual would scratch. To pick a low hanging fruit, Sir Isaac Newton was an agitated man who was constantly searching, searching, searching for the face of God in mathematics and in the works of nature. His spirituality was far from a source of comfort for he searched feverishly until his death. He had to have experienced something that made him think that scratching that itch was worthy of consuming his time night and day. He never closed the book on the matter. He never said, "I'm an Anglican now ! End of discussion." The fact that he kept searching shows that he was spiritual but not religious.
Certainty and absolutes is rarely involved when it comes to spirituality. It is usually manifested as a restless, constant searching.
Those who become certain have either reached enlightenment or have prematurely stopped searching.
Those who have prematurely stopped searching are those religious people who try to forcefully convert everyone and preach fire and brimstone down from their pulpits. These are on one extreme end of the spectrum (and admittedly are easy targets).
So even if you're an agnostic or an atheist astrophysicist who is searching the galaxies for something, you are a spiritual person in the sense that you haven't closed the book as yet. Once again, those who close the book, and think that they have found the truth once and for all, and stopped growing are actually NOT spiritual people. (The sole exception, of course, is those few who have reached enlightenment).
Being spiritual involves that restless searching. It is a process where
growth is involved.
To reiterate: there is a distinction between being religious and spiritual. Many religious people have closed the book once and for all and stopped growing and searching. In this sense, extreme religious people are no different from their extreme atheist counterparts. Funny that they see themselves as opposites though.
To Bluesprout: By "being suspicious of any newfound sense of certainty," you are actually more spiritual than you think in that specific sense.
I see it in a similar way. I`m not a fan of organized religion, never was, it kind off makes me think of brainwashing, or that some people instead of searching for meaning and hope inside themselves prefer to look for it in externally influenced mases. In that sense I`d say I`m an atheist, since I don`t believe in an almighty "God".
), causes me to disregard contemplation of what is not material as most likely pointless. This is not because I devalue the experiences or wisdom of others, I just doubt my own ability to discern truth instead of lying to myself in order to believe what is desirable to me. 
I think it's in my nature to want to believe. And I think I'm predisposed to liking ideas that seem fair, beautiful, etc. - ones that align with my values, in other words. I have made myself sick with grief because of my atheism. I'm not an atheist because I ignore the issues that faith might address: I feel the implications of my lack of belief very poignantly. 
