Why do you not believe in God?

[Jeffonthenet]

I really don't want to defend ID because I know very little about it.

ID is actually no different from any other form of Creationism, so if you can defend Creation, you can defend ID.

How do you define creationism? I think you are conflating creationism with believing God created the world. Likewise everyone who is feminine is not a feminist.

However, say that you found a machine with buttons, cranks, wheels, all made out of steel with a few hundred screws. I think we both know that you would not even for a moment think that this had come into being purely by chance.

This is the classic watchmaker analogy that Paley proposed in 1802. It has been disproved, yet people continue to use it to this day. The same, false argument is used to attempt to explain the origin of the bacterial flagellum, DNA, and the cell. But it's wrong. Darwin proved that complexity can arise in nature without the need for intelligence, so simply saying "god did it because only god can create complexity" or "we can infer an intelligent god from complexity" is wrong (and both arguments are illogical). If you really understand the power of natural selection, it will change the way you think about complexity in nature. (Also, If you want to find out more about the Intelligent Design arguments, google “Kitzmiller v Dover” and read Judge Jones’ decision. He explains it quite well, considering that he’s a devout Christian and a conservative republican Judge)

As I said, I know little about ID, but I do know that they argue that there are certain things in nature that are irreducibly complex. Darwin did not know about cells and all sorts of complexity that we know about now. (we have found cells are not empty caverns but more like complex cities) Regardless, I'll grant you for the sake of argument that ID arguments from biological complexity are nonsense. I never believed based on them, and I cannot think of anyone I know who believes in God based on them.

I am aware of Occam's razor. I think here, if we accepted evolution, all it would show is that God is not necessary to explain how biological complexity came about. However, all that would follow here, I think, is that we cannot infer the existence of God based on biological complexity. However, it doesn't follow that arguments for the existence of God which are not based on biological complexity are
effected.

You tacked God on to a statement about evolution. But you would still need a positive argument for God, instead of just throwing god into the equation because they equation allowed you to do so. It’s like saying 2 + 2 + x = 4 – x

How am I throwing God into the equation? I say that the way one best knows God exists is by personal experience apart from argument.

I would challenge you here and ask how we can empirically verify (without circular and invalid logic) the existence of the past or the reliability of our senses.

Science has already figured this out. We establish an objective, universal standard.

Does your standard presuppose the reliability of your sense perception? If so it cannot demonstrate it without being circular.

What about the Kalaam cosmological argument?

1. Everything which begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist (the big bang theory)
3. Therefore the universe has a cause

This is an argument for the cause of the creation of the universe, not an argument for the existance of god.

The logic you quoted below infers that the cause is God from the necessary characteristics of it.

Therefore, whatever caused everything to be must be spaceless, immaterial, timeless, and a being of immense power (to cause everything that is). And the latter characteristics are traditional properties of God.

This definition is vague enough to explain anything. See Reason 1 for why I don't believe that gods exist. When we finally figure out the real cause of the creation of the universe, your definition will change.

A spaceless timeless immaterial being of immense power which created the universe sounds like God to me. I have read and responded in depth to your first post, now it is your turn to deal with the logic I presented here. You seem to be positing a "science of the gaps." All I use is the basic logical principle that something cannot cause itself to exist and the scientific evidence for an absolute beginning to the universe, and there is a good argument for God.

However, even if the Kalaam cosmological argument fails, and all others for God do too, all that would follow would be that we have no argument to prove God exists… not that we cannot know God exists or that he does not exist.