The Problem with Christians

[AAA]

Do you see the difference though? I have required rigorous evidence to demonstrate whether or not a designer exists. After I have concluded yes, then I don't require the rigorous evidence for the identity (although maybe you're right and I should). 

An analogy with abiogenesis would then be if we somehow used rigorous evidence to conclude that it did happen (analogous to me concluding designer above), then we would not require extreme evidence for how it happened (analogous to determining the identity). This seems to actually be what most scientists have done. Do you see the analogy I was trying to make?

I see the analogy you are trying to make, but it fails as an analogy, and it fails because it misses the point I am making to you.  

In order to be intellectually honest, the methodology a person uses to determine whether or not a claim is most likely to be true should be consistent, no matter WHAT the nature of the claim.  If I tell you that I flew to Paris last week, you might believe me, or you might require a bit of evidence to accept that belief.  Perhaps you'll need me to show you a few photographs, or a picture of my tickets.  This should suffice, as my claim is not an overly extraordinary one, and (religious stuff aside), you seem like a fairly reasonable person.  

On the other hand, the claim that a God exists and designed universe is a far more extraordinary claim (which you've acknowledged) and so your requirements for evidence (or your idea of evidence) are far stricter.  Therefore, in order to stay consistent and intellectually honest in regards to how you determine the likelihood of ANY claim being true, you should certainly require at LEAST the same (if not stricter) standards of evidence for the specific details about the nature of your God.


It's a moot point though, because your "scientific evidence" for a designer is not actually evidence, and so your analogy fails.  "How," is what builds the case for a claim.  We can tentatively throw our hats into the ring for abiogenesis as a reasonable (if speculative) hypothesis for the origin of life based on what we already know, but when scientists DO parse out the details, that mechanism of action will BE the case beyond reasonable doubt for abiogenesis as a scientific fact.

In other words, We can be reasonably certain that it happened once we can demonstrate HOW it happened.  Unfortunately for your designer claim, no one yet has been able to present a single shred of detailed, positive evidence for god's mechanism of action; for HOW God designed and created the universe; for HOW he exists in the state that Christians believe he does.  And we haven't even gotten to the cesspool of supernatural claims found in the scripture.  Your only answer for these questions so far is, "well, he's God; he can do anything he wants," which is not an explained mechanism at all.  And your "scientific evidence" for his existence in the first place is nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity; an attempt (and failure) to poke holes in scientific theory, which is not evidence for God.  But this has been explained to you ad nauseam...hasn't it?

I don't think you necessarily need stricter evidence for the identity than whether there is a designer or not. I am not overly concerned with who the designer is, but I am more concerned with if there is one in the first place. I don't know why, that's just the question that interests me more. But you're right, I will examine the identity more carefully.