Why do Athiests require 'proof' that God exists?

[Neo-Scholastic]

We've already seen such category shifts occur at higher level designs.

To my mind, most of the examples you provided still represent functional shifts. Self-initiated motion? Within the materialist paradigm there are only chains of cause and effect. These do not require subjective experience, like shocking the nerves of a dead frog causing its leg to twitch. Reproduction describes the various states and actions of physical matter, a functional property derived from other functional properties.

…semiconductors and microchips together should not give rise to software.

To my mind that’s not a good example. Software doesn’t emerge from anything. Software instructions impose order on the hardware as it (the hardware) does its physical operations. Punch cards trip switches to make dials register in various positions. The directions encoded in the cards and the calculated results are meaningless to the computer itself.

You are wrong if you think that they are identical in all aspects other that physical locations…there may be three separate arrangements of units for pain, smell and memory and these units further arranged in a more complex manner to form the perception and memory centers.

I did exaggerate for rhetorical effect, but I think the concept still holds. What you describe sounds analogous to Morse Code. The clicks are meaningless in themselves. A higher scale of reality, human intelligence, is required to interpret them. What is the higher level of reality that interprets neural clicks? That’s really not a fair question, but you get the idea.

Firstly, I don't think sensation is necessary for sentience. Even without the uniquely human capacities of seeing and feeling, perception is still possible and a machine capable of perception and reaction would likely be sentient as well.

Not sure I fully understand what you’re saying. I know electronic neural nets can be trained for facial recognition, for example. Is that what you mean by perception? Otherwise I’ve always considered perception a more complex construct of sensations, something I may need to reconsider.