The Case for Theism

[The Grand Nudger]

1. The fact the universe exists

Excellent line of evidence, if one was trying to establish that the universe existed.

That might seem like a paltry fact in support of theism. Suppose I was trying a case for murder, the first line of evidence I would produce is a dead body. After all, I couldn't accuse anyone of murder if there was no one deceased.

Nor can you charge someone with murder simply because you found a dead body......

If the universe didn't exist there would be no reason to invoke the existence of God.

Still wondering why there's a reason to invoke god if the universe does exist.

Moreover if a universe didn't exist there would in fact be as atheists claim no evidence God exists.

Still haven't seen any evidence that any sort of god you're talking about exists.

In order for anyone to even think God exists a place for humans to exist must exist.

Well, thinking beings, I suppose requiring that they be human is myopic, in any case, the existence of human thoughts would again be a great line of evidence, like the one above, if you were attempting to establish that human beings existed.

There are certain facts that must be true for anyone to think God exists.

Sure, but do any of them have anything to do with the veracity of said belief?

For humans to have any reason to think God might exist, we must have a place that allows us to live. There are in fact several facts and conditions that must be true in order for there to be any reason to think the existence of a Creator is true. None of those facts needs to be true for atheism to be true. Atheism doesn't require the existence of a universe to believe atheism is true. If the universe didn't exist atheism might still be false (God might exist but not have created the universe) but there would be no evidentiary reason to raise the existence of God.

Actually they all have to be equally true, as you explained above. We have to be here, there has to be a here, there has to be a "be" .....for there to be atheists or atheism here.

2. The fact life exists.

Same as the above really, great evidence for the existence of life.

3. The fact sentient life exists.

More of the same.

As I mentioned in the OP I'm not a theist just because there are facts that comport with theism, the same facts seem to contradict the atheist narrative (that the universe, life and sentient life we're not created on purpose) that however such came to be, no personal agent intended it to happen, it wasn't by plan or design. I'll let the reader decide if minus plan, design or intent whether the result is by happenstance since that seems to be a major sticking point for some. I would argue it is still a tall order for mindless lifeless forces to produce something totally unlike itself both life and mind minus any plan, intent or knowledge* of how to do it.

To be fair you don't really have a problem with a lifeless force creating something, life from non-life - or how different one thing is from its proposed creator, it's just the "mind" bit that seems to have you stuck. Good luck with that.

A lot of atheists say we should look for the simpler naturalistic explanation for things such as life and sentience and we should avoid claiming a miracle happened.

A lesson only partially learnt through long hard experience.

But which scenario is really less miraculous, that the universe, life and sentience is the result of plan and design or the result of mindless forces that didn't intend such to occur but happened anyway?

The one that only invokes those things which you call facts above would be the less miraculous explanation, almost by definition. The point at which you feel compelled to say "abbracaddabra" is the point at which something becomes miraculous.

Lets compare it to the existence of a computer, would it be less miraculous to say a computer is the result of design and engineering or it was the unintended by product of the laws of physics that unintentionally created a computer?

It's both.

Before anyone blows a gasket I know in response you're going to say its an unfair comparison because we know a computer was designed and engineered.

Designed and engineered to exploit the properties of materials and systems which were not. Without the properties of those material and systems the circuits would be useless as "computers" - so perhaps you've given us a little too much credit (not that credit isn't deserved at least in part) for what is more accurately a sort of cooperative experience.

The point is in trying to avoid the supernatural miracle of a Creator causing the existence of life and sentience it would seem a greater miracle is being called for by claiming that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent caused something greater than itself to exist. Is anyone going to argue that sentience and mind isn't greater than the source it is alleged to have come from?

Again, lifeless forces don't bother you in truth (and to be blunt, I doubt that things lacking in plan or intent would either - If I really pressed you to demonstrate even the slightest evidence of any plan or intent it would be even more difficult than to present evidence for a god, which, at present, as far as I'm aware - no one at any point in human history has been able to accomplish).