> In other words, absolutely everyone agrees that a machine that transmits prime numbers must have an intelligent designer, and yet some folks say that a FAR more complex machine (such as evolution, or your conscious brain) must not.
Ooookay, but the problem there is the proverbial god of gaps challenge. Right now we don't know the full details for big bang -> solar-system style aggregation -> goldilocks planets -> amino acids -> RNA -> DNA -> complex multicelullar lifeforms ... though some of the steps within are speculated about with some good degrees of confidence.
Either way, previously non-secular types would attest that spontaneous generation of maggots was only explainable by gods ... and before that, thunder, lightning, spring growth, autumn harvest, eyeball, eclipse, flagella, laryngeal nerve, and so on.
You seem to be suggesting that evolution currently sits entirely within the unexplained category, despite very little about evolution not being understood or explained by epistemological observation.
I'm drawn to a Richard Dawkins quote[2] - viz: "Evolution is almost universally accepted by those who understand it, almost universally rejected by those who don't." It's a slightly pithy quote, but all the best quotes are. :)
Either way, yes, I concur that if we got a clear radio signal from a remote planet that indicated some signs of intelligence, the thoughtful conclusion would be that there was an intelligence at the originating end of that.
On the other hand, if we had multiple disparate and/or plagiaristic books written some decades after the alleged existence of a man claiming (perhaps posthumously) to be a god, whose activities in life aren't correlated by any historians of the day, whose teachings provide no insights into our world that weren't already understood by contemporary humans, includes some parochial (eg stars falling to the earth) misunderstandings of the universe, and offering guides on (for example) how to manage your slaves ... that this isn't necessarily in the same ballpark as prime numbers from a distant galaxy.
To be candid, it worries me that we may be disagreeing over the import and relevance of this, because it means we really have no common base on which to continue a dialog.
Somewhat similarly, I'm not going to cop-out with the anthropomorphic universe, other than to draw the usual analogy to the puddle that finds itself in a hole perfectly shaped to fit itself, and concluding the hole was designed for it.
Obviously we're suited to this universe, with the various fundamental physical constants (etc) that this universe entails.
But ... as I've said before, if you can't explain something today it doesn't mean a god was involved (or, as you put it, that the universe was 'intended').
Let alone that a specific - in this case Christian deity - was responsible.
All you've done there -- similar to your 'turtles all the way down' disparagement -- is to suggest that there's some (no-evidence-for) metaphysical explanation, and asserted that the clear winner is the religion you happen to have acquired. (Yes, I know we spoke of this before, and you mentioned in passing that you were tongue-in-cheek about shopping around, but there's a LOT of religions that have previously out-numbered in absolute and/or relative numbers Christians today. My concerns on this front still stand -- most people inherit their religion, and they may rationalise that using whatever conveniences are to hand, but it doesn't detract from the fact that almost all religious people reflect the beliefs that they were indoctrinated with as a child. There's some good research on the evolutionary benefits (survival trait) for children to believe everything their parents tell them, long before they acquire critical thinking skills.)
As Hitchens observed on this front -- we can conservatively speculate that humans existed (in a form we'd recognise as humans) for around 100,000 years BC (if you will), and during all that time of suffering no intervention from an omnipresent god. Then (and rather than popping into a more advanced civilisation (China, say)) there was a guy who may not have actually existed, claiming (and perhaps only after the fact, and by proxy, and fairly inconsistently when you compare Mark and Luke[3]) to meet some Jewish prophecies, was purported to arrive to solve this problem of suffering. However, suffering continues in pretty much the same ways that it did pre-JC.
> I feel a need for forgiveness from my creator deeply and innately, but I have no idea how I got there ...
I really have no idea on how I could, let alone should, respond to that. It clearly reflects a fundamental disparity in the way that we view the world. I have a feeling that we could never reconcile it without compromising our belief / understanding frameworks.
> ... I'd like to believe that I'd still be interested in being a good person ...
Trying not to quote you out of context.
I think we're all (for large but perhaps not 100% inclusive values of) interested in being good people.
Long before Spacey, K. was pretending to be a lunatic US president (and long before it was fashionable to play such a role in real life) he was in a massively under-rated film called K-Pax. (Not just a grossly under-rated film, but few people know that Gene Brewer wrote 3 sequels to that story ... all wonderful reads.)
Anyhoo, there's a lovely comment that Prot makes in the first film / book: 'Every being in the universe knows right from wrong'.
I have zero evidence for it, but I tend to think it makes sense in the context of a larger (say, galactic-sized) culture -- once you've evolved sufficiently to abstract yourself into another being's position, it's (relatively) easy to identify right from wrong.
At the most basic it's the reciprocity law -- do unto others, if you will. It predates JC's teachings by at least 500 years, documented in China, and the idea almost definitely existed as a proposition for a happy society before that, and in multiple other locations. It's not a particularly difficult idea to come up with, I think (though that's said with the benefit of having other people previously come up with it).
Btw, I'm hugely appreciative of the time, effort, and thought you put into this - even if I may (I suspect) appear massively disparaging. As noted before, I'm obviously not about to change my position, nor are you likely to. I chuckled out loud at the 'What am I missing?' comment - and genuinely delight in your comments, your understanding of my viewpoint, and regret that at some point HN is going to lock this thread to read-only.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
[2] http://i.imgur.com/SP2qd.jpg
[3] http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/genealogy-luke.html