The case for theism (intelligent design and an unknown God)
Religion seems to be built into the human experience. Almost every human society has or has previously had some sort of religion and a God or gods that they have worshipped. There is even the God gene theory whereby some people are more predisposed to having religious experiences than others, due to their genetics.
But now we know that most religions are not real, as many of them have died out and not many people worship Anubis or Odin anymore. Not that the amount of worshippers has any bearing on the validity of a deity or religion, for example at some point Zeus was more popular than Jesus.
I was previously a Christian, and believed hook, line and sinker in the biblical God. But upon critically examining the Bible, I found many things that didn't sit well with me, and that caused me to stop believing.
Is there a one true God?
That said, I still think that intelligent design has some validity to it, and that there might be a single God that kickstarted the process of creation. Whether this entity is a personal God like Jesus, or something else that may be alien to humans, is another question. But let's first look at some logical arguments in favor of there being a God.
Creations and a creator
Creations always seem to have a creator. If you see a car on the street, you don't assume that it was just randomly created for no reason. You know that the car was designed and manufactured by people and machines for the purpose of transporting people and stuff around. Even animals don't randomly pop into existence, there is usually somekind of predecessor that created the animals. So even if you believe in evolution, there was something that created the first living organism, it didn't just magically come into existence. Do we have any evidence of organisms suddenly appearing through some abiotic process? If it happened billions of years ago, why doesn't it seem to happen anymore?
This universe is probably not eternal
Another thing is that I find it unlikely that this universe is truly eternal. Anything that has been created has a beginning and usually an end. The fact that we live in a material and temporal universe would indicate that it was created at some point and therefore has a beginning. Something that is truly eternal doesn't have a beginning or an end, it was not created, but always existed since before the creation of time. Perhaps God is like that?
The big bang theory
If you believe in the big bang theory, you must ask what created the big bang. Then you must ask what created that which created the big bang, and after that you must ask what created that which created that which created the big bang and do so infinitely. To me it makes more sense that there is a prime creator that is truly eternal and infinite that always existed even before the material universe and time itself, that kickstarted the process of creation. Could this be God?
The laws of nature
While to us the world can often seem chaotic, the laws of nature are logical once they are studied using the scientific method. We can use experimentation to test the laws of nature and see that they work, and then use the results of that to create inventions to improve human lives. Our understanding may not be perfect, but it's good enough to make some conclusions. I find it unlikely that such logical and rational laws of nature resulted from chaos and randomness. No matter how many times you bomb a rock it will not become a finely carved sculpture. Additionally, what force is it that maintains these laws of nature, why don't they just fall apart? Right now we don't know, but it could be some form of higher power.
The room and simulation analogies
If you are created in a room with only a table, a chair and a lamp, could you ever imagine a giraffe or a nuclear reactor? I don't think so, because you don't have the necessary components in your environment to do that. So because we can even imagine a creator outside of our space-time, it stands to reason he might have revealed himself to us somehow.
Another analogy would be the simulation analogy. If you were to create a computer simulation of a world with characters that are self-aware, could they ever imagine you as a creator outside of their environment without being programmed to have such a belief, or having something in the environment that would lead to such a belief? Can you think of a new color for example? Nope, because that doesn't exist in our environment, so we cannot comprehend it.
Those are some reasons why I believe a God might exist, but who he, she or it is, I don't know.
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