My intelligent design challenge to "Rational Christian Discernment"

The RCD blog posted a piece in favor of ID, see here.

I replied as follows, which is cross-post here because my reply there might simply be deleted:

except that you cannot limit logic merely because of biblical doctrine.  If you believe "complexity requires designer", then that logic cannot be circumscribed merely because it would otherwise destroy some biblical doctrine you currently believe in. 

And yet if you DON'T come up with objective justification to delimit how far you can push "complexity requires designer", then there is no reason to assume such logic would be limited to certain contexts, so that under your own logic, god's creation of complex things necessarily requires that he himself possess at least that much complexity, if not more, in which case god's own complexity also requires a designer. 

You are free to say "the logic has to stop somewhere, and the bible says it stops with god", but skeptics are also free to ignore you when you degrade yourself from "apologist" to "preacher".  You are not achieving your goal of proving atheists to be unreasonable by simply insisting that the demands required of your bible force you to insist that "complexity requires designer" has necessary limits. 

So for now, since you obviously DO think god's complexity can simply exist without requiring a designer, what criteria do you use to decide whether an instance of complexity implies intelligent design?   

Do you have anything more substantive than simply "whether it harmonizes with my religion"?

J. Warner Wallace and the flying spaghetti monster flop

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

“Believing in God is the same as believing in the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’”

Posted: 14 Oct 2019 01:29 AM PDT

Response #1:
“What do you mean by ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’? Are you referring to the fictional deity created by Bobby Henderson in 2005?

Yes.  It's comparable to the fictional character created by Iron Age goat-herders.  Hence the analogy.

Mr. Henderson created that character (and a larger narrative called, ‘Pastafarianism’), to protest the fact that Intelligent Design was being considered as part of the science curriculum in the state of Kansas.

Good for him.  You open the door to ID in the schools, fairness demands that you give equal time to ALL over views.  

No one actually believes in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, including its creator, Mr. Henderson.

Ok, then we'll use the analogy of "tooth-fairy" or "Santa Claus". 

He’s tried to protest the existence of religion by equating Pastafarianism to religious belief, and he’s even applied for religious status in a number of countries. He’s been repeatedly denied, however. Why? Because international legal bodies understand the difference between religious claims and fictional claims. Can you see the difference as well?”

And since international bodies have no ulterior motives to keep the status quo, their solitary motive in denying the FSM religion is their advanced degrees in philosophy,  no doubt. 

No one actually believes in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, including its creator, Mr. Henderson.

But if he started publicly proclaiming belief in such god, America and certain other countries would likely permit him freedom to exercise that religion. 

Response #2:
“Are you saying that belief in God is the same as belief in fairy tales or imaginary characters?

Yes.  There is no more evidence that adherents of major world religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc) have any more accurate knowledge of the deity they worship, than Henderson has of the FSM.  But most of them are probably deceived into thinking that because people have cooked up lots of stories about these others gods for thousands of years, there is something "more" to the "major" gods.  Not so. 

If so, this assumes that fictional characters and God are equally unsupported by the evidence.

They are. 

But this isn’t true at all. What evidence do we have, for example, to support the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

About as much evidence as there is to support your Christian notion that your mind exists in another dimension, or that your moral outlook is beamed into you from another dimension. 

Is there anything other than the text written by its creator (in this case, Bobby Henderson)?

Yes, the big bang proves that the FSM is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, etc. 

The case for God’s existence, by contrast, is evidentially robust, even without any ancient text.

Hold it just a cotton pickin' minute:  there is nothing about the word 'god' that distinguishes it from the FSM, you are merely choosing to use a term that has been around longer.

For example, the existence of our finite, finely tuned universe points to an all-powerful, creative force outside of space, time and matter.

Except that speaking of "outside of space, time and matter" is to defend an incoherernt concept, since there is no such thing as "outside" of "space", or "time".  The universe is no more finely tuned for humans than your attic is finely tuned for mold-growth, and your own bible contains passages that logically contradict the notion of God's omnipotence.  Since every biblical description of heaven indicates events take place there in no less temporal progression than they do on earth, biblical "heaven" is not in another dimension, it is within "time".  You will insist all such language is mere "anthropomorphism", but you'll have to demonstrate the non-literal intent from the context of each passage, you cannot, and if you did, you would open the door to the possibility that some other biblical passages, the literal interpretation of which you require to ground your theology, were not intended literally. 

The inexplicable origin of life (driven by information in the genetic code)

God of the gaps fallacy.  No, you are not saying this because the origin of life looks like intelligent design.  You simply rest upon the fact that science doesn't have all the answers yet. 

and appearance of deign in biology point to an intelligent creator who has a purpose in mind.

If so, then that purpose was that carnivores exist before sin entered the world, which means the sadism in nature is not a result of evil or sin, but of God being like a demented toddler, and chaining two dogs together just because he knows they will massacre each other.  Sure, you can escape those problems by being a young earth creationist and hence blame all the yucky stuff on 'sin', but the biblical case for old earth creationism is strong, in which case we are reasonable to interpret the biblical god as desiring carnivores to inflict misery on other creatures long before "sin" happened.  For example, birds obviously cause misery to lower life forms, such as eagles which tear apart the squirrel, fish or rabbit while it is still alive, yet Jesus says it is God who supplies the birds their food: 

 26 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? (Matt. 6:26 NAU)

  41 "Who prepares for the raven its nourishment When its young cry to God And wander about without food? (Job 38:41 NAU)
  9 He gives to the beast its food, And to the young ravens which cry. (Ps. 147:9 NAU) 

Really?  It is god who not only wanted predatory birds to tear apart their still-alive prey, but for some of them to eat the newly hatched chicks straight out of the nest (see here), not much different than the human cannibal who sneaks into your infant's bedroom and eats him alive.  There will be stupid Christians out there who insist that birds of prey make sure their prey is dead before they rip into it, which would then mean that certain videos on youtube are just really clever photoshops.  See here.

Wallace continues: 

Our experience of consciousness and free agency is also incomprehensible under atheistic materialism, but can be easily explained if we were created by an immaterial, conscious, free agent. 

The consciousness argument is ridiculous, as Christians don’t believe animals are made in the image of god, yet animals still have a “consciousness”.  Sure is funny that consciousness becomes more and more complex as we move up the ladder from simpler to more complex life forms.  As for freewill, there is no scientific evidence that the will of a person is “free” from the laws of physics (alcohol, drugs and brain injury obviously cause an impact on our “freewill”, and attributing this to the mind being the brain, is far more rational and reasonable than the trifling that maybe the mind comes into the brain from another dimension, and has trouble manifesting itself if the brain is altered).  If the will could be free from physics, it would thus be free from the laws of cause and effect, which would then mean freewill proves that we are ultimately irrational.  At the end of the day, there really is no "reason" why you choose a pencil over an equally available pen...you "just" did...the very definition of irrationality (i.e., action without reason).

“easily explained”?  Ok, if you are trying to keep Christian “babies” from apostatizing, then yes, whatever the "easier" explanation is, would be their preferred choice.  But truth is not limited to what’s easy.  however, given that you wish to make money selling Jesus, I can understand why you'd be quick to give those potential donors to your ministry, or buyers of your books, the "easier" solution. 

Finally, the existence of transcendent, objective moral truths and obligations are best explained by the existence of a transcendent, personal moral law giver. 

You are also high on crack:  there is no such thing as objective moral truth in the transcendent sense you intend.  I don’t care if you insist “thou shalt not torture babies to death solely for entertainment”,  YOU are the one that has the burden of showing any moral to be transcendentally “objective”, and you aren’t doing that by discovering that other human beings agree with you about certain morals. 

You will say the fact that the vast majority of people in history obeyed this is proof that it is objective, but that’s like saying that because most dogs have a natural inclination to attack anything that is trying to get into their food, this moral only comes into them from "god". 

Can you see how – based on science and philosophy alone – the existence of God is reasonable even while the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not?

No, but I see how by switching out "Flying Spaghetti Monster" for "god" would likely cause your mostly Christian readership to think all is well.  The truth is that "god" is nothing but a made up word with made up definition, and like the FSM, does not link to anything in the real world.

Can you also see that the case for God can be made without any ‘sacred text,’ while the case for the Flying Spaghetti Monster is entirely dependent on Mr. Henderson’s text?”

Didn't you know that Henderson chapter 1 v. 20 says you are inexcusable because what may be known of FSM is manifest, because the FSM has declared it unto you?  The more you deny this truth, the more you prove to be a disciple of the devil.  I go to Henderson church every Sunday, and I'm not gonna let you steal my joy in the FSM.

Response #3:
“There’s one incredibly important difference between belief in God and belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the creator of the Spaghetti Monster, Bobby Henderson, mistakenly admitted the difference when he first created the character. Henderson conceived the fictional deity as a form of protest against religious belief in general. He originally claimed that his belief in the Spaghetti Monster (called ‘Pastafarianism’) was the same as other religious beliefs because Pastafarians had ‘several lengthy volumes’ explaining all the details of their religion and that there were ‘over 10 million’ Pastafarians (neither fact is true, however). Henderson’s intentionally false claim, however, reveals the error in comparing God to the Spaghetti Monster. Henderson assumed that belief in God was dependent on religious texts and accepted belief.

Blame it on the fundamentalist Christians who think quoting the bible infuses magic into the air.

 Neither is true, however. A belief in God is reasonable even without a religious text, 

First, what's reasonable for YOU does not dictate what's reasonable for another person.  Reasonableness and accuracy are not the same thing.

Second, my attack on Jesus' resurrection is solid, therefore, Christianity is false.  If Christianity is false, you would likely just play the odds and start stacking all of your money on the God of pre-Christian Judaism.  But the falsity of Christianity would then mean you had been misrepresenting that god for 2,000 years, in which case, there is far more evidence that, under the assumption Christianity is false, whatever god still existed would be far more pissed off at the Christians than he would at atheists.

Third, the god of the bible has no problem getting rid of a person's sin with a wave of his magic wand (2nd Samuel 12:13) and causing people to believe and do whatever he wants, with a wave of his magic wand, see Ezra 1:1.  So if I was in trouble with this god, I would be able to correctly protest that he must have wanted me to make all the decisions I did, because he had both ability and opportunity to make me think differently, and yet just sat there doing nothing....like a man who notices a woman being raped, sees no further danger in reporting this to the police, has ability and opportunity to so interfere, but then doesn't report anything, then later insists he cannot be held morally accountable because he was just doing what god was doing, and respecting the rapist's freewill.  FUCK YOU.

and even if no one joins a religious group. God’s existence can be inferred from cosmological, biological, neurological (mental) and moral evidence in our universe, unlike a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

We can fix that right now:  Let's stop saying "Flying Spaghetti Monster", and start saying "Flying Spaghetti GOD who decides when and where to open the eyes of unbelievers".  There, now we use the word "god", and we infuse into our new cult the same bullshit theology you tell yourself to explain why some people resist your religious claims.  Maybe we'll incorporate a "still small voice" in there somewhere, achieve tax-free status, make up songs about the FSM, and eventually put you completely out of business?

Cold Case Christianity: J. Warner Wallace wants 3rd graders to draw conclusions about calculus problems

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Is God Real? 

The Bacterial Flagellum and the Divine Design Inference

Posted: 27 Mar 2019 01:27 AM PDT

Of all the arguments related to the existence of God, the argument from the appearance of design is perhaps the most intuitive and visual. As we examine and observe the complexity (and inter-connectivity) of biological systems, we can’t help but come away with the impression these organisms and cellular micro-machines have been carefully crafted by a master artist. One such complex micro-machine has been heralded above all others in teleological arguments for the existence of God. Bacterial flagella remain a mystery to scientists who recognize them as a marvel of machine-like precision. Harvard biophysicist, Howard Berg, has publicly described the bacterial flagellum as “the most efficient machine in the universe.”  Is God real? The bacterial flagellum is best explained by God’s existence as the Intelligent Designer of biological systems.

 A point by point reply to such cheerleading is hardly necessary.  A few points will suffice:

• The vast majority of people do not have a college-level understanding of biology, so Wallace's integrity takes a hit as he tries to wow his predominantly and mostly scientifically apathetic audience with biological issues that require a college-level education to really appreciate.  One look at his book "Cold Case Christanity" and you can only guess what level of education his expected readership has.  Let's just say you don't attempt to teach algebra to those who are still struggling with bone-head math.
  
• Enhancing the anti-science sentiment of Wallace's article, is his failure to give any meaningful consideration to the counter-arguments offered by biologists equally if not more competent in the required fields than Behe.  Perhaps Wallace was aware that because he is writing to a non-scholarly audience, one-sided cheerleading will be preferable to scholarly interchange?
  
• Because the historical argument against the resurrection of Jesus is powerful, the rational person, convinced by irreducible complexity that some god exists, would likely exclude Christianity in their search for this god.  So ID ironically has a tendency to direct the unbeliever away from the "Christian" god, when its most vocal proponents are using it to direct people toward the Christian god.
  
• Under ID reasoning emerges a conclusion that most old-earth creationists reluctantly agree with:  The traits of certain animals that make them 'carnivores' (i.e., enough intelligence to kill other life forms, teeth intended to rip flesh, highly developed ability to see prey) are the result of ID, they are not what happens to some herbivores after sin came into the world.  In other words, baboons, hawks and lions often eat prey alive (or in the case of cats and whales, terrifying their prey in sadistic fashion before killing it) NOT because of sin degrading some herbivores into carnivores, but because god intended them to do this from eternity no less than than he intended for Adam and Eve to enjoy peace in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, God says in Genesis 1:31, after creating the world and all its creatures, that this is "very good".  We really have to wonder why many Christians have a problem seeing such sadistic misery as "very good"...is this because the god (who allegedly put his law into their hearts) is trying to tell them that the biblical portrait of God is inaccurate?  If not, then they are forced to be open to the possibility that their strong moral feelings might be entirely determined by genetics and environmental conditioning, and in that case, down the toilet goes Frank Turek's argument that our strong moral feelings usually come from God.
  
• Behe was soundly refuted in a court of law in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Dist., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 - Dist. Court, MD Pennsylvania 2005.  The court's entire ruling against ID is here, and the part that kicks Behe's ass all over hell and back begins with the phrase "ID proponents primarily argue for design through negative arguments".  Use ctrl + f to find that phrase.
  
• Behe was defeated again in a later court case:

Plaintiffs offer little admissible evidence to the contrary. Plaintiffs' Biology expert, Dr. Michael Behe, submitted a declaration concluding that the BJU text mentions standard scientific content. (Watters Decl. Ex. U.) However, Professor Behe "did not consider how much detail or depth" the texts gave to this standard content. (Watters Decl. Ex. U ¶ 4.) Therefore, Professor Behe fails to refute one of Professor Kennedy's primary concerns that the nature of science, the theory of evolution, and critical thinking are not taught adequately.

See here.  That ruling was upheld on appeal.  A webpage at USC contains more information and documents.  The page went defunct but can still be found through Wayback.  See here.

• The Christan "apologists" who have been attacking me through my prior court cases (so far, only one, James Patrick Holding and his increasingly vanishing brood of Corinthian juvenile delinquents who mistake their love of strife with spiritual maturity) are hypocrites:  They are positively certain that when a Court ruled against me in a previous case, it was completely obvious that my lawsuit was frivolous or that I was "abusing" the court system.  But when they read another Court decision indicating that Christianity was the loser, then suddenly, we need to recognize that judges aren't perfect and often get things wrong.   In other words, whether the Court's ruling is correct or incorrect depends on whether the ruling speaks favorably or unfavorably about Christians and Christianity.  How convenient.  The more apologists decry the Kitzmiller ruling, the more they assent to the obvious:  Court judges are not paragons of objectivity, despite how the people in steerage gasp for breath and bow down whenever somebody wearing a black robe enters the courtroom.  Anybody familiar with the social controversy of whom the President will appoint as a Supreme Court Justice, is quite aware that judges are human too, and they are not much better at overcoming their biases than the average person is.
  
• Plenty of scientists have criticized Behe's model.  See here and here.
  
• Behe was challenged in live debate by competent scientists.  See here.  You can find him doing more such debates by simply googling "Behe debates"

Anybody clever enough to Google "Behe" and "irreducible complexity" and are willing to acknowledge that creationist websites are not the only sites mentioning his name, can find more proof that biologists and chemists with legitimate scientific degrees are nowhere near as impressed by "irreducible complexity", as is the usually Christian and non-college graduate reader of J. Warner Wallace's populist cheerleading.

If Wallace would honestly acknowledge his article here would not be intended to impress an atheist who has a master's degree in biochemistry, then he is keeping the door open to the possibility that he is only trying to convince laypersons about complex matters because he knows their ignorance will predispose them to overlook his errors and be more quick to just draw the pro-Christian conclusion he was hoping for.

Cold Case Christianity: Wallace's completely bullshit case for God

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cumulative Evidence and the Case for God’s Existence (Free Bible Insert)

Posted: 28 Mar 2018 01:17 AM PDT

My cold cases are typically built on circumstantial evidence.

Probably because you have to admit you have no "direct" evidence for you case.  What you don't tell the reader is that cases that are entirely or mostly "circumstantial" dramatically increase the potential for misunderstanding of convicting of an innocent person.  If your god really cared about rescuing me from my hell-bound ways as much as you insist he does, he would more than likely have made his truths more clear than the stupid fortune-cookie bullshit in the bible that has caused Christianity be the ceaselessly splintered religion its always been for 2,000 years.

Cumulative circumstantial cases are incredibly powerful when considered in their totality;

And a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  Here's the image that comes to my mind when i think of Wallace's chain of cumulative arguments:

the more diverse the forms of evidence (and the more abundant their existence), the more reasonable the conclusion. As jurors consider these large collections of evidence implicating a particular suspect, they must ask themselves a simple question: “Could this guy just be incredibly unlucky, or is he the cause of all this evidence because he is truly guilty?”

And the number of false convictions that has been on the rise in America for the last 50 years testifies that the more circumstantial the case, the more likely it will mislead the independent observer.  Wallace, if you were on trial for murder and you were innocent, and the prosecutor's case was entirely circumstantial, how much faith would you have in the ability of circumstantial cases to reveal truth?  FUCK YOU.

The more the evidence repeatedly points to the defendant, the less likely it is merely a matter of coincidence.

Agreed.

The cumulative case for God’s existence is similarly powerful. There are a number of circumstantial lines of evidence pointing to the existence of God, and the diverse, collective nature of this evidence is most reasonably explained by the existence of a Creator.

And when you allege that this creator is "immaterial" or "non-physical", you are positing things equally as unlikely as "dark matter" and other ridiculous unscientific speculations.  There is no evidence whatsoever that there is even any such thing as a "non-physical" thing that has existence independent of a mind.

This month, we’re featuring a free downloadable Bible insert summarizing a brief cumulative case for God’s existence, built on just five lines of circumstantial evidence:

Do you also plan to issue coupons?  Use sexy women to increase reader response to your god-commercials?  Is there a reason why you promote your god using modern secular marketing techniques that the Holy Spirit apparantly didn't need for hundreds of years?  Or do Christians sometimes get so zealous in their stupidity that they can no longer distinguish convenience from god's will? 

(1) The Temporal Nature of the Cosmos (Cosmological)
(a) The Universe began to exist

No, the standard Big Bang ('BB') model has become so ad hoc that it has evolved  and now takes several alternative forms, all of which do not allow the conclusion that the universe is temporal.  There is plenty of scientific opposition to the big bang, and Wallace's biggest problem is that he cannot explain this opposition as arising from unbelievers who are denying scientific reality merely to avoid having to admit the universe was created.  The Institute for Creation Research, where top academic Christians do all they can to falsify the theory of evolution, also say the Big Bang theory is total bullshit:
 
Maybe Wallace will do as fundamentalists typically do, and also accuse this decidedly conservative Christian think tank of being apostates for denying things Wallace thinks point toward God's existence?

Or will Wallace be objective enough to admit that the BB theory that he thinks is so obvious, actually isn't quite as compelling as he would wish?

Finally, Wallace must worry about how Genesis 1 would have been understood by its originally intended readers/hearers, since this is a basic rule of interpretation or hermeneutics.  it's pretty silly to think the pre-literate Hebrew living in the days of Moses would infer from anything in Genesis that the creation involved an enormous explosion and millions of years of cooling.  They would have understood Genesis to be describing god intelligently creating similar to the way a potter makes pots.  No explosions.  So the more Wallace wants the big bang to be true, the more he supports a theory that is contradicted by the very bible he is trying to justify.

(b) Anything that begins to exist must have a cause

yes, but only in the "re-configuring previously existing atoms" sense. The tree you have in your yard obviously didn't exist 100 years ago, but it didn't come into existence "from nothing", it came from a seed, nourished by other stuff already existing in the nearby dirt.

If THAT is the sense of "begins to exist" that you mean, there is no problem.  Unfortunately, if you meant it that way, then you didn't mean it in the "created from nothing" sense, and in that case, your argument ceases to provide support for the "created from nothing" sense that is meant in Genesis 1:1.

But if you meant "begins to exist" to mean "created from nothing", you hang on to the biblical sense you are apparently arguing for, but then you leave the realm of the scientific:  there is no evidence, whatsoever, that anything has ever popped into existence "from nothing", so the "create from nothing" sense that you meant above, is a sense that cannot be supported by any scientific evidence.  There are at least seven different competing theories of quantum mechanics, and only one of them, the Copenhagen School, alleges that quantum particles can appear from nothing and then go back out of existence again.  So the only possible evidence you could cite, is excessively controversial and cannot be confirmed anyway, and is denied by the majority of physicists.  Such a mater is hardly sufficient to corroborate your claim that things can possibly come into existence from nothing.

And since the first law of thermodynamics says energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed, there is no reason to think that "matter" itself ever once didn't exist.  Matter spends an awful lot of time being reconfigured into new shapes, but there is no evidence that matter itself ever came into existence.  For this reason alone, it is rational to believe the universe and its matter have simply always existed.  You never get anything new by means of previously non-existing atoms.  You only get something new by taking the atoms that already exist and configuring them into new shapes.  When you burn a log to ash in the fireplace, no matter has disappeared into non-existence, it has simply taken on a changed form.  Since there is no such thing as the absolute annihilation of matter (that's why nuclear explosions are either fusion or fission, they aren't removing anything from the universe), it makes more sense to deny your premise and assert that the universe didn't come into existence, but has simply always existed into the infinite past.

(c) Therefore, the Universe must have a cause

your premises were demonstrably false, so your conclusion doesn't follow.

(d) This cause must be eternal (uncaused), non-spatial, immaterial, atemporal, and personal (having the ability to willfully cause the beginning of the universe)

This is what gives rise to the atheist argument from the incoherence of religious language.  In light of there being no scientific evidence for a god, your need to describe your god in terms that defy all attempts at confirmation (what the fuck does "non-spatial, immaterial" mean?), makes it more likely you need to do that because your god is not real by rather the result of a complex reality-defying fairy tale.It doesn't matter if non-physical gods exists, that is YOUR burden and you have failed it, so you have failed to intellectually obligate anybody to admit your position is more reasonable than atheism.  Start defining your god as a physical being, and many of these justified criticisms disappear.  Continue insisting your god lives in the 12th dimension, and continue being told that your imperfect inconsistent mind is the reason your idea of god has the same attributes.

(e) The cause fits the description we typically assign to God

(2) The Appearance of Design (Teleological)
(a) Human artifacts (like watches) are products of intelligent design
(b) Many aspects and elements of our universe resemble human artifacts
(c) Like effects typically have like causes
(d) Therefore, it is highly probable the appearance of design in the Universe is simply the reflection of an intelligent designer

 if the appearance of specified complexity implies intelligent design, then because the creator has to possess at least as much complexity as the thing created, "god" must also possess specified complexity, and therefore, God's own complexity argues for his being intelligently designed no less than does the 'amazing complexity' of the red blood cell.  I will give up atheism if you give up biblical monotheism.  Deal?

(d) Given the complexity and expansive nature of the Universe, this designer must be incredibly intelligent and powerful (God)

he also must be incredibly barbaric, since the existence of vegetarian animals and insects makes perfectly clear that God doesn't "need" to bring meat-eating or carnivorous life forms into existence, who by nature make other life forms miserable by hunting them.  And you cannot say some of the vegetarian animals in the Garden of Eden became carnivorous after Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, because sin would thus be a degrading effect on the animal's DNA, while the DNA responsible for the carnivorous attributes of certain animals is something you would normally ascribe to intelligent design.  If lions originally had molars, the introducing of sin into the world would not and could not cause those molars to evolve into meat-tearing fangs.  So you cannot use "sin" to justify distancing your god from the barbarity in the carnivore animals.  You are required by your own logic to say that God wanted by intentional design for those animals to tear each other apart. THAT is one reason we just laugh in your face when you insist your God is "loving".  Your own intelligent design argument cannot account for the existence of carnivorous animals, without binding you to the proposition that your god gets a thrill out of watching creatures suffer horrific pain and misery.  It's nice to know your God is a drunk college frat boy who endures carpel tunnel from clicking too much on liveleak.

(3) The Existence of Objective Moral Truth (Axiological)
(a) There is an objective (transcendent) moral law

You are crazy, that's a conclusion that you are mischaracterizing as a premise.  If you think there is some objective moral law that transcends the human mind, that's YOUR burden to show.  You don't.  You fail.

(b) Every law has a law giver

 Correct.

(c) Therefore, there is an objective (transcendent) moral law giver

That doesn't follow logically.  You have not demonstrated that any action is "good" solely for reasons that transcend the human mind.  Come up with a hypothetical act of a man and then demonstrate why its goodness or badness MUST derive from something deeper than human opinion.  You aren't gonna do it. There are good purely naturalistic reasons to explain why most civilized adults think pedophilia and murder are immoral, so you cannot even pretend that only God can explain why there is human consensus on certain moral acts.   If we can explain an insect's instinct to defend its young without having to say it was made in the image of god, we can also explain a human being's instinct to defend its young without having to say it was made in the image of God.  

(d) The best explanation for this objective (transcendent) law giver is God

The best explanation for as yes unproven "objective" morals is a being that cannot be defined except by special words that defy all attempts at empirical confirmation. Yet you talk about God's existence as if it was equally as obvious as the existence of trees. Nice going.

By the way "objective" means "true for reasons independent of the human mind". So if you declare any human act to be "objectively" immoral (i.e., murder, rape), then you rightfully shoulder the burden to provide the reason, which has no basis in the human mind, for why that act is objectively immoral.  You aren't going to do it.  If you think murder is objectively immoral, you need to show it so without appeal to what any human being thinks, or what any human being has ever said.  That's the consequences to you when you say the immorality of murder is for reasons that transcend human opinion.  Good luck.

(4) The Existence of Absolute Laws of Logic (Transcendent)
(a) The laws of logic exist

i. The laws of logic are conceptual laws

And "conceptual" only makes sense by presupposing the physicality of the mind.  Otherwise you are talking about concepts in an "immaterial mind", and there you are again, back in fairy tale town.

ii. The laws of logic are transcendent

no, the laws of logic operate the way they do solely because of the way we humans choose to define our words.  The only reason "married bachelor" is a logical contradiction is because we have defined "bachelor" as "not married".

Furthermore, you ignore the fact that there are axioms in reasoning.  Axioms are the absolute first steps in reasoning, so that asking why they function the way they do, is irrational.  If it is the VERY FIRST STEP in reasoning itself, then there will not be a "reason" why that first step or axiom operates the way it does.

Moreover, your argument is using logic to prove logic, which constitutes the fallacy of circular reasoning.  When you ask why A can never be non-A, you are attacking reasoning itself.  If you then use reasoning to explain the reasoning, you are again arguing in a circle or begging the question.  So it would appear that reasoning itself is not subject to reason.  There really is that very first absolute beginning to the reasoning process, you cannot just explain it into an infinite regress.  You know that book is on the table because you can see it.  You know your eyes aren't deceiving you because the book can also be confirmed to be there by touch, taste, smell, and hearing it fall onto the table.  The question "yeah, but how do you know that your 5 physical senses aren't deceiving you" must be answered "I don't".

I think this is where the people so desperate to prove god, therefore suddenly start positing the existence of ESP, the sixth sense, to get away from the above-cited conclusions that otherwise flow from common sense. What's next?  Bigfoot can switch dimensions and that's why we can never get a clear photo of him?

iii. The laws of logic pre-existed humans

Impossible, the laws of logic arise from the way humans define their words.  If we defined "bachlor" as married for less than one year", then "married bachelor" would no longer be a necessary contradiction.

(b) All conceptual laws reflect the mind of a law giver

Not if the law-giver is described in unfalsifiable and incoherent ways, such as "non-physical".   A magic fairy can explain why your car keys turned up missing, but the epistemological problems in the whole concept of "magic fairy" make it reasonable to discard that hypothesis and favor something that coheres with other demonstrated realities.

(c) The best and most reasonable explanation for the kind of mind necessary for the existence of the transcendent, objective, conceptual laws of logic is a transcendent, objective, eternal Being (God)

 If God's logic necessarily permeates the universe, sure is funny that his alleged morals don't.  And Christians who are 5-Point Calvinists don't believe your dogshit "god gave us freewill" excuse, so let God's likeminded ones get their act together before they insist that spiritually dead people should find the splintered house of Christianity to be the last bit compelling.

(5) The Unique Nature of Our World and Universe (Anthropic)
(a) Our universe appears uniquely designed so:

i. Life can exist

Life forms that cause horrific misery to others also exist, they are called carnivores.  So if we keep heading in the direction you wish to go, god's responsibility for "life" constitutes god's responsibility for creating carnivrores, i.e., God intended for certain animals to cause horrific misery to others, their carnivore nature wasn't merely from the degrading effect of "sin", as carnivores possess all those attributes of life you say are intentionally designed by an intelligent mind, no less than the vegetarian animals do.

ii. This same life can examine the universe

(b) This unique design cannot be the result of random chance or unguided probabilities

Why?

(c) There is, therefore, a God who designed the universe to support human life and reveal His existence as creator of the Cosmos

You haven't yet defined "god" in a coherent way, so until that day, there's good reason to view 'god' as the least probable of the possible explanations for life.