Musika:
How should I be framing it, in your opinion? What politics should I be considering?
The politics of an omnimax personality of course. With your repeated use of words like "intervening" etc you seem to be habitually brokering a dumbed down version of God.
Yes, but there is something detectably going on when my consciousness is produced.
The point of citing your consciousness was to help you understand the problem of using inaccurate political language (God doesn't "intervene" anymore than you "intervene" in affairs of your body). If you want to carry on with the analogy to explore ideas of detecting the source of consciousness, it would be just like the progress you would expect to be able to make if all you had to investigate was a wiggling finger.
Looking at it from the other side, his lack of direct appearance in general seems to me to provide little in the way of a conclusive basis for theism.
Again, that is just your suggestion. Others can cite the same body of knowledge, in
general, to offer the opposite suggestion. Citing the workings of this world can be employed for suggestions either for or against.
As such, if you want to limit the discussion to the manner of observing the workings of this world, all you will be left with are suggestions, .... and of course the people who gravitate to suggestions according to their values, etc.
IOW the real question then becomes one of looking at these values.
What additional step do theists such as yourself make to go that extra step beyond the evidence?
What evidence is that?
If the ultimate distance that science can muster is a suggestion (either for or against), what evidence are you talking about here? So far as science is concerned, the only evidence appears to be the values people utilize to arrive at suggestions.
If I have this right, you're saying that you believe that God is in the botany somewhere, but our collective ignorance of botany means that we can't detect God there right now. In other words, its just a faith you have that God is in there somewhere. How do you know that's not just wishful thinking on your part?
I could turn that around and ask you the same question, why you believe that God is not manifest in such activities. Of course you are more than likely to slink back to the "atheism has no beliefs" mantra, but the broader question is "why you believe an observation of phenomena of this world must
necessarily reveal God, if God is to entertained as a plausible entity?"
As far as I can gather, so far you have offered that empiricism grants a limited ability to trace effect to cause or energy to the energetic. Such evidence of cause and effect doesnt reveal God, but then given the definition of God, it's not clear why one would expect the case to be otherwise (actually, at the moment, it looks like the disagreement on what the scientific evidence suggests seems to be primarily a problem on defining God at the onset .... like a God of the political vacuum who "intervenes" vs an omnimax God).
What makes you believe that the only way for God to be accepted as a credible entity is if he appears in such a limited framework?
If you mean to ask how can one arrive at an understanding of God outside of scientific investigation (and thus take the question outside of mere "suggestions"), perhaps it could be helpful to look at how two entities, vastly different in their powers interact.
It's not a completely sound analogy, but for the focus of this one point in particular, it should be sufficient:
Take the example of the remote tribes of the Andaman Islands. Currently they are under the sovereignty of India and all the technological resources afforded by a 21st century econony. The indian government has strict guidelines preventing any outside influences coming to the tribespeople (aside from the hostility they displayed to visitors, there is some concern that their isolation has rendered them vulnerable to the host of diseases we are likely to introduce to them). The tribespeople subsist off foraging and have no seafaring means of transport.
If the tribespeople were to somehow have an understanding of the national sovereignty they are currently existing under, how would it be aroused?
What would be the basis for them ever hoping to understand the situation in any accurate manner, outside of the realm of mere "suggestions"?
Note: I'm not asserting that God isn't in there. It's just that I see no reason now to assume that he is in there, based on what we know for sure. But you must have a reason for making that assumption. Can you tell me what your reason is?
What extra activities do you think you would employ in your life if you became fully convinced God wasn't there?
As a general principle, we tend not to assume that a thing or effect is present unless there is some positive indication of its presence (Occam's razor). There's no need to explain the absence of something that does not appear to be required in light of all the available evidence. I would say that the onus is on those who assert presence to justify their assertion.
A further detail of this "general principle" is that we tend to assume a particular means of analyzing cause and effect is only relevant to the degree we can correctly establish the parameters of the problem. For instance we may look at the sky to make an educated guess about whether it will rain in the next two hours. Even though that establishes itself as a reliable means of investigation, it falls short if we think we also can employ the same means to determine if it will rain at a location 4000km away.
So once again, aside from faith, what is it about the current level of knowledge about tweaking knobs that is sufficient to excise God from the picture in the mind of an atheist?
What do you regard as the last word in epistemology?
Epistemological answers are arrived at according to the problem at hand, and each solution has its associated limitations or problems. However you can talk of a particular type of epistemology having inherent limitations, and thus one could stand above another, in terms of the subjects it makes available.
... texts identify six pramanas as correct means of accurate knowledge and to truths: perception,inference, comparison and analogy, postulation, derivation from circumstances, non-perception, negative/cognitive proof and word, testimony of past or present reliable experts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pramana
Looking at the above quote, which epistemological method would you think has recourse to knowledge which is unavailable to all others?
....and part 2