Current Christian arguments for the existence of a designer-god in the universe, even those not based on 6000-year Creationism, often are based on the likelihood of life on Earth or life in the universe. However, we must realize that they are not trying to propose a testable hypothesis about God. In fact, most of their arguments are contradicted by other pro-God arguments--but the public does not realize this as long as the Christian speaker is not dumb enough to place these arguments side by side.
So here they are:
1. The Earth is so unique that there is probably no place like it in the rest of the universe. (Add facts about the stability and distance of its orbit, the nature of water, the active crust, and some mumbo-jumbo about how nice it is to have a moon). This proves that the Earth is so special it must be designed! Problems? Besides ignoring that we evolved to fit the Earth, and that scientists think the Earth's original atmosphere was modified BY the evolving life-forms (no oxygen in the beginning), this argument assumes that A) God has to work within his own laws of physics (more on this later) and B) that no other form of life is possible except ours, ignoring the fact that some life has been found on sea floors, simple life has been found deep in the crust, and there are organisms that are actually poisoned by oxygen.
2. What about the opposite? IF it was proven that there was life on other planets, would this disprove God? Of course not. When the (controversial) announcement of life on Mars was made a few years back, many Christians pounced on this news as evidence FOR God. After all, a universe teeming with habitable planets and life is obviously better evidence for God than a universe where life only clings to the thin, delicate surface of one tiny planet like pond scum, isolated in one small solar system in the armpit of a mediocre galaxy out of tens of billions of galaxies. Wouldn't a universe full of life on all its worlds glorify the creator? Both arguments of course depend on the likelihood of alien life, which itself is of unknown probability, to support the probability of a supernatural alien that messes around with everything.
3. The UNIVERSE is so unique that there is probably no place like it. (Add facts about gravity and other constants, and how it is so nice for them to allow stars and planets to form). This proves that the universe is so special it must be designed! Problems? Consider that before the expansion, the universe was deadly to our form of life (infinitely dense) and that as the age of the universe approaches eternity the universe will also be devoid of our form of life (as expansion and entropy causes the 'heat-death' of the universe). Therefore, the 'life' age of the universe is temporary and very brief (compared to its apparently infinite duration in a lifeless state) and even within this time 99.9999999% of the volume of the universe is deadly (we can't live in space) and of the matter worlds, we can't live on stars or gas giants or most other worlds. Even on the Earth we Humans can't live inside it, or too high up in the air, or underwater, or in the deserts, or on the ice-caps, and we die quickly enough even in the places we can survive (which we evolved to adapt to, BTW). Not a good design at all. Of course, this goes back to the miracle argument #1 (since the universe is so horrible it's a miracle we exist at all) but this contradicts the premise that the universe itself is a miracle.
Once again, the whole miracle argument assumes that God has to work within his own laws of physics. This is a most absurd proposition about any god. People say there is only one way gravity could be set up to make our universe, in any other it would expand or collapse too quickly. But God could think of a million other ways to make a universe as healthy of Human life as our own WITHOUT gravity at all, by replacing it with Force X or Power Z or whatever he likes. Because a god can do anything he or she wants! In fact, if you can imagine a universe where planets are ten miles apart instead of light-years apart, and the whole vastness of space is filled with oxygen and nobody gets sunburned because the stars are user-friendly, or whatever improvements you could think of, God could make that too. Not only can we imagine an infinite number of BETTER universes than our own, every religion claims that there ARE better universes, perfect Heavens/paradises for us to go to when we get killed off in this painful, inferior world. Where am I going with this? Once you admit the universe we live in is not the BEST POSSIBLE for Human life the design argument collapses. "Pretty good" is not a convincing argument for design, in fact anything less than a perfect creation disproves God in my opinion. I don't need incompetent gods.
(Agan, like #1, the miracle-universe argument also assumes no other form of life is possible except ours)
4. Of course IF we do discover infinite alternate universes with life, some superior to ours, someone would just argue that this is proof of God, since many universes full of life are far more glorious a creation than just one. Bruno got burned by the church for this opinion once, but that wouldn't prevent some church from adopting it eventually.
So, what exactly would disprove God? NOTHING! Any argument can be used to prove the design of the universe as long as nobody puts the logic under any kind of scrutiny. There is NO testable hypothesis about religion itself, especially since any uncomfortable facts (Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, Quantum physics) can eventually be swallowed by re-interpreting vague scriptures which were supposed to be the unchanging absolute word of the gods. There will never be an honest union of science and religion, only the misuse of science as propaganda BY religion (the way racists, Creationists, Nazis and Communists use it).
Maybe the only way to get religionists to shut up about the design of the universe is if the universe did not exist at all. Then again, they would probably argue that "since God is complete and perfect he has no need or desire to create anything, therefore the nonexistence of the universe is proof of God". Ignoring the fact that nobody would exist to say this or hear it, which probably cuts to the real origin of religious speculation. In fact, maybe I should promote this argument now, since anyone who believes it would start having difficulty believing anything else.
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