‘Miracles are not against nature, but against what we know of nature’ ~ St Augustine

So as what we know of nature expands, so-called miracles disappear.
Case in point: lightning.

Space Dweller: What do you consider "new theology"?

Glad you asked.
https://adamford.com/NTheo/NewTheology.pdf

I see where you're coming from but if God is physical light then God is absent in a dark room.
I think you're on the right track. Here's a PDF you may like.
https://adamford.com/NTheo/NewTheology.pdf

"I think you are misrepresenting the design argument."

The OP clearly states what I mean by the design argument.
The argument by design briefly is that the universe is like a machine; machines have intelligent designers; like effects have like causes; therefore, the universe as a whole has an intelligent designer, which is God.

No one owns a copyright on "design argument" so if you decide that phrase means something else, fine.

“We need to look at the Kalam cosmological argument's single/unitary cause as a sufficient cause (can be single) and not as a necesary cause (can be/are multiple).”

Aren’t necessary conditions a subset of sufficient conditions?
Isn’t the same true for necessary and sufficient causes?
Think about it and let me know if you disagree.

Occam's razor is a reasonable response but if we change Premise 1 we are no longer talking about the Kalam as it's presented. Let's call Kalam + Occam's razor "Kalam 2"

Kalam 2 has some problems (which it shares with the original Kalam) but that would be the subject of another post so as not to divert this post.

Haglund,

But existing religions disagree and use an inferior way of knowing that often leads to untruth; such religions serve State but not necessarily truth. — Art48
Can't the same be said of science nowadays?

No.

Religions use an inferior way of knowing - faith and authority – and so cannot agree. Christianity can’t even agree on how to be saved. And religion has dogma, which cannot be rejected.

Science uses a better way of knowing – loosely called the scientific method. Science converges to reality. Scientists throughout the world accept the sciences of chemistry, biology, etc. while religions have had thousands of years to converge, but haven’t. Ask a Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist what happens after death and you’ll get contradictory answers.

Tom,

“And you are probably aware that reason is a key tool used by Christian apologists to argue for god - with a long history of Greek philosophy influencing church arguments (ontological and cosmological).”

I don’t find the apologist arguments I’ve seen (for example, William Lane Craig) convincing. Apologists IMHO embrace reason only in so far as it supports dogma.
Here’s a YouTube clip discussed this further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ene62RkIwNo

“This is a standard trope we often read. But apart from being a rhetorical device, does it get us anywhere?”

It describes part of the Wall.

“This is a standard trope we often read. But apart from being a rhetorical device, does it get us anywhere? You could also reverse this idea, as other commentators have done, and argue how special, how extraordinary and improbable it is that on this tiny spec of the universe, conscious life exists - it must be by design, given the odds against it.”

The intelligent design argument is an example of using reason only in so far as it supports dogma. If God designed the universe so that conscious life can exist, then God also designed the universe so that childhood cancer could exist.

By truth I mean correspondence with reality.

From an article I'm writing.

Today, we know the universe is billions of years old, not thousands. We know bacteria and viruses cause disease, not sin and demons. We know there are (literally!) more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all Earth’s beaches. Scientists believe there are roughly as many planets as stars.

Imagine on some distant planet, beings who look like rabbits worship the Great Rabbit who created everything. Or imagine spider-like beings who worship the Great Mother Spider who spun out the web of the universe. Old Theology would call such “Gods” false Gods. Or, more charitably, it might call them personifications of the one, true God.

New Theology regards the Gods of planet Earth as personifications of the one true God: the ultimate ground of existence, the foundation of reality.

I'd say that "God" is not a genuine explanation.
Neither is "Well, that's just the way things are" a genuine explanation.

A basic objection to a physical explanation for consciousness is that finding physical correlates fails to explain consciousness. Here's an 8-minute YouTube clip that makes this point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qTAYIV8FLo