The gap of the gods

I've recently been reading some materials by Christian apologists and I'd like to comment on what I see as a gap in their arguments. The standard Christian arguments for the God of the Bible usually begin with the natural world. They usually involve cause and effect, fine tuning and complex design. In my opinion, these are all reasonable arguments that have been put forward. Most Christian apologists realize that these are not absolute proofs, but they can be called "clues" that there may be an intelligent designer. At this point they reach a major gap. First, they avoid giving any explanation for how this designer exists, then, they jump directly from an intelligent designer to the Christian God of the Bible.

Some apologists will seemingly cover all their bases by arguing against the God's of some other religions, but overall they give no good reasons for leaping past the gap. I think they fail to see that there are so many possibilities surrounding the concept of an intelligent designer. I would like to grant for a moment that the intelligent design concept is true (although I do think naturalism has a strong case, but that's for a different post). Here are some possible "what if" scenarios I thought of in just a few minutes. There are probably many other "what ifs" that could be dreamed up as well.

• Naturally, we think that God is much like us in ways of consciousness and the ability to effect changes on things, but what if this is not the case. What if the intelligent designer is something like a network of different minds and is not really a single conscious being? That might sound strange, but it's actually similar to the idea of a three in one God.
• What if the creator of our universe is a grand scientist of sorts and he has created many millions of different universes trying out different settings and parameters with each one?
• What if every galaxy has a different deity in charge of it and each galaxy has several inhabited planets for each deity to watch over?
• What if the intelligent designer died at the moment it created life on planet earth, giving it's last breath to create new life for us?
• What if there is an infinity of deities in existence and they have all lived for eternity past in infinite space creating infinite numbers of universes? 
• What if there is a grand hierarchy of deities, with a father and mother type at the top of the chain? The deity that created our world could be several notches down in this hierarchy.
• The intelligent designer could be more or less like a male or could be more or less like a female or could even be similar to a robot or something.
• Perhaps the big bang was caused by two deities smashing into each other in some other dimension in a  sort of galactic jousting match.
• Or perhaps the world was created by small fairies who watch us all the time, but are invisible to us.
• If I take any of these scenarios and add more and more specifics to them, they will gradually sound more and more bogus.

"Why this is madness!" says the apologist, "You are just speculating all of this." Indeed. But think about how much time you have spent speculating about your deity. Don't think you're special because you have piggy-backed on other's theories passed down for a few millennium. The Israelite's concept of Yahweh is not much different than the concept of Ahura Mazda as conceived by the ancient Iranians. Is Christianity special because it has lasted so long and has so many followers? No, for this can also be claimed by other religions.

So we are left with this gap in their argument. Yes, we could be designed. But I think you should stop there. Everything else you can imagine about this designer or designers is speculation. It may be fun to speculate, but things can get ugly if you start assuming too much. If you're not careful, you may end up using your concepts to control other people and even worse begin speaking on the designer's behalf or writing in his name.