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So I read the book "God: The Science, The Evidence" by Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies. It's big, like almost 600 pages, and while it probably doesn't break new ground, it really leans into a lot of the old arguments.

The book starts with a kind of a tour of theistic arguments from cosmology:

* the idea of a steady state universe was a lot more friendly to the materialist viewpoint, but evidence for the the Big Bang came along in the 20th century (which you know, seems to match the vibe of Genesis, as long as you give it a wide enough poetic interpretation.)
* and while there was some hope a Big Bang / Big Crunch cycle might be a kind of recurrence, lately it's been looking like a Heat Death fizzle
* The book spends a weirdly long time on 20th-century ideological pressure around cosmology -- especially communist materialism, and more broadly authoritarian interference with science.
* The old fine-tuning of the universe arguments are here. To me it sometimes seems like drawing a bullseye around where the dart landed, but I guess we had a lot more paths to the universe just being undifferentiated hot glowing plasma or whatever.
* And so the book also takes a lot of time to dismiss "multiverse" or "recurrence" type variations, as just being unscientific guesswork as to what might be "really out there". (I mean I think the assumption it's Just God has the same problem?)
* Like if it wasn't for relativity (and measurable time dilation etc) I would just assume Time wasn't, like, a thing - it was just an overlay describing cause and effect. But when you get to the Big Bang era, it's not clear if cause and effect has the same kind of meaning at that point.

The book then shifts into a more "and so Christianity is probably right mode":

* Some of the problems with Genesis fade away when you take it poetically and the limitations of ancient Hebrew into account.
* I've always found CS Lewis "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord" rhetorically fun but logically too "excluded middle". It depends on a very sure idea of what Jesus said about himself, how quickly the New Testament locked into place, and whether later theological interpretation can be cleanly read back into the historical Jesus.
* The whole Jewish experience, ability to remain cohesive as a culture despite the diaspora, the seeming massive improbability of coming back together as Israel in the 20th century - seems to go in line with some of the prophetic aspect of the Bible.
* Something weird happened at Fátima.
* You need God to have morality that's beyond just "pick what feels right"
* Ye olde why is there something rather than nothing: "the Universe, as well as any contingent reality known or unknown to us, was caused by a necessary, simple, unique, immaterial, atemporal, uncaused, all-powerful, and intelligent being. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to call that being "God"!" - the atemporal and uncaused aspect is definitely tying back to that cosmic cause and effect. I'm not sure the argument of why it has to be intelligent or conscious (especially in any way we understand that) holds up though.

It also takes some time to recapitulate some Materialist arguments - maybe just straw men, but it reads pretty well.

So I dunno. I was looking around online for reviews and refutations. A lot of the stuff you find on like Atheist Reddit boils down to "same old arguments" and "I didn't even bother to read it", which I find kind of lame.

I wish I had more comparative religion study, to know if say the Judeo-aspect was as unique as they imply (they give some lip service to the counter: "Some have argued that [the Jewish people's exile] story is not all that unique, citing possible comparisons with the Armenians, Lebanese, Polish, or some Africans in America who returned later to Liberia.") I mean one thing I've always respected about Hinduism is that it gets the scale of billions and trillions of years closer to what we see than most non-very-poetic readings of Genesis...

But I'm struck by how much rests upon the idea that "the Bible has been protected by God", that somehow it's not a semi-arbitrary assemblage by human curators. And from like a meme-point of view "inerrancy" is a strong if brittle strategy. But strident atheists would throw it all out; most folk Christians would keep it all in. (I think about the Thomas Jefferson take on the bible, where he tried to bring forth the teachings and leave out the miracles and supernatural.)

It's odd to me how much American folk Christianity depends on extra-biblical imagery while also insisting on biblical inerrancy. Ideas like instantly winging off to St Peter at the pearly gates (vs basically being "asleep" til doomsday) seem... just kind of made up? Like isn't that what looking for heresy is meant to be, a defense against folks just making things up?

(I still love Alan Lightman's book "Mr. g" - the idea of an experimenter god making universes without the level of simplistic "well god just knows everything, past and future" - (yet still bothers to create the world even though he knows it will turn out.). In Mr. g god is very loving, and well nigh omnipotent especially relative to critters in his creation, but still chaos and unintended consequences have their say, and a kind of devilry enters even his best universes.)

So where did I land? People prone to belief will probably find this book has bracing arguments, people more skeptical will probably still be skeptical. At any rate I appreciate the approach. No one knows why there's something rather than nothing ("Why is there something rather than nothing?" – "And if there were nothing? You'd still be complaining!") but I guess I'll always have the problem of faith - less that I'm right but the chutzpah of saying so many other people were wrong.