These are the sort of assertions made by theists when attempting to explain the origin of the universe, or life, or the laws of physics, or consciousness. Few theists will attempt to explain how or why God did things, just that he did. Somehow...

Often these arguments are used to try to impress atheists - "See how beautiful nature is? God must be so awesome to be able to create such things".

This is not impressive, however. Quite the opposite.

Let me elaborate. I am, among other things, a juggler. An amateur juggler - I can juggle clubs, balls, hoops and ride a unicycle and use a diabolo. I know a few tricks, but I am fairly low down the ladder in terms of juggling talent. But I know what is needed to become a really good juggler. I know how much effort is required, how many hours of practice it takes to learn a new trick.

A few years ago I was at a juggling convention, and one evening a show was given for the public in a large circus tent. The audience consisted of about half jugglers and half members of the public. The reactions of the two groups to the acts on stage were quite interesting. One person would come on and perform a very impressive trick, with lots of flourishes and spectacular moves, and the public would go wild whilst the jugglers weren't really moved. Another would come on and perform a small trick, and the jugglers would go wild whilst the public wondered what the fuss was about. The difference was that the jugglers recognised a really difficult move when they saw it, and were astonished that anyone could effortlessly do something that they knew was so difficult; but a standard trick was something they could all do even though the public were amazed at it.

Likewise, seeing somebody perform a extremely difficult stunt, like juggling eleven hoops, can impress the knowledgeable - but they know that in order to perform such a trick the juggler must practice it for several hours every day for years. A lot of effort has gone into acquiring the skill, and while it is clearly difficult it is at the same time rather unimpressive. The juggler audience would expect no less for such an amount of work, whereas the public audience would not realise the amount of work involved to achieve it.

This is why I'm not likely to be impressed by alleged displays of greatness from a God. If he is omnipotent, creating a universe, a human or a small pebble are equally trivial tasks. God, supposedly, has been all-powerful for eternity. He didn't even have to learn omnipotence - it was already built in (somehow - another "mystery" no doubt). To say that we should be amazed at the universe created by God is like a master juggler saying "Look! I can hold one ball in my hand and waggle it around a bit! Brilliant, eh?"

The omnipotent God could have made a much better job of things as well. We have earthquakes, floods, meteorites, volcanoes, disease, parasites, predators and vermin. The master juggler dropped the balls, it would seem.

So you say God did it? So what? Someone who clambers onto a unicycle and spends hours trying to master it, and makes their first wobbly traversal of a yard is far more impressive than an omnipotent God saying "Look! Mountains! Fish! Stars! See how clever I am?"

So much for the theistic worldview, which essentially says "A magic man in the sky made it all with magic."

The non-theistic worldview is far richer and more satisfying. To learn that human consciousness (along with mountains, fish and stars) developed gradually over millions of years is far, far more impressive than saying "Poof! God did it!".

We can, in theory, trace our ancestry back through an unbroken line of ancestors - to the earliest humans, the apes, mammals, amphibians, fish and single-celled organisms before them. Countless generations, an intricate dance of gene-lines seamlessly flowing to the first life on Earth.

Mountains are still being formed. Life is still evolving, and new species are forming from old ones. We can watch the birth of stars in nearby nebulae. Creation, if you want to call it that, is an ongoing process driven by purely natural mechanisms. Stars do not form instantly, fiat lux happens over geological timescales.

The awe and majesty of the naturalistic view renders the mumblings of religion insignificant. To say that God snapped his cosmic fingers and magicked things into existence makes the beauty and wonder of the Earth and the rest of our universe little more than a cheap conjuring trick.

Evolution tells us how life has developed on this planet over thousands of millions of years - a positive feedback system which adapts to the environment at the same time it is changing that environment. Geology describes the imperceptible movements of whole continents, trillions of tons of rock colliding and pushing up mountain ranges. Cosmologists tell us how entire galaxies collide, billions of light years away, caused by the simple tug of gravity. No transcendent magician is required to explain these things or enforce a sense of awe when observing them.

Those who insist that their particular deity is the cause of all things insult and belittle both the intelligence of their audience and the natural wonders they hold up as evidence.

There is infinitely more pleasure to be gained from watching the amateur master her first hard trick, than seeing the professional shove her aside and demand applause for doing nothing special.