No, I will tell you up front I don't believe the universe and everything in it was invented, and is being managed in real time, by an omnipotent intelligence. This is just superstitious nonsense.

However, the idea that somehow, in some way, intelligence and consciousness is somehow part of, and plays some role in, the cosmos cannot be totally ruled out, and there is even some circumstantial evidence to suggest there may be a connection between the two. After all, even a complete materialist must concede that the material universe has evolved conscious beings. The universe has created structures capable of contemplating itself.

First off, everything we know about physical reality, (nature) is perceived by and interpreted in, the human mind. In fact, it makes no sense to even talk about science without considering the role of observation and data processing of some form--thought. Quantum physics talks about the effect of an observation on what is observed, relativity discusses how the relationship between the observed and the observer determines the nature of the observation. But observation is a psychological phenomenon, not a physical one.

We also know that the universe also has a non-entropic component somehow built into it, something that uses energy to create structures of great complexity; albeit by the breakdown of other complex structures. Entropy is all about information, and words like information, complexity, and observation are essentially psychological phenomena, phenomena that somehow emerge spontaneously from physical systems like biological organisms and deliberately constructed automata. There is definitely something going on that we don't understand.

Evolution involves stochastic processes operating on systems of finite complexity, the elements of chemistry, and yet we get these marvelously elaborate yet ephemeral structures (life forms)evolving through time. You can forget an occasional inefficiency, the fact that living things exist at all is a miracle. They serve no useful purpose but to perpetuate and improve themselves.

No, I can't accept the traditional idea of a god, its all just too childish; too simple to be likely, and too easy to be true. But there is something really profound about the universe that we simply do not understand, something that shouts at us every time we look at it or think about it. Something that seems to be just beyond our grasp, yet all around us and embedded into the fabric of reality. I can barely sense something of great beauty and truth that is all around us. I can't prove it, I can't understand it, and it doesn't care whether I eat meat on Fridays or if I'm married to the woman I'm sleeping with.

But it is there. And I have evolved to the point where I can just barely sense it. Next to that, the Bronze Age bully taught by conventional religion is pretty pathetic.