I'll start with your last three questions.
1. My position is leaning towards, no God because of science and my understanding of the Bible, of Tillich's theology, of Thomas Aquinas philosophy, of my understanding of Church history.
What does science have to do with God existing or not? It has nothing at all to do with it.
Your understanding of the Bible is flawed if you think that means there is no God. Spiritual things are understood spiritually, as they are spiritually discerned. You should ask why it is you cannot understand rather than thinking it is wrong. There are others who understand it, and a lot of them. As for other peoples words, I have met no one yet that I agree with totally, as I am sure there are many on this forum that would say the same about me... but we look for what we understand and what makes sense to us. Reality is, as they say, what you make it. We answer for what we are, what we do, and what we say.
2. Everything comes from nothing.
"In the first century BCE, the Greek philosopher Lucretius wrote that "Nothing can be created from nothing" and this assertion exerted a powerful influence over subsequent philosophers. For a long time, science just did not have a good explanation for the existence of all the matter in the universe and it was assumed that the existence of matter was just a given, an initial condition that we just had to accept and proceed from there. Religious people seized on this "How can something come out of nothing?" question to try and argue that the very existence of the universe violated of the law of conservation of energy and implied the existence of a creator who can violate such laws. In other words, it was a Deep Mystery that science has no explanation for and that could only happen by the will of a creator."
As I have said, and as scientists have said, when they say nothing, it is not ''nothing'' in the sense of the common man's understading. It is just nothing that we know of that is part of the physical world or understanding. Even a child knows you need something to get something, that is cause and effect. Eventually there then has to be the ultimate One, and that then is the Origin of everything. By necessity it has to exist. Nothing is a stupid argument and is there to lead people about from thinking of ''something'' which might make them think of God.
"But the hope of religious people that they had finally found a safe niche for god where he no longer risked being flushed out by those pesky scientists has been dashed, just like all the other similar hopes of the past. The creation of the universe does not violate the law of conservation of energy. God is once again found to be superfluous."
Big Bang for beginners-13: Does the Big Bang theory violate the law of conservation of energy? | Machines Like Us
God is everything, and everything reflects what has gone before. If you want an idea of what God is, look around you. You see a reflection in a mirror and think because you see the reflection you don't need the source... but that is a tragic mistake, for without the source you have no image.
The problem is fundamental in the sense that most think that God is somehow separate to what we see, and so if we can't see him he does not exist, and , also, if we can explain what we see, we don't then need the designer, as we seem to have a self assembling universe. No one stops to think of how complex it is and why it would even evolve the way it does. The answers range from, ''Why not'' to the ''Multiverse'', both of which are not sufficient answers. The multiverse is only part of the fractal reflective process of God in the first place. One day science might well find evidence of it, and then they will think they really don't need God. People like Dawkins will be happy and smug thinking that now everyone will die, just like him. I find it beyond the pale that they don't even open to this idea of God more and try to bring the best of it out rather than throw it all away. But then that is because God exists, and their minds are shut off. Thus the idea is repellent to them and they cannot accept it as much as some try.
We are now what we were before. There is nothing new under the sun.
3. You assume correctly. But with "sound" understanding
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"The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27). The image of God in man is not physical, but metaphysical, i.e., it refers to man's moral, spiritual, and intellectual capabilities; it also refers to man’s calling to exercise dominion in the world. Theonomy is a logical deduction from the biblical doctrine of man’s creation. If man is made in God’s image, and if he is charged to take dominion in God’s name, then he is under the rule of God’s law. Tillich’s metaphysics are problematic, but his logic is correct: When a man realizes his true being (a creature made in God’s image), he will repent of his autonomy and embrace theonomy."
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Paul Tillich and Biblical Theonomy | Darash Press
But theonomy or being governed by God means what? We are part of him as he is part of us. We are part of the same consciousness that develops and makes that One consciousness. We are the base level, that which is cast out. That is why we kill etc. The higher consciousness is above and the highest is the pinnacle and what we think of as God. It is one of the same consciousness. There is no difference. In trying to explain away God, you are explaining away yourselves.
How anyone can accept that the universe self assembles in all its complexities and with complex life without any guiding principle in the first place is beyond me. Perhaps the problem is too big for most of us. Thankfully though there are scientists who can see it, for all those scientists who don't.
The reason I assumed that you must have believed at some point is because most atheist minded people always jump up and down about the subject... they are pruned out, cast out of the house, and look back in through the window whilst we take part of the feast. They have no evidence as atheist only blind faith, yet, yet, it is they who blindly and arrogantly think it is us who have blind faith.
I will leave you with this simple thought, It is better to have an existence of something with intelligence, than an existence of something without. One works, one does not. Chaos cannot form itself, it is chaos, it needs intelligent procedures to shape it. That is God.
You are welcome to enter it madam, with your dust on your feet...haha