I think it's bullshit.

I can not disprove the existence of a deist style god, nor of a greater intelligence/consciousness behind, or hidden within, the natural universe we see. ( I am agnostic. ) But I can disprove the claims for a theist god, and that is good enough. Because a deist god, or supernatural intellect, which is invisible and does not communicate, does not affect in any way, my materialist and naturalistic world view.

If you have time however, I would like to tell you a story about something much more interesting, muffins.

Suppose for a minute, and for the sake of argument only, that there is a god, and an afterlife, including heaven and a hell; and that the god chooses whether people go to heaven or hell, in fact the whole theist deal. Not only that, but the criterion on which the god makes the choice is based on the type of muffins they eat. ( Note: “eat” not prefer, this is not about free will or anything like that.) People who eat lemon muffins go to heaven and people who eat chocolate muffins go to hell, with limbo for those who don't eat muffins at all, naturally.

Would that make a difference to your life ? Would you give up your chocolate muffins for an eternity of joy, and all the lemon buns after death you could ever eat ? Perhaps you would. But there is one vital thing that I forgot to mention about this god, which is that; this particular god, does not tell you about his thoughts on muffins, or how they affect your after life, at all. In fact it keeps the whole thing a big secret just to itself. So that you have no way of knowing which muffins you have to eat.

Then in that case, of course, you could not make the appropriate changes to your life, or save your soul anyway. In fact muffins, the gods preferences and even that god, would not impact on your life at all.

The point is this. That a gods, souls, the afterlife etc. have no effect on anything, unless that god/spirit, or someone who knows, tells you about it, and you therefore have some knowledge of god's cake prejudices. Making this the big difference between religion, which pretends to offer knowledge of god the afterlife etc., and none belief which does not. Which is why the difference between atheists, humanists, agnostics and even deists, is so small and unimportant by comparison, because none claim any knowledge of gods preferences. And it is the pretense of fake knowledge, and of god given authority, which makes the big difference. Compared with that the differences between atheist and agnostic, even deist, are trivial to the point of vanishing.

If, as you say, the contention that a supernatural entity created the earth and human life is slightly more debatable than theism, then the debate should have taken place in a southern christian primary school during the 50's.

What is it about planetary formation and abiogenesis that you attribute to a god in your debate?

The deism contention is a claim that is devoid of any supporting falsifiable evidence. There is also no such thing as proof in science. See also @Flyingsaucesir's comment that the Big Bang is the best model that we currently have about the nature of the universe.

If deism is going to be supported, the "dei" in question could be the Committee of Little White Mice, or the Wagyl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagyl), or anything else equally absurd.

There is strong evidence that the big bang actually occurred.

It's better than Evangelical Christianity, or any other fundamentalist credo, by a long shot!

My opinion is obvious...

And given the parameters, what action(s) should be taken, and why?
The answer is patently Nothing, or in the vernacular, who gives a flying fuck?
Would it make any difference other than keeping you ruminating instead of taking out the garbage like you promised?
Have you noticed i find this pointless type of thinking extremely Annoying yet?

How can anyone know for sure?

Ask one question, is there any supporting evidence?
If the answer is no, then your logical default position should be to assume that there is no reason to assume there is any truth in the contention that some or any kind of deity exists.

They can’t. On any of those. Including theism.

Why not just accept the fact that we can’t, at this point in time, know certain things, and then take, tentatively, into our worldview only those things for which we do have adequate evidence?