Astounding, as a medical professional you choose to ignore pathogenic bacteria that have adapted to their environment to become resistant to antibiotics. Isn't that the basis for evolutionary theory? (and please don't drag out that sad disingenuous dodge that it is only a theory. . .)
Or is bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics another of your 'miracles'.
Ongoing mutation & natural selective pressure aren't problematic for me. But there had to be an organism with a sufficiently complex functional genome to maintain & propagate itself. Nothing about drug resistant bacteria bother me in that respect.
Why in heaven would the creator of the universe want to be worshipped? This suggests a serious character flaw.
It seems to me that the God who has left such abundant evidence would be content to leave things at that, and not require people to bow down and pay obeisance. This makes God sound like a celestial version of Donald Trump.
With God as the creator and basically the reason it's all here, it makes sense to orient our lives & selves around Him, and as for Him caring for His created beings coming as a surprise to you, that's no surprise to me, because it would be strange indeed if God only acted as we would have anticipated. Worship can bring us into better harmony with Him. It doesn't have to be about meeting some ego need; worship can bless the worshipper.
One theme I've seen in this type of discussion is that if God speaks & acts in a way that makes sense to humans, skeptics reason He was fabricated by man. Clearly mankind wrote His script, so to speak. But if God speaks & acts in a way that contradicts what many skeptics would have anticipated He would (e.g.: critical of the gay lifestyle), then they reason He's not real because the account of Him doesn't make any sense.
I would acknowledge its existence. I would not worship it though, because the bible tells us that this god is a sadistic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, blood-thirsty madman.
I'm not sure how that would work though. Like you said, I would be more inclined to believe that it is indeed an alien with vastly superior technology. I do know though, that if your god really did exist, it should know what it would take to convince me.
Since you wouldn't follow Him if you did believe He existed, there's no point in revealing Himself to you. Realizing God exists, in & of itself, is pretty useless unless you then respond rightly. Again we see that even if you were convinced of the existence of God, rather than submit yourself to His will & authority, you would presume to pass judgment on Him according to your sense of morality.
It seems you know enough of God (however severely distorted it may sound to those of us who love Him) to have made a choice regarding Him, even without accepting His existence.
One term you brought up I'll take issue with, though it's a hair-splitting point. Homophobic? Ridiculous. An almighty God of all creation fears nothing. 'Phobic' refers to fear. I think the gay rights lobby has done a slick marketing job snowing the public into buying into the idea that if you don't like the active practice of homosexuality, or believe it to be wrong, then you are 'homophobic' or a 'homophobe.' You're
scared of the gays! There are many things I don't like that I don't feel personally threatened by. Regardless of where one stands of the gay rights issue, or the moral position of practicing homosexuality, it's a crap term. Mud slinging, in fact. After all the name calling gays endured, it's ironic to see some of them & their supporters doing much the same thing.
Richard.
