It's natural to speculate and it is something I have thought about a lot, as I am sure you have as well. To be cheerfully agonistic is to challenge God, if he exists, to manifest Himself in a way that can be rationally accepted.
What does that mean? In my case, simply, if God exists and wants me to worship him (silly notion) he knows my address and can ping me directly.
Beavas and I were quoting the Notebooks of Lazarus Long earlier, so I think I will throw out my favorite quote on the subject from there.
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
Note here that Heinlein was not denying the existence of God, it is more of a dig at the organized religions and the people that run them.
How does that saying go? The first priest was the first con-man who met the first chump.
I won't quite go that far, but I was tickled pink by a t-shirt I saw a few weeks ago that said, God is too big to fit into any one religion.
I've always wondered about that, how people can hold their god in such poor standing as to think he would be flattered by praise from such lowly, flawed creatures.
This manifests itself in most prayers having at least 4 out of the following 5:
- Statement of problem: Tell him how bad things are going for you, although he already knows
- Statement of wishes: Tell him what you want him to do for you, although he already knows
- Statement of beneift: Tell him how his actions will benefit his wishes, although he already knows and probably would have done it if he wanted to
- Gift of thanks: Must give the all-powerful being who could have anything by simply wishing it something in return
- Praise: Butter up the all-knowing, all-powerful being because that will make him receptive to your pleas
This is very evident, for example, in Psalm 69, which can be condensed to "These people are making my life miserable, so please make their lives miserable. We'll all praise you in return and return to the city you want us to be in. You're great, thanks a lot."