“...don’t subscribe to a wrathful god who needs to be worshipped. Since a child, I always found that petty. How could a benevelant god who created the entire universe need or even want to be worshipped?”
Whoa - you made several assumptions about what you think I believe simply because I said basically it’s not the relative intelligence of the people Jesus may have chosen to visit at a particular time in history that determines who in fact he is or is not.
I didn’t make any statements about what I believe about God’s view of our world or his benevolence (perhaps so-called) or even his desire to be worshipped.
I used to think I understood this kind of thing much better than I do now. There are a lot of things I used to be quite dogmatic about that I am not now. Maybe it’s getting older, more jaded, I don’t know.
I do know that opening the door even slightly on questions about God gets folks ramped up real quick. All I know is, God makes no attempt to be who we think he should be. He doesn’t conform to our image of him. Things we don’t like or accept about him make no difference to him. He is who he is. We can’t do a thing about it.
As to why he put us here and gave us free will, some part of me believes he may have actually longed for a friend, or someone to talk to. Like he talked with Moses and David and Elijah and Paul. I do believe he is a relational being.
"As to why he put us here and gave us free will, some part of me believes he may have actually longed for a friend, or someone to talk to."
Interesting that you would say that. Years ago there was a book called "Conversations With God" where the author forwarded the same theory. I thought that as good explanation as any as to why God dedided to put life on this speck of a rock out of the entire unfathomable universe.
Yours and his hypothesis is still workable for me. I just can't believe the universe and/or Earth was created for a god that needs validation through worship and forgiveness for Old Testament sins written by superstitious men. That is a petty human need. Doubt that such a being would need or even want that. If so, I want nothing to do with him/her/it.