The point is, that we can both regard the other as arrogant from our own viewpoints, while I doubt either of us really is..
I myself am stuck between three poles.
No God, which is easy, but plagued with dishonesty. It is a view put forth by many so-called 'scientists'. But no true scientist would make any such flat declaration. Scientists observe phenomena, study them and try to replicate them consistently. From the process, they derive hypotheses and theories which attempt to explain and predict the phenomena. No real, honest scientist would ever claim to have a final and definitive answer to anything - that goes against the very nature of the scientific method. So to flatly declare that there is no God is as irrational as it is to flatly declare tthere is one depite the complete lack of verifiable evidence. I no longer do that.
The Petty God. The God of the Bible who created humans for an unknown purpose and allowed them to fall away from that purposewhen he culd have easil prevented it. The God who, while professing love for humankind, tortures them (or permits them to be tortured) daily, for hundreds of thousands of years, with hunger, disease, war, tyranny and "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" (nobody says it like Bill). The God who has defined a single way by which humans can avoid eternal torment, a way the majority of the teeming dead (who will always outnumber thel iving), those who died more than two thousand years ago, and most of those who have died since, had no way of knowing about, much less taking. A way which woud require me to bow the head, bend the knee and throw away my authentic self. This at the whim of a petty, vengeful, thin-skinned tyrant who, despite being all-powerful and omnibenevolent, sits and watches us live in misery and die in agony every day and does nothing. No. Never at any cost.
The distant God. Parsimony. What is needed and no more. The hallmark of good design. If the Universe was created, it was not created for us. No intelligent designer would be so wasteful. A simple Ptolemaic model would have been sufficient and efficient, no matter how many other intelligent beings there might be. If Gds' aim is to enourage spiritual development, then either each race would be in it's own Ptolemaic crystal sphere, or the Universe would be smaller, more life-hospitable and it would be easier for the various races to meet and interact. But the Universe is vast and varied and anti-life. Billions, trillions, even quintillions of life-forms are still a drop in an unimaginably vast ocean, and the likelihood of meeting and interaction is slim to none. Would a God interested solely in life-forms have created such a place? I rather think not, I wouldn't, and God is, in theory, a lot smarter than I! So if there is design, if there is purpose, it is something much bigger, more important, than the post-mortem destinations of a few clever but quarrelsome apes! This view I find comforting and comfortable. It leaves us free to be responsible only to and for ourselves, involves no travesty of justice, and does not place a monster in charge of us. It also robs us of excuses for not amending ourselves!
I do not insist on the absolute truth of my ideas. I got here by myself, at the cost of much thought and emotional upheaval. There is no guarantee that I will not find something that will change everything.
As a final thought, if a God like the Biblical one - a non-schizophrenic, non-psychopathic, non-murderous version, of course - exists, then He would behave very differently. He would live among us openly, treat us as fellow rational beings and fully explain his plans and purposes. That is what a good, loving God would do, surely?
