@msg768, thanks for your thoughtful post. I would tend to agree with much of what you're saying.
A question, though... you said, "Criminals tend to hide their crimes and tend not to leave any evidence behind, so they may not get caught. In the same way, we would expect an evil god to not want to get caught."
I wonder if this is a difficult argument... Don't criminals hide their crimes out of fear of having to pay for them? Maybe an evil god would have no need to fear anything. But an even deeper question is, could a god even be evil or good? Would it be closer to say that a god who creates all of existence also would by definition define good and evil, so the god itself could only be neutral. What do you think?
Thanks for reading.
I don't think that's the only reason. I think there is a higher reason. They fear for their reputation and the respect they can lose. And I also think it's not correct to say that a powerful god doesn't have anything to pay if he's "caught". I think he would still have a lot to lose. His creation would hate him for the right reasons and I don't think anyone in their right mind would wanna be rightly hated and despised?
I would say whatever we conceive to be good or evil, is ultimately grounded in our nature so it ultimately depends on our nature. If there is no god, or if the god who's created us is evil and not trustworthy, he may as well have given us a different understanding of good and evil that is not ultimately true; in this case our moral judgements are also nothing but an illusion. This goes back to what I concluded in my writing that we must trust God - we have no choice. In other words, if we want to draw any moral conclusion about anyone or anything, especially about God, we have no choice but to first and foremost trust God. We can't trust what God has created, but not trust God Himself. That's a self-defeating and contradictory kind of trust.