What if God were not omnipotent, but instead impotent?
The whole concept of omnipotence sucks. It is an infinite exponentiation of everything, it's silly. If God were omnipotent he could cure all evil, send everyone to Heaven and delete Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It's just too self-contradictory a concept to work. But what if he were impotent?
Let’s posit that there is a God, and that he did create the universe. He used his infinite wisdom to devise the exact balance of forces and masses and other subatomic particular behaviour that would result in the formation of atoms, molecules, stars, planets and life. Then he said “Let there be Light”, lit the blue touch-paper and retired. Just to stretch that analogy a little further, once it was set to explode it was too late to stop it, to affect it’s process or to do anything other than to watch.
So He created a universe and it is governed by the rules he put in place, but they are physical rules affecting only matter.
He is still God. He is omniscient and thus pretty much omnipresent, but he’s not omnipotent. In fact he’s impotent in real terms. He can’t make a mountain fall, kill all of the Egyptian firstborn boy babies, (which would be a bastardly thing to do anyway), all he can do is watch. However we have had Heisenberg to point out that you cannot observe without affecting the observed. So we also accept that God’s observation of his universe will result in small changes. Possibly changes at the level of human consciousness. This is where I am leaping a bit. I have no idea what effect God’s observation of us might have.
Assume, though, that the all-knowing deity is smart with it, and it’s not too great a stretch to assume that He might be able to modify or control the effects of his interference. So He could possibly use his tiny effect on our universe to affect the thoughts of individuals. Hence there would be people who suddenly get a Saul on the road to Tarsus moment, and there would be those who would think “Wait a moment. I’m being a bastard. I should love God and my neighbours” and there might also have been people who were told stories about how the universe was made. God did it.
It may be easier to imagine that God would use his minimal influence to convince rainbows to spell out the Truth, or Ducks to quack the old testament, but He's omniscient; He doesn't need to, He can manipulate human brains.
In the good old days of n Millennia BC He would have explained that He made the universe and the story sunk in. After that all that's needed is just an occasional, personal tweak. Once the concept of "God the Creator" had been passed to the religious guys of long ago the message would be there. The rest would be an occasional nudge or warm, fuzzy feeling.
As a hypothesis, it covers the observable facts, explains why so many people believe in God, and why he never does anything to prove that he exists.
So what are the weaknesses of this hypothesis, apart from the fact that it’s probably untestable, and makes assumptions without any evidence. You must admit it makes more sense than the Bible.
You may ask "What use is a God that can't do anything until we die?", to which I would ask,What's the point of the gods we have, that supposedly can do whatever they want, but allow babies to be raped, kittens to be stomped and the IDF to shoot little old ladies and kids in Gaza? At least mine has a grand plan and His hands tied over the 'little' things. He's not all mouth and no trouser like Jehovah, Allah and the others.
He's still God. When you die you still get sucked into His infinite grace. He created the universe and can listen to every individual thought in it; how awesome is that? Impotent, but much better than the current God.