Still not a theist...

A quick followup to this long-ago post: Being a theist requires believing in several things. Specifically,

• 
  

That God exists;

That God is benevolent;

That God is able to communicate with us in a way we can perceive;

That God is willing to do so;

That God has done so;

That this communication has included God's preferences regarding our behavior;


That we have noticed this communication;

That we have understood or interpreted it correctly.

One further thought: Acceptance of any one of those propositions, or all of them up to some specified proposition, implies little to nothing about the truth-value of the next. That is, assuming, for example, that God exists and is benevolent, says nothing about whether it is possible for a (presumably-infinite) being to interact with finite beings in a way they can perceive; whether any such communication has been made; and so on.

Not only are the assumptions very large, the causality connecting them is tenuous at best.

UPDATE: One further assumption should be slid in there: that any communication about preferences for our behavior have been unambiguous and non-contradictory.