To cut to the chase — by answering your final question: “What’s your take?” — there is no evidence for any claim made by theists who go on about what they believe. What people believe, at least as far as religious matters are concerned (I believe life exists elsewhere, an eminently reasonable belief) is of no interest to me except as a matter of a detached Spock-like consideration. When people go on about such fictions as Adam & Eve, Noah’s Ark, the existence of “souls,” the “power of prayer,” and all the loony rest of it, my response always comes down to an elaboration of one word: “Fascinating.”

Yes, I can “disqualify God from being the arbiter of good and evil” because there is no evidence for this “god,” and evolution explains why humans act and behave as they do. I have nothing more to say on this except to say there is no evidence for a Celestial Lawgiver and there is no such thing as “sin.”

Further: There is no Celestial Being “out there” (whatever “out there” could mean) who has commanded us to not steal or kill, etc. Sure, multiple authors have argued for a “transcendent law,” but simply because you argue for something because of what you believe doesn’t make it true. And so it goes for all religions and all theology: all religious talk amounts to nothing more than people just prattling on and asserting things on the basis of what they believe — and desperately want to believe. It’s amusing (sometimes). And if you think “theology” is of any value (it isn’t), I’ll wait for you to do a careful A/B comparison of Christian theology versus Hindu theology. I’ve no doubt that the result of your investigation will be highly entertaining.