The world is touched by sacrifice. It does not then discriminate about the merits of a cause. No so God - He is all seeing. He insists on the purity of the cause and on adequate sacrifice thereof.
On the subject of the nature of the gods, the first question is Do the gods exist or do the not? It is difficult you may say to deny that they exist. I would agree if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind, it is perfectly easy to do so.
A multitude of aspects of the natural world that were considered miraculous only a few generations ago are now thoroughly understood in terms of physics and chemistry.