ManTimeForgot
Temporally Challenged
In my view "God" is not separate from anything or any person, so "God" is not a separate being and hence not extra-terrestrial.
"God" is in fact being-ness itself, and that being-ness includes all entities with "life" e.g. humans, animals, plants etc. Within beingness are all apparently static phenomena too i.e. mountains, oceans, planets, etc. For this reason it is everywhere (omnipresent), timeless and immortal. It is without birth or death and all knowing (omnisicent) as it is everywhere always.
"God" is Being-ness or existence itself, hence it is our core Self or higher Self. Words are just pointers. The fundamental goal is to recognise this being-ness for yourself as your Self. When we recognise it we recognise that our being is indeed"the very least the maximal entity that reality can support (it must be the very best possible)". In other words it is the summun bonum of life, it is the foundation for everything and the arena in which all coming and going exists.
Worship then is not for something in return, but to enhance something which already exists. It enhances the Being-ness (God/Self) in that it allows all focus, all energy and thought to concentrate on our core i.e. on God/Self. Its reward is the enrichment of life i.e. of our own being, of God and of our higher Self. Ramanuja, a philosopher said "He who extremely loves this Self is loved by this Self".
As I said if Reality is a self-determining whole capable of making "alterations" even if you suppose that those alterations are made intra-systemically via its actors (humans for instance), then I could and would indeed recognize such a thing's claim to being labeled "God." I actually dislike the word "God" for the reason that it is too expansive, and as such would like to be able to limit it to one specific set of ideas or another as opposed to "Whatever the current person thinks it means."
I can also see why someone might suggest that worship was intrinsically valuable; or perhaps enhances something which is intrinsically valuable (as in our social or emotional bonds), but I am not positive I agree that even given the assumption that all things are "God" means that I should worship and respect or even love everything that is real.
Should I not try to use violence to stop a sociopath from killing wantonly just because he is of "God?"
MTF