People have acted in the name of the gods for centuries. An effect cannot be without cause, so from that perspective, the gods must exist in some form. A concept that can have such a strong tangible effect is something to be respected.
All that shows is that gods exist as a concept. I don't think anyone is denying that believers exist. But so what? I don't see why a concept that is wrong should be respected, especially a concept that causes so much harm. For example, people have long pointed to demon possession as the cause when they encountered mental disorders. This sort of belief does nothing to help the afflicted individual and respecting this belief stands in the way of them receiving help.
I will say this about the current People of the Book: their genesis is a pretty good approximation. Darkness, light, heaven, Earth covered in water, Earth with land, whales, people. Correct order. Plus what with all those stars falling from the heavens. Plenty of stars in the universe have gone out.
Darkness, light
(which apparently doesn't need a source), the firmament
(a concept of the sky as a solid structure. An idea that is sorely incorrect), Earth covered in water, Earth with land, plants on the land
(which is listed as before ANY animals, even ones of the sea; thus it's not the correct order), the Sun
(having this so late in the order is almost comically wrong because it's wrong for so many reasons) the moon
(called the lesser of two "great lights" despite the fact that it doesn't produce light) and the stars
(listed as almost an afterthought. Yeah... like the things that formed all the complex molecules were not important to the formation of things as they are now), animals
(all at once), and then man
(as in an individual man, not the species), then woman
(again an individual). This contains many many things out of order, and shows a clear lack of understanding of how things actually happened. Now you can point to things that are in somewhat the correct order, but so what? The authors in the ancient time it was written where not
completely stupid. This sort of list is exactly what one would expect from something that is made up to fill in the gaps of knowledge.
I just wonder where they all went. Whenever people get around to writing these things down, things have quieted so there aren't any more miracles or prophets.
People have gained a better ability to communicate and record events and science has given us a better ability to tell what's actually happening, thus things that once would pass for a miracle no longer do and it's much easier to tell that so called prophets are full of crap.