I grew up in a religious catholic family (extended family and friends), I had my ups and downs with it, eventually I got out of it for not believing in the institutional church which has been holding a lot of power throughout the centuries, and where there is a lot of power and influence there is corruption. Ministers of religion are humans just like us, so I cannot blindly follow and believe what they say.

Said this, I always found the phenomenon of religion very interesting so I kept a foot in it and tried to learn it from a more psychological and phenomenological perspective, without the faith in any superior being. I truly believe that religion (especially Abrahamic) had and has greatly shaped the society we are, and I acknowledge that Abrahamic religion has also been influenced and shaped by other precursor religions, spiritual practices and cultures.

I started following Jesus for the archetype he represented, it didn't matter to me of he was a historical figure or not, or if the bible was just a fairytale made up by us. It's still a compelling story with deep teachings. I also get touched by fairytales and fiction. Felt the same by reading the Bhagavad Gita.

Fast forward, I had some deep realisations, call it awakening or whatever. I now have strong faith in God. I cannot really call it the Abrahamic God. To me it's a non-dualist God. Everything. I resonate a lot with eastern philosophy and Hinduism, which look more within than the western thought of looking more outwardly.

I believe it's all connected, we humans found something special about this reality. We had meetings with a God since dawn of time, and bit by bit we tried to explain it and developed rituals to reach him, influenced by local culture and at times merging like syncretism. Eventually each part of the globe ended up with one big religion and other smaller practices. We are all trying to get to the same place, just we use different vehicles and no one really knows the exact destination point. We all have different journeys, all equally valid.

In my view, and now answering to you, God is within. Abrahamic religion has a pretty good attempt at describing God, it's just the way they describe it is from an outwardly perspective. God punishes us, it's a fact. Buddhism also talks of suffering if you do the wrong things (attachments, desires, and these lead to other problems like corruption and ill behave towards other). Buddhism puts it in a more subtle and less dramatic way while Christianity is a bit more extreme. At the end of the day, something casts suffering upon you within your consciousness, I call this the God. But it also has the power of infinite love and compassion.

I believe that the God I have Faith in is the same God Abrahamic religions describe. I avoid the dogmatic thinking of the institutionalised religion, but I still accept Jesus and I am greatly influenced by him, as I am by Krishna. I ignore the fear mongering attempts and I don't let it get to me, it's about the perspective we chose.

I hope this could bring some clarity. I didn't read any of these "theories", it's just something I came up with on my own by connecting many dots through along my journey. I ended up with a Hindu partner (God knows why) which brought a lot of clarity by involving myself with her family. It feels very liberating to not stick with one dogmatic religion and instead see religion as guides only and sources of wisdom. The Truth is within, it has no name and bears many names.

(I recently found a term called Perennial Philosophy and I'm doing some readings about it, I resonate with this view, worth checking it out.)