You wrote: “When people claim to 'know' God what they are really talking about is love.”

I am not so sure about this, because I have heard many interpretations of God. If we consider the Old Testament we find a God that is not love at all, and the greatest evidence of this is that he is angry and fear-mongering, among other things, such as vindictive, tribal, and murderous. Fear is not love; anger is not love, vengeance is not love, etc.

Further, God is widely considered to be all knowing, all powerful, and everywhere. In this case there would really be no excuse for a god that is made of love to allow atrocities to occur. Therefore it is only the limited mind that has invented God and it is no greater than the mind itself, which is highly tainted and skewed. It is this mind that is incapable of grasping the totality of life, and this leads to the fragmentation that leads to inner and social conflict.

You wrote: “Kindness and respect are not the sole possession of theists of course and you don't need to believe in God to just live an honest and decent life. Not all philanthropy is driven by faith.”

I absolutely agree. In fact religious people constantly point to atheists and others and say they cannot be moral or loving without belief in God. I find the opposite to be true.

I have written at great length on these topics, so I won’t attempt to go deeply into it. However, God is a concept, an idea borne of thought. All that is known is borne of thought and so is all that can be expressed, communicated in some way. There is a great benefit in having a god, because it resolves (at least to the believer) the most serious problem of the egoic self, which is a desire for security.