We really like your idea of "god as a relationship." We're honestly skeptical of the existence of an objective god for quite a few reasons and define it more as a subjective thing, and you put it into words perfectly. To us, anything can be a god if one considers it to be so; it's an exchange of power and belief. It may not even need to be with a sentient being in our experience. Lotus's gods are more concepts than entities, but ae believes them to be gods all the same.

Also really appreciate the point that a god doesn't have to be benevolent. Our thought process with religion is that if a god wants to eternally torture us for not following them, then that's a god we want nothing to do with. Controlling people with fear isn't okay by us. We wouldn't put up with a human making that threat, so why should we tolerate a god with that policy? Particularly if there may be better alternatives.
Then again, we may not be the best to speak on this given that our personal god-entity-thing may or may not be using us. Still trying to figure that out and doubt isn't helping. You're right that you don't have to believe to engage, but disbelief gets in the way of taking it seriously for us.