Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,
God is a god of faith. That makes him unprovable. If God is visible than their is no faith.
If God was sat in the sky like the moon He would have two choices
- enslave all to His will at point of death (eternal damnation etc)
2} Do nothing, and be seen (actual) as being benign, and therefore ignored.
As long as God is a god of faith people can choose to ignore Him or follow Him. In theory we should not be looking for a reward or a punishment, We follow God because we believe that is the right thing to do, and that His ways are correct.
Otherwise we are left with the idea that you have nothing to lose if Hell does not exist and everything to lose if it does. So that belief is self centred and nothing to do with God at all.
Heaven and Hell are not good criteria for believing in God. Religion is about aligning ourselves with God rather than some sort of fear of retribution or the converse hope of eternal happiness, neither of which can be proven until it is too late.
Forgiveness is not about retribution but peace of mind and loss of guilt. We can forget and move on instead of dwelling on an action with consequences, good, or bad, to us and / or others. With the caviat, of course, that we are both sorry, and determined to do better! (otherwise it becomes an excuse not to care at all and to live without morality or consequence.)
Richard