I imagine the OP would enjoy reading some of Aquinas's work.
Thomistic Natural Theology
The faulty assumption here, of course, is that the Judeo-Christian god is similar to other gods/systems of belief. Hinduism and Buddhism both fit into the categories the OP is talking about; they are impersonal to the highest degree. They are systems based on ideas, and only ideas.
If the Judeo-Christian god was simply an answer to philosphical problems or the projection of deity onto creation (ie Thor, Zeus) then it would be expected that there would be no way for us to draw near to them; indeed no ancient mythology has that personal aspect. The same goes for Greek though; Plato, Aristotle and Socrates were only able to get as far as some impersonal thing might be out there. Judeo-Christianity changed all that.
"The God of the Hebrews, writes Etienne Gilson, was “Not a God imagined by poets or discovered by any thinker as an ultimate answer to his metaphysical problems, but one who had revealed Himself to the Jews, told them His name, and explained to them His nature, in so far at least as His nature can be understood by men.” Gilson, Etienne, God and Philosophy (New Haven; Yale, 1962), p. 38). Plato had concluded the ultimate philosophical explanation for all which exists should rest “not within those elements of reality that are always being generated… but with something which because it has no generation, truly is or exists…” This, Gilson observes, was almost exactly what the Christians affirmed, but with one critical difference: the difference of the article. “For Moses said: ‘He who is,’ and Plato: ‘That which is…’ If God is ‘He who is,’ He is also ‘that which is,’ because to be somebody is also to be something. Yet the converse is not true, for to be somebody is much more than to be something. We are here at the dividing line between Greek thought and Christian thought… Taken in itself, Christianity was not a philosophy. It was the essentially religious doctrine of the salvation of men through Christ. Christian philosophy arose at the juncture of Greek philosophy and Jewish-Christian religious revelation… Between ‘Him who is’ and ourselves, there is the infinite metaphysical chasm which separates the complete self-sufficiency of his own existence from the intrinsic lack of necessity of our own existence. Nothing can bridge such a chasm, save a free act of the divine will only. This is why, from the time of Saint Augustine up to our own days, human reason has been up against the tremendously difficult task of reaching a transcendent God whose pure act of existing is radically distinct from our own borrowed existence… Here again historians of philosophy find themselves confronted with this to them always unpalatable fact: a non-philosophical statement which has since become an epoch-making statement in the history of philosophy. The Jewish genius was not a philosophical genius; it was a religious one” (ibid, p. 42-43, 54).
“Though Israel’s notion of God was unique in the ancient world, and a phenomenon that defies rational explanation, to attempt to understand her faith in terms of an idea of God would be a fundamental error. Israel’s religion did not consist in certain religious ideas or ethical principles, but rested in the memory of historical experience as interpreted by faith… Not only was the Israelite league aware that its God had come from Sinai (e.g. Judges 5:4f; Deut 33:2); its sacred traditions remembered the covenant that had been made with him there… We are driven, therefore to assume that the origins of the covenant league, like those of Yahwism itself, reach back to Sinai. .. If Yahwism originated in the desert (as it certainly did) we must conclude that the covenant society did also, for Yahwism and covenant are coterminous!” (Bright, John, History of Israel, pp. 148, 167-168).
The differences are immense and must come into any discussion comparing Judeo-Christianity with any other worldview, because it truly is unique. Whether or not one believes it or not, it must be admitted there it is incredibly different than other belief systems, despite superficial and ultimately meaningless similarities. One MUST approach it as it is given in order to make any sense of it at all; to do so any other way would be like trying to understand a living human person only in terms of their physical properties. It simply is the wrong way to go about relating to another person.
