Either way, what are people thinking who believe in such a being...?

That's just it. These people are not thinking in the sense we understand the term.

In the words of C B Elliott:

'Christians certainly do think, but they do it in a way that the rest of us could well not count as thinking. They invariably proceed from the conclusion. Anyone trained in the sciences or engineering (or in fact any walk of life) is used to being faced with problems for which they do not know the solution until after they've done some thinking. That's what thinking means for us - proceeding from something one already has to something new. Christians nearly always do it backwards – they start with what they ‘know’ to be true and decide what they are going to accept on the basis of whether it can be interpreted to fit.'

Credo ergo non cogito. Cogito, ergo non credo.