Contranebriation
...Yes, Darius, I hear what you're saying, but it doesn't make any sense. Look—we both agreed that God must be both competent and just to deserve our devotion. It's plain that you shouldn't follow someone who is incapable of leading you, or who would treat you unjustly in their charge. There we agree. But if God is as you say then both of these things cannot be true at once. There's a cross-up in there somewhere... a contradiction... a paradox. Let me hear it if I'm wrong, but you've made three claims about God. First, you say that God is all-knowing. Second, you say that he is all-powerful. And finally, you say that he will punish us for not devoting ourselves to him. But here's the problem: if God is all-everything, then our punishment cannot be just—and if our punishment is just, then God cannot be all-everything... stay with me here... I will make sense... and if I don't I'll drink till I do. Speaking of! Another pint here...gracefully, thank you... now, back on... If God is the creator of the universe, and the knower of all things, then that means he created us and knows our fates. He knows our thoughts before we think them, our actions before we take them, our lives before we live them... there is no thread in our tapestry he did not sew, and he can trace us from beginning to end. Well... damnit... what's the point in punishing us, then! If I'm a non-believer it's because he made me one! If God's all-this-and-that-and-everything, and he alone designed and made us, then he's the one responsible for all the behavior he seeks to punish! What do we make of a perfect being that makes imperfect creatures, and then punishes them for it? It's like making a clock without gears and smashing it because it doesn't tick! Or baking bread without yeast and throwing it out for not rising! Surely, it isn't that he's stupid. He can't be. God is All, right? The only explanation, it seems, is that he created us to punish us... and even I, a drunk, can see there's no justice in that. The punished must be a responsible party for their punishment to be just. But if we're responsible... if it is we who do all the cutting, stitching, and sewing... and life comes to us by the second for us to hate or enjoy or get drooling drunk with friends... then God can't know who we will decide to become, and neither can he change it, which means he cannot be All! And, suddenly, God is just another imperfect man who thinks his way is the way, and we must ask why we should follow him, for it is now our reason against his, and divinity has little value in a battle of wits... which brings up another point, that...