comment: >
  
  
  Perhaps you haven't heard any convincing arguments about the existence of God, but that doesn't mean you can't believe.
  
  This seems strange to me.
  Let's say I tell you "the moon is made of cheese." Can you choose to believe something like that?
  I can imagine telling myself the words "the moon is made of cheese" in my head. I can even imagine it being true if I concentrate on it. But I don't think I could truly believe it. I'd always snap back to the fact that I don't actually believe that fact, unless my mind could be changed with some kind of new fact.
context: In catholicism, this is known as the Jansenist heresy. Refuting it is one of only three times a pope has used papal infallibility which ended any debate on the matter within the church.  that's just trivia though.
  The counter argument is that god wants you to choose to love and believe in him. God doesn't want to force you to love him. He wants to be chosen. Like the trope of the rich prince who can have any woman he wants pretending to be a poor commoner so that he can find a woman who really loves him. >
  
  Does the rich prince condemn the woman to eternal torture if she doesn't? >
  
  She stays poor and never has anyone love her. Isn't that the same thing? >
  
  I'm pretty sure she could just find another commoner who she does love and live a normal life. That's a pretty far cry from "choose between loving me and becoming wealthy beyond your wildest dreams and not choosing me and being tortured for all eternity." 
  I'm guessing that's why so many (non-Christian) religions had a "middle-of-the-road" afterlife - it makes the divine power in question sound like less of a spiteful, egotistical sadist like our prince here would have to be. >
  
  Yeah christianity was a lot more sane before the fire and brinstone gang. I never liked those sects or found their teachings to ring true. >
  
  I don’t exactly understand the response to the second theist arguement- why would your suffering contribute to a much larger good? You suffering in hell for being an atheist does, in no way, contribute to god granting his subjects free will. The OPTION to be atheist is what is integral to free will, and that exists whether or not you choose the option. If everyone on earth chose to be an atheist, the option would still exist. >
  
  I'm not sure if you're referring to the free-will theodicy or the higher-order theodicy. 
  But, anyway, I think it is reasonable to assume that a truly omniscient God could create a world in which people have free will and end up believing in God / choose to act in accordance with His wishes. This is an issue I personally have with that theodicy, and also my spin on it. 
  If I'm already assuming that God is omniscient and benevolent, though, I don't think it's unreasonable to accept that the math works out somehow, on some scale.
  (More cynically, I'm inclined to see it with more of a The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas spin, in which a small amount of suffering is capable of bringing about a much larger amount of good.) >
  
  You have made an assumption here that you are incapable of belief. Perhaps you haven't heard any convincing arguments about the existence of God, but that doesn't mean you can't believe.
  About the 3 pillars:
  
  Omniscience: God is aware that you do not believe.
  Omnipotence: He chooses not to intervene in free will. He wants people to make the correct choice when it comes to worshipping him, but he doesn't want it to happen by force.
  Benevolence: God is benevolent, but not omnibenevolent. This appears to be common misconception with atheists about the Abrahamic God. God shows wrath occasionally in the Bible, including killing people, which he could not do if he were omnibenevolent. God is the source of goodness and charity in the world, but God himself is impure in this regard.