comment: >
  
  I believe in the God of Uranus and the Goddess of Pluto but I'm sad because they won't be friends with me.
  Everything else is really bad.
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. >
  
  
  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. >
  
  
  Let's say I tell you "the moon is made of cheese." Can you choose to believe something like that?
  
  Yes. This is how faith is supposed to play a role in religion. You don't know for sure that the moon is made of cheese. What you know (or can verify) is what scientists say about the moon's composition. This is true of all aspects of science - you accept X as fact because a teacher or a field expert has told you, and you trust that this is based on research. Otherwise, could you claim to know anything besides what you've personally seen through your research or experience?
  The difference with religion, of course, is that there is often little to no research into the supernatural aspects (because the claims are unfalsifiable).
  What I am claiming here is that OP has a barrier to belief that is much higher than most religious adherents. It is difficult to change this view without evidence, and that evidence likely would be substantial. This does not rule out the possibility that such evidence exists. To say that it would be impossible would be tantamount to claiming that you know God does not exist. It does not appear that OP has taken this position as they have called themself agnostic. >
  
  I just don't believe anyone can honestly change their beliefs like that.
  Like if I told you "I'll give you $1000 if you believe that the moon is made of cheese. But you have to promise me that you really, honestly believe it and you aren't just saying it."
  Could you manage to give me a truly honest answer that you believe what I said? >
  
  Isn't this very sub a testament to changing beliefs? >
  
  When I think of God I think of a prism that all of humanity is standing around.  Hindus might see green, Christians blue, Jews purple, Buddhists yellow, Muslim red, all are sure of what they see and they’re looking at the same thing but from different vantage points (history and tradition) we all see some similar aspects and some aspects that are seemingly contradictory and exclusionary.  I think religious texts are humanity’s best attempt of describing the indescribable.  I also think even the best text was hijacked at some points to give individual humans more power, so should be viewed with skepticism.
  I call myself an agnostic theist when technicality comes up because I do strongly believe in God but beyond that I have no answers.  I don’t think the popular Abramic version of God is believable.  You simply can’t be omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient while also being loving and kind. Also, there are a ton of examples in the Bible that argue against this basic view of God.  Like, how could Lot have argued with God and changed his mind for instance, someone is lying.  I also call myself a Christian when someone is casually asking, because I try to follow the teachings of Jesus (not Paul, Jesus).
  Sorry I’m not answering the way you asked. I studied religion for about a decade and have just decided that arguing scripture in cases like this is about as useful as discussing plot holes in the Teletubbies.  If you tell me Jesus hated gay people, I will match you scripture for scripture and translate Hebrew if necessary; but God viewed with the 3 “Os” is just something Christians came up with.  It’s not preached that way in Islam.  Jews don’t even believe in Hell btw.  It’s just not even a “thing”. >
  
  Phenomenal analogy. I always say how religions « rhyme » in the underlying principles they teach, and have recently reflected on two influences on religion: 
  1) culture. Being an Indian Christian, I see how much Indian culture and norms influence my church
  2) individual belief. levels of « tolerance » are probably influenced by personal demeanor and auxh >
  
  I think your argument hinges on the problem of free will. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing then He must have created you in such a way that you would either believe or not believe in Him. But these are assumptions of a natural world. Perhaps the exertion of free will is a supernatural process, it is independent of the laws of nature. Somehow your soul has made the decision not to believe, and this belief is independent of your genes or your environment in a way that God has decided not to intervene in any way. You may ask how is that possible, but frankly once you accept the premise of a supernatural being all bets are off, there's really not much constraining what is and isn't possible. >
  
  I have a feeling I'm misinterpreting your response, but I had a conversation with a Muslim friend on the topic of free will/predestination. His response was along these lines:
  
  Suppose a parent is preparing for the day, and while making breakfast, they set a plate of cookies on the table. They know that their child will take a cookie from the plate after waking up, walking out to the kitchen and seeing the plate—indeed, the parent has raised the child and knows their character.   
  In this way, it is ultimately still the child who chooses to take the cookie, but the parent can be confident beforehand that they will do so.  
  Now imagine that the parent is God and you are the child.   
  Did God force you to take the cookie? >
  
  I think the Christian response would be “no”. This is almost exactly the story of Adam and Eve and the apple. Christians believe Adam and Eve chose to eat the apple, God gave them that choice. Now, given what we know today about the laws of nature this leads to some tricky questions. If God knows the outcome beforehand did they really have a choice? If He created them with full omniscience, isn’t every action they take just a predetermined chain of cause and effect? These are the kinds of doubts you seem to be raising. But the problem is you already began with the premise of a supernatural being. Once you introduce the supernatural there’s a simple supernatural answer to any such questions. The simple answer here is that choosing/deciding/free will has a supernatural property. This supernatural property makes it possible for people to exercise free will even in a world that appears deterministic, even in the case where God already knows what you will do. How exactly does this supernatural property work? You cannot know otherwise it would not be supernatural. If you find this argument unconvincing then I suggest that the original premise, that a supernatural being exists at all, is the problem. Or to put it another way once you say “if God exists”, it becomes difficult to reason about any conclusions because you’ve already thrown all the rules out the window. >
  
  The god you describe has three premises - these are truths - goodness, power and knowledge.  Yet, you treat them as not-truths, but something to question, to disprove.
  If you actually believe them and treat them as the truths that this god is defined by then you have to not question these truths, but your understanding of what is good.  the question you should be wrestling with is not how the truths aren't true, but why it is that the presence of evil (the classic) or the possibility of your atheism are all part of his idea of "good".  It becomes clear that if you accept the truths as truths then you have to point your concern elsewhere.
  Your view here is a bit like saying "i'm going to use a premise to disprove the same premise".  that makes it not a premise at all, but some sort of empirical claim that is then subject to counter evidence.  that's just not really how the idea of god works.  
  I think it's more logical to simply reject the idea that the premises are anything other than a fabrication of man.  But...to kinda accept but then not really accept the premises is to take the idea of god out of it's context and argue with it there, rather than from within. >
  
  Maybe I worried too much about attempting to pre-address potential responses and that caused my actual belief to be unclear. 
  
  the question you should be wrestling with is not how the truths aren't true, but why it is that ... the possibility of your atheism are all part of his idea of "good". 
  
  For the sake of the argument I assume that this God exists, and furthermore that he's the God-god—good, powerful, and knowledgable. I qualified the statements about this god being omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent mostly with the goal of stating that I'm taking these things as givens and don't want the discussions to revolve around whether God really exists, or whether God is really this/that. 
  My stated belief was, indeed, this: I'm an atheist. If God exists, this is in accordance with His will. >
  
  That you can be an atheist is, but that you don't have your own will seems untrue, eh?  Your idea is in contradiction of doctrine that would typically be accepted within the envelope of the other things you accept as truths.  
  So...it is his will that you have the capacity to be an atheist.  It is your will that makes it an actuality.  Because we have to to assume that there is a greater good we can't quite understand that leaves the possiblity of you exercising choice that leads you to damnation.  Freewill is not inconsistent with the idea of god that you're invoking, assuming you're invoking a god that is actually believed in by some people in christianity/islam/judaism. >
  
  First, I apologize. I get the feeling that you are much better at having these sorts of discussions that I am.
  
  Your idea is in contradiction of doctrine that would typically be accepted within the envelope of the other things you accept as truths.
  
  I understand that my stated belief is in contradiction with the assumptions I have accepted about the Abrahamic God. It did give me quite a bit of cognitive dissonance growing up trying to reconcile the existence of the god my peers believed in with my own nature as a person. If God is God, and God wishes for us to believe—and I, too, wished to believe—then why didn't I believe?
  Another commenter wrote this: 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.
  Which seems to be similar to what you're saying, and that's something that makes me think. Two things come to mind:
  
  “We do not pray to change divine decree, but only to obtain what God has decreed will be obtained through prayer. In other words, as St. Gregory says, 'by asking, men deserve to receive what the all-powerful God has decreed from all eternity to give them.’” (From St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae)
  Saint Augustine's proposal that evil is a privation of good, in the same way that cold is a privation of heat
  
  I don't know if it counts as changing my view to acknowledge that, from a certain perspective, my belief might be precluded because the buck would have stopped earlier along the line: if it's God's will for me to have free will, then what I do with that will is already outside of His domain.
  Edit: My point of contention here, though I'm not sure it's valid, would be that it is not my will to disbelieve. I wish to believe, but do not. >
  
  Well...that you can recognize your failure doesn't mean it's god's will for you to not believe, does it?
  Freewill doesn't mean that you are all powerful ,it means you can make choices.  It's your job to hold onto faith and the bible clearly teaches people that doing so is massively hard, a struggle. >
  
  All of these 'scripture-based' arguments are useless if we have no evidence to suggest this being actually exists. You might as well argue about the colour of fairies' wings. I know your post is a conditional "if god exists" - but that's such a futile "if". It's like saying "if dragons exist then they want to eat me". Well, yes, but... so? >
  
  But billions of people do believe, and I personally find that I end up having much more insightful/interesting discussions when I discuss God from within a framework they can accept. I find that benefit useful enough to have spent half an hour scribbling this post out. >
  
  
  within a framework they can accept
  
  But the entire premise of the framework is flawed. There's no point in discussing scripture unless we accept that these ancient writings can be taken seriously as proof of supernatural beings. And that's a huge, bold claim to make. >
  
  If your premise 2-5 are valid, then God (as you've defined him) does not exist.
  If God can and does want you to believe in him, but created yourself and all other things to make you incapable of believing in him that is a contradiction.
  Or God does exist, but he doesn't have those qualities that you defined. Thus it's possible for a different kind of God who existence is not contingent on your ability to believe in him. >
  
  
  If God can and does want you to believe in him, but created yourself and all other things to make you incapable of believing in him that is a contradiction.
  
  My first response was that I do not yet believe. I (hopefully) have quite a few years ahead of me still. 
  While it appears contradictory to me, I can also imagine that on the scale of eternity, the math could end up making it reasonable. A personal struggle of mine is that a truly omnipotent/omniscient God could presumably achieve the same outcome without the suffering if he wished to, but that's a somewhat different discussion. 
  
  Or God does exist, but he doesn't have those qualities that you defined. Thus it's possible for a different kind of God who existence is not contingent on your ability to believe in him.
  
  Well, I am personally an atheist, so I do think that this conception of God is more likely than that of the Abrahamic God in particular. But for the purposes of this post, I'm assuming that the typical Abrahamic God exists. >
  
  Okay think of god like a parent. A parent can want their child have a will of their own and make their own path while not interfering directly only attempting to guide them, while also be deeply disappointed and not like the path they are on. 
  So basically God has two conflating wills, one that you make your own decisions and another that you make good decisions.