It is not what God is, but what he ought to be that is the problem.

Religious believers when asked what does your religion say about a certain topic, they almost always try to come up with an answer that has nothing to do with what the religion they believe in or follow actually says, but an answer that explains what they think their religion should say about the matter in question or the thing being discussed, based upon the assumption that since their religion is something that has definitely come from God, and God is omniscient and perfect in every way there is, the answer can’t be something other than what they think such God definitely should’ve said, with disregard to what is actually written in religious scripture. The answer is almost always something that has nothing to do with what their religion actually says, but what they think God should’ve said about the thing being discussed. In essence, the understanding of every religious believer of their religion isn’t predicated upon what that religion is, but what that religion ought to be. It is all because religious belief begins with believing that God is perfect, and God has made a certain religion. What do you think that religion would be like? What would such religion say? Exactly, this is what you should think your religion says, without ever bothering or attempting to read any religious text whatsoever. This is a problem because you think you are talking to a religious believer who actually believes in their own religion they’re defending, but in reality, they are only defending a made up version of their religion that has nothing to do with the actual reality or truth about their religion. And that’s why you might find a hard time winning the argument, because they’re not trying to defend their religion. They’re trying to defend their made up version of what God is, or what they think what God ought to have said or be like.

This is why I always find it a very important distinction to be lacking a belief in any God whatsoever due to certainty about the non-existence of any God, as opposed to just being not religious or agnostic, because the latter implies that you don’t believe in religion only, which, after the above demonstration, should be clear to you that it is a position held by both religious believers and non-believers alike, because religious believers have no idea what their religion actually says, which means they also aren’t religious believers, because you can’t believe in something without knowing what it is in the first place.