metadiscussion

You seem to be at the wrong meta level. (Er, sorry, social norms dictate that now I have to explain why I think that, but really I'm too lazy. Just interpret this comment as saying that you might want to look at the argument again to make sure you're appreciating its meta-level points.)

It's more of a Jewish thing, but I find apologetics becomes a lot easier when I recall that God has a (trollish) sense of humor. Imagine Christians taking Christianity super seriously, and atheists getting all sneering and masturbatory about how the plot seems to be totally incoherent, and everything gets all heated, and in the background God's just going "trolololololol". By hypothesis He trolls you because He loves you—recall that Socrates and the Buddha also tended towards trollishness, mostly as a didactic method. Also relevant is that saints and members of Christian monasteries often tended to flout societal norms, and that an emphasis on the "foolishness" of Christian doctrine has been around since at least Paul: "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe." This book about psi and "the trickster" is relevant. Muflax recently wrote a blog post on gods and trolling.