God, Gods, and Godness: what is God?

My vapid attempt at the most interesting theological question

I was a smug sixteen-year-old atheist. Blessed with a profound arrogance and the ability to speed-read religious texts, you could count on me to find the most ridiculous, impossible passage within sacred material and rip apart the seams of God and burn the threads of faith before my distraught Protestant classmates. Naturally, I knew everything. I got an A* in Religious Studies. 98% in A-Level Theology. So it follows, I knew God. Until of course, the moment I didn’t.

What is a god?

Whether ontological, cosmological, transient, implied, innate or proverbial, I hated God. I hated the very concept of a God, this violent, oppressive shepherd’s myth crushing my equality in his non-existent fist. Believers were stupid: ignorant of philosophy, theological traditions, history, and science. Backwards people driven by desert fairytales that haunted their lives in the shadows of shames long past their sell-by date. But you’ve heard of Asherah, I’d say snidely to my poor…