I think I have come to understand the exact moments of when my faith in an omniscient being was loosed.

In September, I'm in a swank Vegas hotel for a conference.  Watching the news while taking a break from meetings and not doing well at poker...the story of a young girl molested and videotaped breaks locally.  This would go on to break nationally later that day.

There it is....the face of innocence and innocence lost.  The mute still of a video screaming to me.  The youthful chubbiness of her face so much like my daughter's.  The belief in a god (lowercase intended), nevertheless a benevolent one, came tumbling to nothingness.

How could an omniscient god allow such a thing? Some will call upon "freewill."  Which, I have to ask, if this so-called god is omniscient, he knows what we do before we do it...and therefore allows it.  Freewill is a wish at best in the scenario.

Not that molestation is anything new.  God's faithful Catholic servants have been defiling young boys for decades if not centuries.  I could give a litany of vile acts done by God's followers...I'll leave that to the far more eloquent (and British) Hitchens.

Understand that I want to believe in an omniscient power, I want to say the Motzi with my children, I want to enroll my daughter and watch her Bat Mitzvah.  How can I knowing that even if there sits an omniscient power, it allows too much horror for me to revere him?