Bit of a wall of text incoming. I try not to do these, but this topic really gets me going.

I don't know why the idea of nonreligious paladins seems to gain so much traction when it is so at odds with the setting. Deities and divine casters worked one way for literal decades until WoTC came up with the oath gimmick to make paladins stand out more from particularly militant clerics. Yeah, in 5e clerics get their powers from oaths. But just because it isn't explicitly stated that they *only* need an deity's favor for their powers in the realms is no reason to take the opposite conclusion. There's ample evidence from the published material-yes-even in 5e-that paladins are still expected to follow at least one deity as the patron for their powers, that they are expected to seek absolution from a priest of their religion (or at the very least a cleric of an allied deity), just like in prior editions in the case of breaking their oath.

To cover some things that pop up in these conversations like clockwork:

1) Divine casters can get their juice from more than one source. See the Triadic Knights and Masked Traitors. (IIRC Cyric might have done this as well)

2) You can get divine power from sources without consent. See Liriel Baenre.

3) Ur Priests. Not common and not as clever as they think they are. Gods can still turn off the spigot so to speak if they so choose. You can't really steal divine power from the gods, not without them noticing.

The vast majority of cases do not fall into categories like this. So when the written material says along the lines of 'most paladins get their power from a god' the above is the 'others' to the 'most'.

We aren't getting Ur-Priest paladins or Triadic knights, so it makes a hell of a lot more sense to have deity-aligned paladins than it does to have nonreligious ones as-as the only option no less!

To cover another topic:

Paladins get absolution from members of their own faith typically. Yes, this is how it normally works. Because asking a divine caster to absolve you is asking for them to magically intercede on your behalf with your deity. Obviously the best results are going to be from a priest of your own faith, or failing that an allied deity. You *could* ask a divine caster of a god with a less....warm relationship with your god, or maybe to get your gods attention through deeds, but expect diminishing results. Asking a evil priest to absolve you of the sins you committed as a good paladin is not going to end well.

This is a big reason why I don't like how the oathbreaker is used in the game. Like with Withers, it's another weirdly out-of-place npc to provide convenience. Almost as immersion breaking as games where you use console commands to summon an npc or something to debug stuff. He just doesn't belong. Not this early in the game, not selling you indulgences, not offering you the power of an oathbreaker no strings attached, no effort required, no quest to absolve yourself or quest to prove yourself to a new master as an oathbreaker.

And lastly:

The nature of the Oath. The Oath is a sacred Oath, a religious oath made in the name of one or more gods, and it is from that (or those) deities that a Paladin's holy powers flow down from. It's a symbol of your deity placing their faith in the sincerity of a pledge that you intend to follow to your utmost in their name. If you break that? You break that trust, they take your powers. You want to skirt it close to the letter of the law? Well, that goes as far for you as your deity is willing to give your the benefit of the doubt towards your intentions. IMHO Paladin's oath should not be a clear cut 'insta fall' thing except in extreme cases, particularly in a game like this where you can't explain yourself to your DM. A lot of players I have heard complain about unexpected paladin falls. There should be a warning system or a 'three strikes you are out' thing. IMO.

Anyways, the whole nonreligious paladin thing seems to me to stem from hanging on a few select sentences (or words even) such as 'most' or 'usually' and twisting them till the square peg fits in the round hole. Despite the widespread level of fanon this notion seems to have ascended to (seriously, when Ed Greenwood weighs in and people just dismiss the author's stated intention... eek), It really is eyebrow-raising position to take on the matter in regards to the realms in particular IMO. IDK why it is so darn important that people need to play their nonreligious paladins, the integrity of the setting be damned. Is it the novelty of combining to concepts at odds with one another? I can't imagine it being religious grounds. So weird that this is the place where the stand has to be made. We can't even play an evil non-oathbreaker paladin, hell. We don't have deity options at all yet it's this one thing that's treated as a sacred pillar of the class. Would people really be so upset if Larian released the opposite and there was no nonreligious option, like with the cleric?