Comment 11 by Quine

Also, we hear again and again from former theists that this issue of suffering was the final deal-breaker. Theologians have tied themselves in convoluted knots over this and the associated problem of evil (theodicy), so as to find a way to blame the victim.

There's something fundamentally logically wrong with this whole argument......I've spent years trying to put my finger on it, with great difficulty. Dostoevsky seems to grasp the same point in a number of places.........the conudrum goes something like this :-

OK....so we make the assessment that God can't be a 'good' God because there exists pain and suffering in the world.

The atheist response is to remove God from the equation. Fine.....but that doesn't make the pain and suffering go away. It still exists. And the point is.....if one demands a moral explanation of it from any 'good' God....why does one stop demanding a moral explanation of it in his absence ?

After all, one is making a moral judgement that the world is 'bad'. Did one require the existence of God in order to make that judgement ? No...it's an 'a priori' judgement that comes before one's castigation of God.....and which is the very basis of that castigation.

There is a fundamental logical/moral dilemna there. If you are going to argue that the universe is cold and indifferent and doesn't care...then on what basis do you make the moral judgement that it contains badness that negates a 'good' God ?

I'm not sure I've explained it properly. It's extremely hard to, and only a master of words such as Dostoevsky really gets to grips with it.....though even he fails to find a resolution.