Someone debate me

[Jeffonthenet]

I would disagree with premise two, that there exists suffering that is unnecessary. To claim that there is such suffering, it seems to me, is to say that God could not have a morally sufficient reason for permitting such suffering. However, how does one know that, for any given instance of suffering, (call it "X") God could have no good reason for permitting X. The reason for X being permitted doesn't necessarily have to be for the benefit of the sufferer him/herself. It could even cause a chain of events leading to a future action hundreds of years later which was the reason for X being permitted. In such a case, it seems to me that we are not in a position to say that there is, all things considered, unnecessary suffering in the world.

As indicated in the other thread, this is the point your beliefs lose any justification and become another example of wish-fulfillment. You are claiming a hypothetical reason that would not only justify, but necessitate that suffering. Meaning, not only this hypothetical explanation would show that the suffering had a particular goal, but that that goal could not have been possibly achieved without that suffering taking place.

What we do see in most cases is that any goal could actually have been achieved without that much suffering taking place - therefore, most of the suffering is actually unnecessary. Therefore, on one hand, you have sufficient explanations to show how any particular suffering could be unnecessary (as in, alternate scenarios where the purported goal could be achieved without it) and you have none to show exactly what suffering with no apparent goal is supposed to accomplish. Your disagreement with premise two is without justification.

Premise two is a premise in an argument against God and itself needs justification as it is a positive argument against God. It is not me who needs to justify my disagreement with it, but it that needs to justify itself to us. You say that in most cases any goal could have been achieved without that much suffering taking place, yet how could you possibly know this? As I said, the goal could be hundreds of years down the road, and any alternate scenario you would propose must then be aware of the connection between any particular event and the event down the road which justifies its permissibility. However, I don't see how you could even know which event and which event down the road would be the necessary ones to be able to refute that these things were necessary.