DNA Proves Existence of a Designer

[The Grand Nudger]

So children who suffer and die in, say, war, or through a terminal illness, only have themselves to blame?

Looks like you’re the one who is cold and cruel, not to mention totally sick and abhorrent, and a troll.

If your beliefs are the key to ‘eternal life’, then leave us out. None of us could be so intellectually dishonest, or so mentally vacant, as to deceive and degrade ourselves to the level you have. You have sacrificed your humanity for a lie, and you’ll never get it back. Gutted for you, I guess.

The suffering is happening either way

Correct, The Suffering™ is happening either way.  The only difference between our universes, on that count..is that in yours, god is inflicting that suffering upon you (and every other thing that can suffer) in order to refine your soul.  In mine, it's not.  

and you just don't want to believe you will be held accountable for your any of your actions.

Yet another one of those things commonly found on stupid lists of things to say to atheists which has nothing to do with atheism or meat fairies.  

  As someone who has suffered through quite a bit of pain both as a child and as an adult, I would much rather have an explanation for the pain, rather than think it was just happening to me for no reason at all. And it has the benefit of a positive outcome as well.

You might much rather have an explanation, but that won't make your explanation the correct one..and the fact free explanation you've chosen for no reason other than your desire to possess it lays the responsibility for that suffering on your "soulmate" and his ghost mill...which isn't exactly what I'd call a healthy foundation for love or...really, any relationship.

If it helps you to deal with whatever pain you've suffered..that's fine as far as it goes.

Ever try smoking a bowl?

OTOH, some of us, rather than inventing elaborate fairy tales, directly confront those things which cause us pain. Perhaps you should take a look into the literature comparing those two approaches, to see which correlates more strongly with positive outcomes? If you are using this belief to deal with pain..you owe it to yourself to see if there are better treatment options.