"God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil"

[Ryantology]

But what about people that bring suffering into their own lives for a greater good? Artists that suffer for their art.

Are they suffering as a conscious choice of their own? That doesn't meet the criteria for evil.

MLK suffered to get a message out.Immigrants suffer to bring a better life to themselves and their families. This is a kind of righteous suffering, isn't it? because it is justified?

The perpetrators of the suffering, be it a racist society which discriminates on the basis of skin color, or a xenophobic and plutocratic society which exploits and discriminates against immigrants, which is evil.

So, if someone allowed you to suffer knowing that you would come out the other side a better person, would that justified? or evil? As a parent, I did this thing called "tummy time" with my babies when they were first born. You lay the child on the ground and the child gets a chance to work out muscles that will later help him/her to sit-up on their own and swallow. It is not the most pleasant time for the child and they mostly ended in crying out.

The baby would mostly likely be fine without "tummy time", i mean, I could have avoided the crying out if I had skipped it for my little ones, but they were able to start doing other things earlier because of it.

I think it's kind of reaching for an example when it's like this. Would you put your child through that if it wasn't necessary and/or had no benefit?

Now, you'll call me an insensitive ass hole because I am basically saying that the little boy in Africa starving of food is justified suffering. But you misunderstand me. Because that little boy in his suffering triggers my emotions and makes me desire to help him. And my imagination figures out how to do it. The world of strict reason says, "Sucks to be you, but I cannot afford to leave my cushion right now." or maybe "Here's a few bucks, hope it helps."

I'm sure it is a great relief to that child and his parents that his suffering and premature death helped in the character development of some relatively wealthy and privileged person half a world away.

Religion calls us to go further. To sacrifice and suffer for the little boy, with the little boy, because it taps in to the aspects of human nature that act outside of reason.

Religion glorifies a god who could have made the point, and achieved the same ends, without requiring the suffering and death of a child. That suffering and death is only a part of the equation because God designed it that way, and because God could have designed things any way he wanted, that means he did it that way on purpose.

If a human being attempted to improve the moral fiber of other people by intentionally starving a child to death, we'd call them a criminal. Why does God get a pass?