That's an easy question for an atheist. Nobody. In fact, it's one of the benefits of not being saddled with the belief that a god had the power to prevent this suffering but looks away. Today, somewhere, a doe-eyes little girl will die of leukemia. I much prefer that that be due to bad luck than an indifferent god.
So many issues created by accepting the existence of a tri-omni god are resolved by eliminating the god, although I believe that most of these problems like the one you inquired about could be resolved just by getting rid of the tri-omni part and having a god that isn't always interested in everybody else's well-being or doesn't know about all the suffering. All of this vanishes when one does.
Regarding apologetics, if one starts with the idea that this god is perfect with perfect goodness, power, and knowledge, then there is only one way to proceed. Somehow this suffering isn't actually suffering, or it's good for us so that we'll know what it feels like when it stops and be grateful for that (isn't that what arguments that say that suffering exists so that we can know pleasure imply), or that it's due to Satan, or that it's due to man's sinful nature and free will. What else can one say without giving up or modifying the theology?
As you know, for many, going all the way back to Epicurus, this is an argument against such a deity existing, analogous to arguments asking why a perfect god makes errors that it regrets and tries to remedy.
I had said, "I understood you to be arguing that one shouldn't pass moral judgment on a god who allows what appears to be gratuitous suffering because human beings don't know enough to make such judgments, and that they should accept that a good god might exist anyway with a higher morality, and get out of the moral judgment business when it comes to gods"
We each have a duty to ourselves and others to make moral judgments. One of the insidious aspects of some religions is the insistence that one deny his will, his conscience, and his sense of reason. Here, we're asked to suspend moral judgment and consider that what feels very immoral actually is not. In other areas, one is expected to silence the cognitive dissonance caused by reason, which is labeled the words of a demon trying to steal ones soul and is praised for shutting out that voice. In other areas, we are asked to give up our will, submit, don't try to run your own life but turn it over to God. Be meek and turn the other cheek. Any other disposition is rebellious, or man trying to exalt himself and replace God.
Why would anybody do all or any of that? Better to just steer clear of that kind of thinking and advice. You call yourself Druid. I don't know much about polytheism, but I am under the impression that the gods or spirits you acknowledge don't make such requests of you. Likewise with the Greek and Viking pantheons. As far as I know, these lesser gods don't seem to have much interest in the affairs or behavior of men. They don't ask you to do what feels immoral or irrational, or to submit to them. I consider that much healthier, in fact, probably harmless.
Exactly. You've illustrated the danger of suppressing one's conscience, and why that is dangerous even from a theistic perspective, where both gods and demons exist. How is man to know which is which if evil can actually appear to be good in disguise to him? Man must be the measure of what is good and what is bad, and his metric needs to be his conscience, not the uncritically received morality of a religious system, especially an ancient one, where submission and obedience were necessary, where life was shorter and more brutal, war and genocide more prevalent, and the state had a legitimate interest in keeping every womb busy every year.
We're still experiencing that ancient morality today with the pressure to be heterosexual, to marry, to not divorce, to not deny the husband conjugal rights, to not abort, and not use birth control including masturbation or the rhythm method when that's all there was. Today, when people are living longer andless likely to die at war, that program just leads to overpopulation, which is harmful. If somebody tells you that that is the will of a good god that sees further, and you accept that, you contribute to the harm as the anti-choice movement has just done. That is the potential price of substituting an exogenous morality for one's natural faculties.
The OP had said, "If God is loving, why did God ‘intentionally’ create a world that He knew would engender so much human and animal suffering? If God is just, why did God create a world in which He knew some people would suffer so much more than others, many people hardly suffering at all? How is that fair?"
I'd say that that analogy isn't apt, because these parents cannot remove the suffering in their world like a god could. Also, have you heard how many people are doing just that? The future looks so much more grim now than it had in the past that many potential parents are opting out of parenthood for fear of bringing a child into the world that will likely have a bad life fighting off authoritarianism, guns everywhere, an uncertain and threatening technological future, worsening economic opportunities, and extreme weather. Even nuclear war is back on the table. Would you want to be born today? I was born in the Father Knows Best / Leave It To Beaver era, when my parents had a reasonable expectation that I could live the American dream. By the time I was faced with the choice to reproduce or not, the late seventies, the future still looked rosy enough that the idea that the world was too unfriendly to be born into hadn't occurred to me.
That's another easy question for an atheist. Goodness doesn't depend on a god. It's perfectly natural that evolution would gift us with the ability to discern what is good for us and what is harmful, and to prefer the former. This is another aspect of the thinking I was describing above that results from thinking that all good is from God and all evil from man and demons. And so you deflect from the suffering, which to you likely has nothing to do with God, to the good in life to credit that god.
