How can a good God allow suffering

The answer, my friend, is very simple.

There is no God.

But if there was a god, he would not be a good god.

There ya have it, Sawyer. easy peasy. By the way, I probably should tell you that anytime you ask a 'God' related question on A2K, it will pretty much get bum-rushed by the resident A2K Atheists who will tell you the question is moot because there is no God. Just so you know ahead of time, and it doesn't throw you.

And, Welcome to A2K!

What has led you to believe this, though?

Why would he NOT allow it? All living things suffer. It's the nature of life. Pain tells us that something is wrong; we hurt ourselves, we burned ourselves, we contracted a disease, we don't have enough to eat, etc. Without suffering you wouldn't know not to drop something heavy on your foot, or eat, or breathe for that matter! It has nothing to do with "good" or "evil".

There is simple suffering and there is agony. I don't need agony.

Is the God who created us the same as the god who currently rules the world? Consider the account in Matthew 4: 8-9 where Satan was able to offer all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus. He could not have done so, if he did not control them.

Thankfully, his control has an expiration date.

Ah, such a novel question. Why has no one brought this up before?

More to the point, why haven't you realized the truth of it already? It is the obvious answer after all. There is no evidence to support your contention, the very nature of which leads to a cascade of logical and moral paradoxes. Why continue to ignore the obvious answer?

Ecclesiastes 1: 9-10
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

What has led you to believe this, though?

And honestly, why wouldn't we? Isn't it reasonable to question basic assumptions when a question like this gets posted? And even more broadly, is it not incumbent on every intelligent person to challenge the basic veracity of the assumptions implied by a question like this? How could any reasonable person possibly let an assumption like that simply skate on through? Especially in an open forum like this?

For example, if someone popped in and asked "Why do Unicorns like to put their heads in virgin's laps?", would you expect that to just go through without challenge, and people to start an enthusiastic analysis of the motivations of the Unicorn? Does the word "God" (which I put in quotes because there are about a billion of them) earn some type of special pass that other magical entities don't? Is any particular "God" more magical than a Unicorn? Can there be such a thing as "more magical"? Is there more evidence for God than a Unicorn? Or is God simply a more "reasonable" form of magic in people's minds? The mere fact that I can equate God and Unicorns probably feels wrong to some people, but their feeling only demonstrates the point.

Now, to be fair, you might say to the person asking the question, "are you using the question to form a purely academic discussion on morality, or do you actually believe in Unicorns?" If the person says that the question is purely hypothetical then you might want to explore the concept on that basis alone. But if the person says they actually believe in Unicorns, would you really want to continue on with a careful analysis of the moral question knowing that they were already delusional? Might you become suspicious that this person's reasoning process was already impaired and think that you might not get a very rational discussion out of them?

On the other hand, if A2K were a church or something, then I could see a question about God going unchallenged. After all, if you're sitting in a room full of people who already believe in Unicorns, then you would expect a discussion of Unicorns to follow without challenge. But in an open forum like A2K it would be unrealistic not to expect to be challenged on the basic premise of the question, wouldn't it?

And likewise, in public and in daily life, the assumption of God should not go unchallenged, any more than the assumption of Unicorns should.

He's a bloody ruffian, to take away little Willie Dignam, for one.

If I understand you correctly, you were asking what had transpired in their lives and/or their thinking to bring them to say there is no God, correct?

Why is it so obvious that God doesn't exist? What supernatural power do you think intervened and created the universe?

Also this

None.

There are countless billions of possible magical beings which could be thrown at the creation of the Universe, yet you don't challenge me on any of them. You don't ask me why Zeus doesn't exist, or Fairies or Elves or any of the other countless possibilities. You dismiss them all out of hand, automatically. You don't lose any sleep at night worrying about the possibility that Allah or Krishna might be the true Creator. Why? What's so special about your particular God that sets it apart from all the other possibilities?

Is there some evidence which shows that your concept of God is the right magical being out of the other billion? Please show me.

Is it more logical that your concept of God is the right one out of the billions? Please explain how.

Of all the possibilities that you could have chosen, does your God happen to be the one you were exposed to as a child? What is the probability that the one "right" one out of all the possibilities available, is the one you happened to be exposed to?

So when you ask me, "Why is it so obvious that God doesn't exist?", I say you already know that answer, and you've used that answer to eliminate all the other possibilities as though they were trivial, barely worth your consideration. You already know there's no God. Everybody should realize it. It's obvious.

Because it is a question in an area you have no experience or interest in. Your 'answers' are an attempt to de-legitimize the questioner for the purposes of your own entertainment or gratification. It's just ignorant ranting for juvenile purposes.

Even if you aren't certain God exists, the OP is a legitimate philosophical question that has been asked by great thinkers all through the ages.