[TheDon]

Essentially all questions like this are a waste of time, as you can never prove or disprove the existance of God by a logic puzzle due to the very nature of religion.

Religion is based on faith, and faith exists without proof, the second you try to bring logic into a debate on religion you lose because religion exists outside of the realms of logic. It's not logical, it doesn't make scientific sense, and cannot be shown to be the way, this is why religions are faiths and not sciences.

To say that people suffer therefore there is no God misses the point, if people who didn't follow a God suffered, whilst those that did didn't, that would be proof of the existence of God, and therefore the faith would be removed. Religion cannot exist without faith, faith is the very essence of religion, it's not something you know, but something you feel.

You can attribute the suffering of people as tests of faith, maybe not for you as an individual, but for humanity as a whole, you may live a sin free life, and you may still suffer, how you react to the fact that that happens could be how God judges you. Even though everything has gone against you, and everything seems to be falling apart, do you still turn to God? Or do you dismiss him from your life?

Now, I'm an atheist, and quite set in my beliefs, I don't believe in God, and think religion was first developed as a way to control the unruley masses, the fear of God does wonders for keeping a society in check. But I'm not going to try to debate the existence of God on the basis of logic and reason, because I know that religion doesn't have either of these things, and it doesn't need to.