God does not exist

So, here’s the deal. I’m going to show you that God [1] doesn’t exist. Your efforts to find a way out of my argument will fail, but I need you to try anyways. Your de-conversion will only be as real as the effort you put into the debate. II. The Argument If God exists, then any child that suffers will ultimately benefit from it. [Premise] If any child that suffers will ultimately benefit from it, then no one ought to prevent any child from suffering. [Premise] But, someone ought to prevent a child from suffering. [Premise] Therefore, some child that suffers will ultimately fail to benefit from it. [(2), (3) M. T. ] Therefore, God doesn't exist. [(1), (4) M. T. ] This argument is deductively valid, meaning if its three premises [(1)-(3)] are true, then its conclusions [(4) & (5)] have to be true. But, are its premises true? Let’s investigate them one by one. Premise (1): If God exists, then any child that suffers will ultimately benefit from it. The first premise is true because allowing a child to suffer purely for someone else’s sake (or for no one’s at all) is child abuse and God wouldn't be a child abuser. It would harm the child's well-being and likely inflict psychological damage as the child comes to grips with the frightening and cruel reality of having to agonize for no good reason. As Kant recognized, it’s wrong to use any person merely as a means to an end. If someone can simultaneously be morally perfect and a child abuser, I’d like to know what’s left for nonsense to refer to. Most people—theists and atheists alike—will endorse (1). However, there are more inquisitive minds—especially if they’re heavily invested in their God-belief—who will wish to investigate deeper. They’ll want to look for counter-examples, and see whether God even could insure that every child that suffers ultimately benefits from it. I’ll only anticipate the most likely objections in this post. [2]For instance, you might wonder whether retributive punishment is a counter-example, perhaps being a morally permissible instance of allowing a child to suffer without ultimately benefiting from it. (If it was rehabilitative punishement, the child would obviously ultimately benefit) But, I submit that retributive punishment for a child is gravely questionable, and doing so by allowing it to suffer is morally forbidden. Suffering does not refer to the discomfort of sitting in a corner for time-out, having your games taken away for a weekend or even getting spanked: it's an agonizing level of pain that no child should be subjected to unless it ultimately benefited from it. The interest in whether God could accomplish such a feat will most likely arise from worries over free-will: couldn’t humans freely interrupt God’s intention and prevent a child from ultimately benefiting from its suffering? But, the question is uninteresting since even if we answered yes to it, it would still be true that humans could just as well fail to freely disrupt God’s intentions. Whether free-will is compatible with determinism—in which case God could just determine people to not interrupt his goal—or not—in which case God could foresee and make real those circumstances in which every agent fails to freely interrupt his goal—God could still insure that any child that suffers, ultimately gains from it. In sum, we have excellent reasons for thinking that if God exists, then any child that suffers will ultimately benefit from it. Premise (2):If any child that suffers will ultimately benefit from it, then no one ought to prevent any child from suffering. The second premise is as true as the first. How could we be morally obligated to harm a child's well-being? Because harming these children is exactly what we'd be doing if we prevented them from ultimately benefiting from their suffering: it'd be for nothing. Furthermore, one could only be morally obliged to prevent a child from suffering if allowing the child to suffer would be wrong. But, if there really was a greater good made available to every child through suffering, it would not be wrong to allow any of them to suffer for the sake of that greater good. Any instance of their suffering would just be like when we allow a child to feel the pain from a needle so they might ultimately benefit from a vaccine or surgery. Keep in mind when chewing on this premise the difference between moral epistemology and moral ontology. Now, is that the world we live in? One in which we don’t need to worry about whether a child will come out on top after enduring their suffering? Premise (3): But, someone ought to prevent a child from suffering. No! It's precisely because we aren't sure whether a child will come out on top that we have the drive to prevent their suffering. We know there’s a genuine chance that their suffering is for nothing, and we’re driven by this. Our final premise is certainly true: someone should prevent children from being sold into prostitution, from being mercilessly beaten to within inches of their life, or from being abandoned to a lonely and agonizing death like starvation. III. ConclusionUnfortunately then, because all three premises true, our conclusions must also be true, and not every child will ultimately benefit from the suffering it endures. As harsh as this reality is we’re doing no one a service by hiding from it. God simply does not exist and that’s why we fight so hard for children, a fight we otherwise wouldn’t need to engage in. Now, I do not foresee my opponent trying to defeat any of these premises directly: there’s no way to rationally confront any of them. But, he might argue that his reasons for believing in God are so strong that the conclusion is just too implausible. In light of this, he will be forced to reject one of the premises, whichever he finds least plausible. However, as I’ve argued, it’s absurd to reject any of them. Thus, if he is forced to embrace absurdity to maintain his theism, the rational thing to do is abandon his belief in God. If his reasons for believing in God are remarkably strong, this will push him into agnosticism. If they’re weak (or impotent as I will endeavor to show in my rebuttal), then he should affirm the non-existence of God. Either way, the rational thing to do is de-convert. —Footnotes—[1]: I follow the standard notion of God as a metaphysically necessary, essentially omnipotent, omniscient morally perfect person. [2]: There are other objections I hope my interlocutor does not advance, such as that there would be no objective moral duties unless God existed. For now, suffice it to say I am a polytheist. But, will offer defeating considerations if prompted to.