[pmoriarty]

While the technical term in philosophy is "The Problem of Evil", it's really more about suffering and imperfection than it is about the loaded term "evil" as such.

It can be reduced to the general question "if god is perfect, why is the world imperfect?"

Or, to narrow the question a bit while still avoiding the use of the word "evil", we can ask "if god is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent, why does suffering exist?"

We can agree that hurricanes, earthquakes, other natural disasters and diseases cause suffering, without getting in to the question of whether they're "evil" per se.

Such non-human causes of suffering don't seem to be necessary in a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly benevolent god.. yet they still exist. Why?

Couldn't such a perfect god have created a world without all this suffering?