I dont believe in hell, and this is not the point anyway.

Actually, it is the point. You're trying to apologize for the evil things that god does by claiming that he is good and they are necessary. Well, what is your evidence that god is good, that god wants good to happen? If you read your Bible, it's very apparent that god is not good, what with all the genocide, rape, etc. either ordered by god or carried out by god.

The point is that dificult conditions are necesary for loving and rational beings to evolve in nature....
Regarding your last question, In a perfect world, there are animals who never need worry about where the next meal is coming from, never need worry about finding a mate and never need worry about getting eaten. How could natural selection work? What traits would be passed? It will simply be unnecesary.

These two comments are related, so I'll address both at once. You are presupposing that god had to use or chose to use evolution for some reason. That was what my question was about. Why does god need evolution? If god wanted humans to appear, why couldn't he simply zap us into existence, with all the knowledge of good and evil already intact? Most theists think that humans are the end of evolution, that god either simply created us or went through the whole evolution process so that we would come about; we are the end product. Why go through all of that hassle to do something that he could have simply done, and without all that strife, death, killing, time, etc?

I never used the free will defence, you are merely sidesteping the hole argument.

You argued that god wanted us not to be automatons, which is generally a comment on free will. If it isn't, then what is it a comment on? And, no, I'm not sidestepping anything, I'm attempting to address your specific points. If I misunderstood what you meant, then please clarify.

About pain: What reason would we have to obey the voice in our heads? Pain is necesary or we would keep hurting ourselves without even realizing.

Why do we obey pain? Are you saying that it would be logically impossible for god to create a signal that didn't hurt us that we would obey to stop ourselves from hurting ourselves? You are making the mistake of the is/ought fallacy, where you take what is assume that it is what ought to be and then try to rationalize why god did it that way, while also holding sacrosanct that god only does good. This is fallacious, however. god could very easily have created signals that we would obey that would not cause us the evil of pain. And, we would have reason to obey because we were made that way, and it would keep us from hurting ourselves (further) without even realizing it.

Besides that, why does god allow one to inflict pain on others? If the good of pain is to help us know that we should stop doing something that is damaging us, then why allow the bad aspects of pain?

OMGF

I dont believe in hell, and this is not the point anyway. The point is that dificult conditions are necesary for loving and rational beings to evolve in nature.

I never used the free will defence, you are merely sidesteping the hole argument.

About pain: What reason would we have to obey the voice in our heads? Pain is necesary or we would keep hurting ourselves without even realizing.

Regarding your last question, In a perfect world, there are animals who never need worry about where the next meal is coming from, never need worry about finding a mate and never need worry about getting eaten. How could natural selection work? What traits would be passed? It will simply be unnecesary.

However, he does know the way it is going to turn out and so must think of the result as being good.

This presupposes that god wants the outcome to be good. What evidence do you have that this is so? I would argue that the existence of hell is prima facie evidence that god is not so concerned with things being good. If evil is here for us to realize what good is, then why would it be necessary after we are dead? Why is natural evil necessary, and by that I mean earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.?

I suggest that the reason for this is tied up with the idea of 'radical integrity' and God's obvious desire that we should be our own creatures and not simply automatons.

I won't go into free will being logically impossible, but I will say that free will is basically your defense for why bad things happen to good people, right? god allows us to be bad through our free will so that we won't be automatons. OK, so what about in heaven? Is there evil in heaven? If not, does that mean that all souls in heaven will be automatons? If not, why is it different there than here? If so, then why would god desire that there but not here?

Additionally, why is natural evil necessary for us to be independent? Do I need hurricanes, tornados, etc. in order to decide for myself what I will do? Do I truly have free will if I'm not able to always choose good on my own? Surely, you believe I can't do that else Jesus would be superfluous, right? So, at some point I have to sin, meaning that I don't truly have free will because I have to choose evil at some point. god made this so, and if it doesn't impinge on our free will to have to choose evil, then why would it if we desired to choose good?

Also, I find the idea that we have to feel pain in order to know non-pain to be unconvincing. Pain is good when it tells us to stop doing whatever it is we are doing that is harming us, but why couldn't god come up with a different signal, like a voice in our heads that says, "Stop doing that?" Instead, god set up a system where we feel pain. Why is that?

Imagine a perfect world. In that world, there are animals who never need worry about where the next meal is coming from, never need worry about finding a mate and never need worry about getting eaten. We can be absolutely sure that these animals will never evolve into conscious beings because there is simply no need to.

Why would god need to create strife in order to have evolution take its course?

How does God know about love and goodness?

There is a response to the problem of natural evil wich, as long as I know, is entirely new. It attempts to show that what we call natural "evil" is neccesary in order to produce things we value like freewill, goodness and consciousness.

Here it is:

It is fairly clear that God grants the universe a great deal of freedom in the way it operates. The whole point of natural laws is that the universe can function without the need for God to step in and make adjustments the whole time to keep the show on the road. At the same time, those natural laws are not deterministic and so God has not set everything up in advance to come out a certain way. However, he does know the way it is going to turn out and so must think of the result as being good. Thus, I would say that the universe is allowed a 'radical integrity' and given the trouble this can cause we must assume that it is central to God's purposes.

So why did he not create a world where things are better than they are here? Why does he tolerate the inevitability of scarcity, evil and pain? Why not create a world where everyone has what they need and do not have a desire for more than that? I suggest that the reason for this is tied up with the idea of 'radical integrity' and God's obvious desire that we should be our own creatures and not simply automatons.

Imagine a perfect world. In that world, there are animals who never need worry about where the next meal is coming from, never need worry about finding a mate and never need worry about getting eaten. We can be absolutely sure that these animals will never evolve into conscious beings because there is simply no need to. They won't be happy because the concept of happiness can never occur to them. Evil doesn't exist but neither does the concept of good. They simply do not have the ability to comprehend either concept. What about love? I can't see how that can have appeared either because love almost always involves some sort of self-privation which is impossible in a world without scarcity. Of course, God can step in and create the difficult conditions in which these ideas can develop, but that makes him even more responsible for evil than he is already. If you want a universe that enjoys radical integrity and you want love and good to develop, you have to ensure that the conditions exist for them to appear. Without scarcity, they won't. The flip side is that scarcity gives rise to other consequences. The human desire for status is a direct evolutionary result of the fact that there is not enough to go around.

In our universe, love and good have developed to a quite remarkable extent. This has happened because natural evil exists. This natural evil has also given rise to much moral evil because pride, violence and promiscuity have all evolved because of it. But without it, we would not be conscious of good either or, if we were, we would not be free as the concept of good would simply have been planted in our heads by God rather than being something we discover for ourselves. Thus beings who know love and good through their own efforts can only evolve in a world of privation. Otherwise, everything we value, including freewill and consciousness, simply won't exist.

I'm sure there are other possible angles as well. I shall continue to think about the matter.