I wrote this in reply to Russell elsewhere but thought it worth mentioning here:

The idea of "an omnipotent being preventing suffering":

Suffering seems to involve being caught without an escape. Otherwise you could escape from the circumstances associated with suffering?

Why would a person by stuck? Why suffer?
Because in some small way the person feels a need to be omni-potent, all-"powerful"?

"All-powerful"? What is power? A cyclist powers up a steep hill. He has resource consent to get up the hill; he has the resources and the will to use those resources.

The resources are focused on the job in hand (of getting up the hill). He "paints the hill with light" as in "he has the hill under control"; that is he can "weather the storm".

He has extra space in meeting the hill, space to mix himself up in cycling the hill i.e. he has internal room vis-a-vis the hill.
He has "his daily bread ration" re: the hill? He has "le pain"?

The hill "suffers him" to power up it.

"All" is the tangential opposite of "powerful"?

He powers up the hill; at right angles to him + hill there is space which allows him to carry out his intentions while the hill "sleeps".

If "all" is at right angles to "powerful" then "all -powerful" would be freedom in determining right angles.

That would mean that:

any prevention of suffering is most easily done by agreement.

"Ask and it will be given you, seek and you shall find".

If you believe that you can prevent suffering, you can prevent it so long as you are in union with God of all creation...(?)

Does that sound right?

Consciousness IS BLISS and is not in conflict with bliss.

Pain is temporal.

Stop the clock and pain stops.

Pain results from dark energy (hidden alternatives) colliding with dark matter (hidden disturbance)?

hidden energy = real matter (real disturbance); hidden matter (hidden disturbance) = real energy. If these collide you get like a nuclear explosion in reverse; you get energy converting to matter
(alternatives converting to disturbance)(so apparent restriction in your options such that the restriction becomes a disturbance in the background i.e. a constant reminder of what COULD have been "IF ONLY"; in other words: "a pain".

"If only" what? That's what the pain is.

Pain involves "feeling restricted".

So removing pain requires LESS restriction, not compulsory intervention? Voluntary intervention: God can always intervene but we need to be open to His Will (?)

Does that sound right?

an attempt to look at this

-Alan