A seven year late addition, but the Thomistic common sense presentation of being and change is basic and easily demonstrates the existence of the being that dovetails so perfectly with the God of Catholicism. Its denial involves the denial of causality, hence any intelligibility. Catholicism really is the light of the world.

you're wrong for life

I am not a nihilist and there is nothing nihilist on my comments above. I am also not wrong. There is no God, and humans do not posess libertarian free will.

No one is suggesting an imperfect creation is better than nothing, rather god without material creation is better than god plus material creation as the former has no evil or evil potential.

Sure I think four year olds handing me things is great. Four year olds being raped is pretty bad though, god created the potential for both, degrading the state of affairs. I do not see how this follows, either it wasn't perfect absent creation or no such god exists.

Your move in this argument should be saying that the volume of good may outweight the evil that was allowed to occur by way of creation.

How nihilist of you. How dreadfully WRONG and nihilist. God created us perfectly--including perfect Free Will. What WE did to mess it up is on US, not God. Besides, even an IMPERFECT creation is better than nothing--or haven't you ever had a 4 year-old hand you anything that they have made you themselves?

"How would NOT creating anything be greater than creating it?" - because the only result of creating humans would be to degrade his perfection, to allow the opportunity for evil. If you consider goodness to be a great-making property, perfect goodness can only be degraded by creation.

Your analogies to humans creating things is misplaced. Humans are not perfect and therefore can be improved by their works. God could in no way be improved through the act of creation, unless you concede that prior to creation he was in some way flawed.

"1) Are you saying that just because you will go through some bad times that it isn't worth having been created?"

No, I am saying I was not created by a perfect deity, neither was the cosmos. I most certainly am not saying I would prefer not to exist or to have never have existed.

2) Creating other minds would not degrade God's perfection if he created other perfect minds, but he didn't. He created minds that could and he knew would diverge from him resulting in evil. I am not saying he said the world was perfect, I am saying prior to the world was perfection, his creation degraded it.

3) " It seems inherent to me, that creating more minds with complete Free Will as to whether to accept and love Him is not only an enhancement to the universe, but quite generous, as well." This presumes that the state of affairs prior to creation, when there was only God, could be "enhanced", this means god could be enhanced, which means could not have been perfect.

I had children. some of them have experience great suffering. Was I wrong bring children into the world knowing that this possibility existed? I also know that some of my children, or descendants, will cause great suffering to others. I know that things do not always go the way we wish.

The Bible says, "The sufferings of the present world are not to be compared to the eternal weight of glory." God has provided a solution. He could not have made beings that could love, without giving them free choice. He weighed the risk. He has suffered beyond imagining, because He loves us. His suffering is eternal. Ours is temporary.

Yep, must be so Mary J!
Now, to the mom and Dad whose kids just got vaporized by the Vesuvius pyroclastic blast:
"... just a passing note, so-called "natural evils" such as hurricanes and earthquakes are not evil in and of themselves".
Cold comfort.