Thanks for your responses. I am serious about the question—about the grammar question, that is. (Perhaps I should have used a different example but I thought one on religion might be appropriate.) Anyway, back in the early 50s when/where you had to decline the pronouns and conjugate the verbs to pass I was taught there is an important difference between the present indicative and subjunctive but I never felt like I grasped it. And as the present subjunctive is becoming obsolete I wonder if back then they made a distinction where there was no difference, or whether we are collapsing a (fine) distinction today that is really there.

I am an atheist and antitheist, but I imagine an agnostic would say “I don’t know if there is a god or not, but the existence of unnecessary suffering points in the direction that a benevolent god does not exist”.

The present subjunctive is a conditional. It is a statement that implies that something has to, or would have to happen, for the statement to be true. In this case, the existence of unnecessary suffering would not occur if there was a god, presumably to stop such suffering. The indicative, instead, is a statement of fact. Does not depend on anything else for its validity. Now, English is my second language, so please someone help me out here. The second phrase, does it not sound like something coming from a non-educated person living out there in te Appalachian boondocks?

I have no clue lol