How can you have freewill if fate is predetermined and choice taken away? "Evil" may serve a purpose but it takes a leap of faith to accept that it is unreasonable to invoke reason to explain the workings of the divine, the same sort of faith it would take to convert the disbeliever. I don't look at the Epicurean conundrum as a way to disprove the existence of God, rather I see it as taking the wind out of the sails of Christianity.
I see.
Well, the conundrum questions the nature and existence of God through examining His correlations to abstract evil.
It theorizes if evil is allowed to occur, malevolence must be reason. That doesn't make sense IMO. If God were malevolent how would good be allowed to occur? Since both are arrived at through actions of man the only explanation in this context and per being judged of our actions is free will.
Speaking of which, free will and fate don't have to be mutually exclusive. No one directs our individual decisions. However, once some decisions are made what follows can be described as only the illusion of choice.