Our hearts go out to you, Devina, as we think of your tragic loss.
It is at times like these that we need to keep firmly in mind the distinction between the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil. You and your friend are obviously suffering emotionally from the severe losses that you have each experienced, she of her parents and you of your friend. Nothing has really changed to make the problem of innocent suffering more difficult intellectually. You and she were already aware of innocent persons who died in airline crashes, not to mention those who perished in the tsunami of recent years. Yet these deaths did not cause you or your friend to lose your faith. What has changed is that the problem of evil has now become intensely personal. There is an emotional component to these losses that was not present in the deaths of those other persons.
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