week 8 discussion posts #1-2

On the topic of Providence, Free Will & Suffering
Discussion posts below altered slightly for the purposes of this blog

In response to the discussion of God creating a world devoid of evil and suffering, I think I've interpreted the question differently to Ariella and Priyanka. I think it's possible that God could create a world without evil and suffering, because I also think its possible that as free agents, humans are the ones who create the evil and suffering amongst themselves.
Ariella/Priyanka/others who agree, I apologise if I've misinterpreted your own repsonses, but that's my 2 cents worth :)

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After reading Rachel's post on the discussion of how the good die young, I was reminded of how I used to think that "It always seems to be the good people who die early/prematurely..." and I couldn't understand it either. But the idea that came to me was, perhaps God takes the good people away from Earth because they don't deserve to suffer all the stress, the trauma, the evils and the dangers of living in human society. Like Michelle wrote, maybe we do live in a "relatively 'good' world" - after all, we could have been living out WW #101 rather than watching the news on the "War in Iraq", but I still think it's a world which is not as good as it could be.
But back to my main point - perhaps God handpicks the really good people and seriously takes them to a better place..