Reply #5: I think a freak occurance and lack of any plan is more comforting...

[Deep13]

...than the idea that god is intentionally making the kid suffer for no reason but caprice. Just speaking for myself, of course.

When my Dad died at age 52 in 1999 from a stroke, I found a lot more solace in the idea that it was a random event than from the idea that there was some logic behind it. I never thought it was divine retribution, but his surviving relatives all wondered what we could have done differently that might have prevented him being stressed-out or saved his life after the stroke. I found it irritating when people tried to put a positive spin on it. "He's in a better place now." Really? A better place than with his wife and dogs on the Christmas tree farm he built? Did god or whatever ask him if he wanted to go to that better place? The whole situation sucked and nothing could change that so I wished that people would stop trying.