The original sin-exaltation: of ourselves above God and a refusal of his moral commands equals our death and gives rise to a false sense of our own righteousness or (free thinking/atheistic tendencies) to run rampant. A-theism or without God...is nothing new to mankind. These ideas have been around since the dawn of man and are not obviously new in any sense of the word new. What maybe new is only new to us individually as we experience for the first time events such as these that rend our hearts. Since we are not immortal and our death is imminent we are limited to our own short and ignorant self gained knowledge or are reliant on others to provide it to us and thereby incorporate it as our own experience. This short life of 70 years give or take a decade can in no way explain all there is to know about our wonderful world or universe. The "why" of anything in these situations exposes us to a moral dilemma that asks us to question our existence and it wreaks havoc in our soul that forces us to think and reason on a deeper level. If Susan Jacoby is offering up Atheism as an alternative way to deal with extreme emotional loss of life of loved ones, it pales next to the consolation of what the Kingdom of God can offer. If Susan Jacoby is indeed "free" not to ask an all powerful God why he allows such things to happen I would say it limits her depth of understanding.
Job as I recall also wrestled with mighty questions over the suffering condition he found himself to be in...(a wretched man sitting in ashes with wounds that would not heal) all allowable by God to let Satan afflict him but not to take his life. We also know from the narrative of his three friends that they tried vary hard to convince him it was his own sin and fault that led him to this state. His friends obviously did not remember his former state of significant stature before his suffering. In answer to Job's pleas to his God he was rebuked and there followed some of the deepest prose in history of God's answer to him of his supreme and rightful Deity over his creation.
There is a certain sadness to this reasoning that once death occurs nothing else exists for us. To those who have lost precious little ones to a person who was obviously ill it offers no relief and no hope at all of a restoration and a returned peace to their lives. A belief in nothing is absurd.
The Gospel of our Lord offers a sane answer to all of our troubles in the here and now and also to the beyond. It also answers the question of why a good and benevolent God would allow this and it returns us to the beginning...Genesis the beginning and the root of evil that grows alongside of the good.
Christ is the restoration of all things and the sacrifice that atoned for our wrong choices and for all time and for all people regardless of their condition and or persuasion or moral condition. If there ever was a balancer for all people it is Christ Imanuel God with us. I have my doubts that Christ would have expended so much energy in his ministry of three short years if it were all to be "dust" in the end. I suspect that those who have not experienced the profound love of God cannot reflect it to others.
There are so many written letters we ave available that prove the unquenchable spirit that we have within us that must transcend our natural life to the beyond. Not only in the NT but in the arts and humanities as well forever trapped in our great libraries throughout the world. I am convinced of an afterlife because of this and will always offer hope to those who suffer. There is and will be a resurrection of the dead and of those who are innocent... no more tears. This far more consoling I think than to think little ones simply have a perfect rest in death only.
"And they brought unto him also infants that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for such is the kingdom of God.
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