When Bad Things Happen to Good People (ISBN 1-4000-3472-8) is a 1978 book by Harold Kushner, a Conservative rabbi. Kushner addresses in the book one of the principal problems of theodicy, the conundrum of why, if the universe was created and is governed by a God who is of a good and loving nature, there is nonetheless so much suffering and pain in it - essentially, the evidential problem of evil.
The book is dedicated to the memory of his young son, Aaron, who died at the age of 14 in 1977 of the incurable genetic disease progeria. Rabbi Kushner's book was a New York Times bestseller for many months in the "nonfiction" category.
Read more about When Bad Things Happen To Good People: Recognition
Famous quotes containing the words bad, happen and/or people:
“The Harmless Torturers. In the Bad Old Days, each torturer inflicted severe pain on one victim. Things have now changed. Each of the thousand torturers presses a button, thereby turning the switch once on each of the thousand instruments. The victims suffer the same severe pain. But none of the torturers makes any victim’s pain perceptibly worse.”
—Derek Parfit (b. 1943)
“Bruno Antony: Tell me, Judge, after you’ve sentenced a man to the chair, isn’t it difficult to go out and eat your dinner after that?
Judge Dolan: When a murderer is caught he must be tried, when he is convicted he must be sentenced, when he is sentenced to death he must be executed.
Bruno Antony: Quite impersonal, isn’t it?
Judge Dolan: So it is. Besides, it doesn’t happen every day.
Bruno Antony: So, few murderers are caught?”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Country people tend to consider that they have a corner on righteousness and to distrust most manifestations of cleverness, while people in the city are leery of righteousness but ascribe to themselves all manner of cleverness.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)