Problem of Evil and Suffering

It is really two problems:

• Moral Evil (e.g. 9/11)
• Natural Evil (e.g. Ebola)

Those problems are logically distinct, although they can intermingle... e.g. malnutrition can be caused by deforestation which is caused by greedy corporations. So you sometimes can't separate them but have to think about them together.

There are also two different perspectives:

• It's one thing to study cancer as a professor of oncology
• It's another thing to have cancer and be told you only have 2-3 months to live

These are very difficult questions and have two sides. The professor of oncology needs to have a certain detachment, intellectually rigorous if he's going to help the suffering patient... but the suffering patient may need a great deal of empathy, emotional counseling, care and help.