[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Dakesintrah

Now, for someone's reference to Job:

I have a name, you know.

And I fail to see how the identity or good/evilness of Satan applies to Job in the context of bad stuff happening to good people.

I specifically did not bring up the "behind the scenes" parts of Job, or Satan at all, because Job the person did not have access to that side of the story. All that happened was that his life suddenly started going sour, even though he had done nothing wrong.

In fact, I didn't even apply Job to the "Problem of Evil"--that was tumhalad. I only wanted to highlight the context of a text accepted by Jews and Christians, in which suffering happens for no apparent reason, and suggesting that the fact that Jews and Christians alike have used it to grapple with the idea of suffering, without necessarily engendering a different "moral universe," would suggest that the same sort of reconciliation could and did happen in the fictional Middle-earth.

All of this is quite far, I think, from Tumhalad's original point, but I dislike being misrepresented. This, however, is spot-on:

Always be aware that people tend to disagree, not because they are "idiots" but because they already have an established presupposition.

For you and me both, Dakesintrah. Cheers.