Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

GetReligion has two posts up about how a good God could allow a natural disaster like the South Asian tsunamis. They are here and here.

Long story short, my answer comes down Romans. There is none of us righteous, not even one. If you measure us against each other perhaps some are more righteous than others. But when you measure us against the absolute yardstick of God righteousness, not a single one of us will measure up. And so all of us are condemned to physical death and eventually stand before our Maker.

Does the method he uses to bring you into his presence really matter? The time of his choosing? At some point you might as well ask "If there is a good and loving God, why aren't we all immortal?" It may be a bit of straw man, but only a bit of one.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because there are no good people in the absolute sense. A better question is "why do good things happen to bad people?" The answer is because God still loves us despite the pain we give him.