ghosts of the dead

I just read Adam Gopnik's piece in the latest New Yorker about mourning the Civil War dead. Three different books. One, by the new Harvard president, describes the ghastly way these men died at close range, left on the battlefield to rot. All the deaths from war, disease, tsunami, earthquake and murder are on my mind on an almost daily basis - and makes it impossible for me to believe in a benevolent God. I recommend this article.