the book of job, and an unjust god

This article gives a very nice explanation of the Book of Job as a work of fiction.It shows the battle between faith in God and faith in dogma/tradition.Is God truly unjust or just not involved?

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

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is there a substantial difference between "why does god do bad things to good people?" and "why does god let bad things happen to good people?"

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Delete the "why."Does God do bad things to good people or bad people?
Does God let bad things happen to good people or bad people?
Does God truly "do" anything?As the story of Job showed and we are witness to today, good/bad things happen to good/bad people.The stories in the Bible are written from a priestly point of view after the fact. They promote the ultimate authority, God.If I tell a preacher that God showed me that he (the preacher) was double dipping, he definitely does not agree. From his standpoint Satan is just using me to thwart God's mission. (Yeah, right!)Example:
A large company has a CEO named Mr. Jones. Down the line are some VP's and then some Directors. One day one of the directors needs a job done a certain way and the workers disagree. The director says, Mr. Jones wants it that way. So the workers continue despite their reservations. The director used Mr. Jones' authority to get the workers to do what he wanted. Now the workers could have gone to Mr. Jones to check the story, but we are unable to check out another person's claim that God told them so.Hey, ultimate authority and no one can check it out.Religious people wrote the Bible. It is from their viewpoint, their perception, and about their respective religion and it changes to fit their needs. The means are to justify their end, not humanity's.So does God truly "do" anything?

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

Fascinating.

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I wrote:
Religious people wrote the Bible. It is from their viewpoint, their perception, and about their respective religion and it changes to fit their needs. The means are to justify their end, not humanity's.

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I say religious people and you (I assume by your questions) include everyone whose ever acknowledged a god. (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt)I said religious people and I was talking about the priests of the OT, which I mentioned earlier that it was written from their viewpoint. Needless to say my group is much smaller.I used humanity as equivalent to mankind, maybe that was incorrect, but that was my point.Do you truly think that the priest(s) who wrote Leviticus (which theory has it that it was possibly written after the fall of the northern kingdom) was thinking of all mankind when he was writing?Best case he was thinking of his own people (Hebrews/Israelites/Jews).
Worse case he was thinking of job security/livelyhood.

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Are "religious" people human?

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Yes, with all the fears and foibles that go along with that position.

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Why are their needs so very different from yours?

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They need religion.

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

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Perhaps they thought that killing the enemy was Gods will.

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That's what I was trying to say in Message 22, but apparently didn't succeed. Whatever they wrote was written as God's will, whether it was an earthquake, flood, drought, war, etc., which is a priestly point of view.How were wars depicted in official documents?Is it possible to determine what is truly from God and what is man's perception?

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.