(October 2, 2014 at 6:20 pm)Alex K Wrote: The mathematician and philosopher Leibniz, in an attempt at apologetics, tried to explain this thusly - that while this world has its shortcomings, it is the best possible world for us to live in. Maybe these elements of disruption and temptation are necessary to put some kind of balance (an idea which is employed in many works of fiction, the matrix part three for example, or Babylon5). Voltaire did write an entire novel, Candide, to mock Leibniz' idea, and illustrate its absurd consequences.
Voltaire needn't have gone to the trouble. If a fallible human being can even imagine a better world than the one in which we live, then this cannot be the 'best possible' world for us.
The notion of 'balance' falls rather flat as well. I can understand (although I do not agree with) the theistic position on this matter, God clearly could have designed a world is which suffering is necessary for some imagined balance, but it seems plain that a world in which the suffering takes the form of getting short changed at the grocers or the waiter spilling a drink in your lap is clearly better than a world where the suffering take the form of debilitating painful disease or the sexual abuse of children.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
