Tell Pat R. that Voltaire discredited his God-caused-it view in 1758

[Democrats_win]

The idea that human suffering is caused by God for the purpose of making the world a better place is an absurdity that Voltaire toyed with in his wonderful novel Candide.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/themes.html

Pangloss and his student Candide maintain that “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” This idea is a simplified version of the philosophies of a number of Enlightenment thinkers, most notably Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. To these thinkers, the existence of any evil in the world would have to be a sign that God is either not entirely good or not all-powerful, and the idea of an imperfect God is nonsensical.

Since God exists and must be perfect, the world he created must be perfect also. According to these philosophers, people perceive imperfections in the world only because they do not understand God’s grand plan. Because Voltaire does not accept that a perfect God (or any God) has to exist, he can afford to mock the idea that the world must be completely good, and he heaps merciless satire on this idea throughout the novel.

The optimists, Pangloss and Candide, suffer and witness a wide variety of horrors—floggings, rapes, robberies, unjust executions, disease, an earthquake, betrayals, and crushing ennui. These horrors do not serve any apparent greater good, but point only to the cruelty and folly of humanity and the indifference of the natural world. Pangloss struggles to find justification for the terrible things in the world, but his arguments are simply absurd, as, for example, when he claims that syphilis needed to be transmitted from the Americas to Europe so that Europeans could enjoy New World delicacies such as chocolate. More intelligent and experienced characters have all reached pessimistic conclusions about humanity and the world. By the novel’s end, even Pangloss is forced to admit that he doesn’t “believe a word of” his own previous optimistic conclusions.
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What all of the characters eventually conclude is that the best thing to do is work in their garden. Ironically, this garden reminds us of the Garden of Eden where it all supposedly started. Odd that Pat Robertson hasn’t figured out that he should do honest work rather than continue as a false prophet. He could even go door-to-door converting people as a figurative gardener. But no, foolish Pat will continue to embarrass himself.

Note that the Bible said there is nothing new under the sun. So next time Pat says something stupid remember that it's been done before and by smarter people. Leibniz, Voltaire's inspiration for this fool, helped invent Calculus!

[baldguy]

1. That's ok - Pat's living in 1492.

[papau]

2. The horrors list leaves out getting your butt cheek cut off - I never did

understand the symbolism.

Nor did I consider the book other than a put down - and not a discussion - of religious thought.

[MrMonk]

4. Cut off and eaten

[gordontron]

3. here here

I really like voltaire as a thinker, as a person he was a bit strange. I have him in my sign line actually |
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[JDPriestly]

5. Great book! Love Voltaire.

Agreed. Robertson needs to read Voltaire.

[DelawareValleyDem]

6. Another of his works to address the topic

was the famous Poem on the Lisbon Disaster

http://courses.essex.ac.uk/cs/cs101/VOLT/Lisbon2.htm

[Seansky]

7. very good relation...Read all Voltaire works and Candide more than

once and it wouldn't have occurred to me to make such an eloquent co-relation...