[Buddha-l] Natural Evil

[Richard Hayes]

On Saturday 07 April 2007 11:21, Bob Zeuschner wrote:

> Although I personally do not find earthquakes etc. to be evil (sharing a
> Buddhist/Taoist perspective), I do believe that a Christian must find
> them evil.

What I would be more inclined to say is that a particular kind of Christian 
might find them evil. The sort of Christian who might be impugned by Hume's 
arguments (which are, by the way, astonishingly similar to arguments by a 
number of Indian Buddhists, such as Dharmakirti and Santirakshita) is one who 
takes scripture literally and who sees God as omniscient, invariably 
benevolent and omnipotent. Not all Christians see God in those terms. I would 
guess that most Christians these days do not, but I'm not sure. (My 
perceptions are no doubt skewed by the fact that virtually all my Christian 
friends are quite liberal and find literalism as bizarre as any reasonable 
person does. They're the sort of Christians who would, if they were Buddhist, 
probably question rebirth. They're the sort of Christian who, if they were 
Buddhist, would probably read buddha-l.)  

("Fiat Lux!").

For Peter's sake, Robert. That's Latin. Only Catholics think that God spoke 
Latin. The rest of us know he spoke Greek (which is a dialect of Sanskrit).

-- 
Richard Hayes