Lisbon and Voltaire

Today is the 250th anniversary of the famous Lisbon earthquake, which is thought to have killed tens of thousands of people and left many thousands more homeless. Coming as it did in the context of rising skepticism among the "Enlightened" elites of Europe, the earthquake became a rhetorical weapon in the arsenal of deists, agnostics, and atheists.

Voltaire made use of the earthquake in Candide and also referred to it in several of his letters. Here's one from just a few weeks after the quake.

It's interesting, although not surprising, to see the unbelievers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina trot out the same arguments as Voltaire and the other philosophes: "If there is a God, how could he allow such a catastrophe to take place?" It's just another example of how the study of the past sheds more light on the present.