[Buddha-l] Fighting creationism

[Richard Hayes]

On Friday 06 April 2007 18:59, SJZiobro at cs.com wrote:

> Nature is not a moral world, and I'm sure this is why Richard disagreed
> with my phrase "natural evil". 

Yes, that is part of the reason. I also disagree with Hume, whose arguments 
against the existence of God included arguments that God cannot be good if 
she allows "natural evil" to occur. The examples of natural evil that Hume 
discussed were such things as earthquakes, floods and other events of the 
natural world that cause misery to human beings and other sentient beings. 
Perhaps because my thinking has been influenced by Xunzi, I think it is 
misguided to think of earthquakes etc in moral terms, such as good or bad or 
virtue or vice. Earthquakes happen when techtonic plates shift. Those are 
mechanical events and should be discussed in purely mechanical terms, not in 
any kind of language that implies any agency or intention or acts of will or 
even acts of condoning---whether on the part men or mice or angels or 
omniscient deities. Earthquakes are earthquakes, plagues are plagues, 
epidemics are epidemics and gravity is gravity. We call them bad because we 
don't much like them, unless they kill terrorists or other entities we have 
in our folly designated as foes. 

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico