What My Drawing Looked like

Evil-Cruel




Innocent-Good


Mask to hide behind

Ending-Candide

As I finished reading Candide, I found Voltaire a very effective writer. At first I didn´t understand his satire, but as the book went on I adapted. I found it a very creative and entertaing way to portray his message about optimism and passim. His common place of using human natures typical behaviors helped me connect with the book. I found it very interesting how he compared society and its ideals throughout the book.

In the last chapters after all the suffering Candide has gone through, he finally has an optimistic life after all. Voltaire’s use of vividness really helped me out when reading. I could imagine every scene, since he used appropriate descriptive words for each scene.

I found the final passage of the book a very good one to end it. It was a very strong ending, with a very true message.

¨You are perfectly right, said Pangloss; for when man was put into the Garden of Eden, he was put there to dress it and to keep it, to work in fact which proves that man was not born to an easy life. ….Let’s work without speculating, said Martin; it’s the only way to make life bearable. The entire household agreed to this admirable plan, and each began to exercise his talents. That is very well put, said Candide, but we must go and work our garden.¨ (Candide pg.143-144)

The message I got from Voltaire was that being rich doesn’t symbolize happiness. As we saw in chapter 30 it mentions all those noble men, who had it all and ended up getting killed. I love the ending how Candide finally teaches Pangloss something. Candide teaches Pangloss that in order to have a better world each must do it´s own contribution and work for it, because improvement only comes from work, not from doing nothing like all those noble men. They really didn´t accomplish much, because since they had it all they didn´t work to improve.

Drawing

As I read Chapter 20-25 I found the end of chapter 21 very impacting. It is a conversation between Candide and Martin, where Candide asks Martin, ¨ Do you think, said Candide that men have always massacred each other, as they do today, that they have always been false, cozening, faithless, ungrateful, thieving, weak, inconstant , mean-spirited, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloody, slanderous, debauched, fanatic, hypocritical and stupid?”And Martin replies, “Do you think said Martin, that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could find them?”(Candide 96) When Candide responds ¨Of course I do¨ Martin then proves his point by saying that if the rest of the animals’ don´t change why men would be any different and actually change. Candide then defends his point of view by saying that humans have free will.

I believe humans do have free will, yet, humans are very evil. I have found that many people who appear to be your best friends actually backstab you and betray you. I do agree that we have free will, yet many don´t use it how it´s supposed to be.

Therefore, for my drawing I drew a Mardi gras mask over a baby face and another image which is a face of a witch behind the mask as well. The mask and the baby represents ¨good¨ and innocence for it has a smile on it and the witch is a symbol of evil. Depending on the situation in our daily life we change the face, yet we always have the mask on. For our environment makes us act differently accordingly.

I think my drawing perfectly describes society and human nature, because sometime in our life we have backstabbed or been backstabbed by someone you cared about and never expected. Many times in society we act as someone we are not either if it is to fit in, harm someone, or reach a goal. That is why there is a saying that says trust no one but yourself. We live in a very dangerous evil world full of hypocrisy and two faced people. Danger surrounds us, even though it sometimes looks pretty harmless. It´s reality and something we face in our daily lives and through time learn how to handle it.

I liked how Voltaire made fun of this cruel human behavior, because it alerts the reader to be aware of hurting others and of being hurt. It also makes the reader reflect upon own personal experiences and analyze them.


* DRAWNG IS IN MY NOTEBOOK-I Don´t have a scanner sorry.

Satirical Essay

The Greatest Sport Created


Are you tired of feeling ugly? Not having enough money? Simply being fat? Are you tired of eating your money and flushing it down the toilet? The solution is all in the new sport created: Anorexia. It is proven that food is the cause of world poverty. With the money you waste on food yearly, you could buy 100 Mercedes. So, do you prefer to have 100 Mercedes parked in your garage or have a big fat belly and no money in your wallet? By playing a sport, never before could you help fight world poverty, yet now you can!

This sport has become so popular in such a short period of time that it is now being considered to be played in the next Olympics. It’s an easy sport, which only requires one skill, to follow directions. Playing it is as easy as it sounds: No Eating. That is it, one rule. It can’t get any simpler.

There has now been an anorexic association league created not too long ago, devoted into helping others. If you want to improve your life tremendously, call them NOW! They will give you tips to improve your life 100% guaranteed. Call 1800-Anorexics. They will give you all the information needed to join the team, free of charge. This Anorexic league will promise you drastic changes very rapidly. You may ask yourself why they don’t charge. It’s simple, their passion is to help others making the world a happier and better place.

This sport will only improve your life. It will make you skinnier, prettier, happier and will teach you skills essential to your daily life: following directions. Ever since it was created millions of athletes are in the constant race of fighting to always become better. They do whatever it takes, to reach “success”.

Psychologists have even rated this sport as the drug they had never before found. This is because it not only improves your physical and emotional health, but it triggers motivation. So, if you find life boring and need that inspiration you once had, call them now.

On the other hand do you suffer from not enough attention? Are you depressed and feel useless? This sport will give you the attention you had always dreamed of. The changes will be so noticeable, that people with no doubt, will look at you in surprise, talk about you and even point at you. Who would ever think shutting your mouth was the answer for the attention you were looking for all these years.

Is your name hideous? Are you embarrassed to meet people because of your name? People who practice this sport can refer to themselves as Ana. Playing Anorexia will abolish your worst nightmare. People will now refer to you as Ana instead of your embarrassing name. This is the same case as people who practice syphilis are called Philly. Yet, Ana is a prettier than any other name. It’s short easy and unisex. No need to be ashamed, now you will be part of this proud, prestigious elite team.

What sport can be better than one that is affordable, gains the attention you always wanted, gives life a meaning and motivates you, no need to go the gym or time required to practice and it even saves you money, makes you pretty and happy.

Join the never ending race of being the scrawniest and boniest or simply the prettiest person alive. Being gorgeous is not that difficult. So it’s time for the life you always wanted. Start practicing only practice makes better. The more you practice the better the results.

This new trendy, effective, no time consuming sport has been the solution to millions of problems. No more working out, no more hassles, no more being unhappy or ugly. Start playing and you will become amazed by the feedback. Have a problem? There is an answer: Anorexia.

Connection With N.Y.T Article

When poverty exists it brings many other problems, making society very chaotic. Some consequences of poverty are crime, violence, disease among may others. It is the responsibility of the more privileged to help others in any way possible.

In these chapters we can see how perfect Eldorado is. How the children were playing with gold nuggets, emeralds and rubies. Eldorado is a Utopian world, meaning it doesn´t exists. I can relate this to the real world by dividing the poor and the rich. There are many people specially celebrities who have so much money, that they don´t know what to do with it, yet, it never crosses their mind to help the most needy. Maybe they are greedy or maybe they simply don´t want anything to do with people from other social classes because they could be affected. Just as in Eldorado there was enough money to end world poverty, ¨ (pg.75)As they approached they noticed some children, covered with tattered gold brocade, playing at nine pins.¨ In Eldorado there was so much wealth that they didn´t know what to do with it, so it became the children’s toys. Instead of helping the poor these people were in denial of having any contact with the outside world because they thought they would be at risk of destroying their perfect country.

The fortune that Candide takes from Eldorado brings him more problems than advantages. Therefore, I can connect this with an article in The New York Times, which talks about how giving money to the needy can cause more problems than benefits. You may ask yourself why helping others would fail, it never has before yet the truth is as said in the article ¨Failures are buried so as not to discourage donors and evaluations are often done by the organizations themselves.¨

When Candide gives away some money for a few people to accompany him in his voyage, he realizes There are so many miserable people in the world that giving away a little bit of money does nothing to reduce this overall misery. Is this maybe why people are discourage to help out? In the article the same idea is mentioned, ¨Economists find no correlation between countries that received aid and those that grew quickly. This may be true but I find it, true to an extent, because we all have to help out to see the difference. As an old saying goes one person can´t do everything, but we all do something. If only a few help out the change isn´t going to be so noticeable.

I find that in today’s society people are very selfish and greedy and only care about themselves. They don’t want to talk to someone who is no of their same class, and discriminate others because of the money. As seen with Eldorado. I find this totally unacceptable, for it is not a persons fault to be in the conditions they are in. For, instead of setting them apart from us, we should try to help them, because I find helping others brings at least to me gives me great satisfaction.
If we don´t all work together, we are never going to reach that Utopian world we all want. It obvious we are never going to have a perfect world, but if we work hard it could be close to perfect.

Riches enough to end world poverty lie untouched on the ground. Its residents refuse to initiate any contact with the outside world because they know that such contact would destroy their perfect country. After some time there, even Candide wants to return immediately to the deeply flawed world outside. The Eldorado “pebbles” will only be of value to him in the outside world. The jewels that make Eldorado beautiful serve to inspire greed and ambition in Candide, whose only previous interests have been survival and his love for Cunégonde.


N.Y.T Article

Crossroads
How Can We Help the World’s Poor?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The number of bleeding hearts has soared exponentially over the last decade. Celebrities embraced Africa, while conservatives went from showing disdain for humanitarian aid (“money down a rat hole”) to displaying leadership in the fight against AIDS and malaria. Compassion became contagious and then it became consensus.

Yet all the wringing hands never quite clasped. Just as the bleeding hearts seemed victorious, they divided in a ferocious intellectual debate about how best to help poor people around the world. One group, led by Bono and the indefatigable Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, argues that the crucial need is for more money. After all, aid for development is quite modest: for every $100 in national income, we Americans donate just 18 cents in “official development assistance” to poor countries. Sweden donates five times as much. Sachs’s book “The End of Poverty” is the bible of this camp.

The rival camp, led by William Easterly of New York University, argues that more money doesn’t necessarily help, and may hurt. Easterly, whose powerful and provocative book “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good” appeared in 2006, is still rocking the world of do-gooders. His book was a direct assault on Sachs’s, and it has been influential because, frankly, much of his critique rings true, even among aid workers.

Easterly has been joined this year by Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist who wrote “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.” Moyo attracted attention in part because of the novelty of an African denouncing aid to Africa, and her book has set off another wave of bitter, personal feuding between the two camps. Few people fight as savagely as humanitarians.

The Easterly/Moyo camp notes that anybody who has traveled in Africa has seen aid projects that have failed, undermined self-reliance and entrepreneurship, even harmed people. Economists find no correlation between countries that received aid and those that grew quickly. Indeed, the great economic successes in modern times (mostly in Asia) often received little aid.

It’s also clear that doing good is harder than it looks. For example, abundant evidence suggests that education can be transformative in a poor country, so donors often pay for schools. But building a school is expensive and can line the pockets of corrupt officials. And in my reporting I’ve found that the big truancy problem in poor countries typically involves not students but teachers: I remember one rural Indian school where the teachers appeared only once or twice a year to administer standardized tests. To make sure that the students didn’t do embarrassingly badly on those exams, the teachers wrote all the answers on the blackboard. The critics can cite similar unexpected difficulties in almost every nook of the aid universe.

If Sachs represents the Hegelian thesis and Easterly the antithesis, we now have hope of seeing an emerging synthesis. It would acknowledge the shortcomings of aid, but also note some grand successes. For example, the number of children dying each year before the age of 5 has dropped by three million worldwide since 1990, largely because of foreign aid. Yes, aid often fails — but more than balancing the failures is quite a triumph: one child’s life saved every 11 seconds (according to my calculations from United Nations statistics).

Moreover, pragmatic donors are figuring out creative ways to overcome the obstacles. Take education. Given the problems with school-building programs, donors have turned to other strategies to increase the number of students, and these are often much more cost-effective: (1) Deworm children. This costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces absenteeism from anemia, sickness and malnutrition. A Kenya study found, in effect, that it is only one twenty-fifth as expensive to increase school attendance by deworming students as by constructing schools. (2) Bribe parents. One of the most successful antipoverty initiatives is Oportunidades in Mexico, which pays impoverished mothers a monthly stipend if their kids attend school regularly. Oportunidades has raised high school enrollment in some rural areas by 85 percent.

I don’t mean to imply that building brick-and-mortar schools is an outmoded idea. My wife and I built a school in Cambodia, through American Assistance for Cambodia, because we were able to establish that teachers do show up there, that the bottleneck in rural Cambodia is school construction, and that our donation would be highly leveraged. Likewise, Greg Mortenson’s famous school-building efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, described in his superb book, “Three Cups of Tea” (written with David Oliver Relin), makes a huge difference on the ground. The point is to be relentlessly empirical.

One of the challenges with the empirical approach is that aid organizations typically claim that every project succeeds. Failures are buried so as not to discourage donors, and evaluations are often done by the organizations themselves — ensuring that every intervention is above average. Yet recently there has been a revolution in evaluation, led by economists at the Poverty Action Lab at M.I.T. They have designed rigorous studies to see what actually works. The idea is to introduce new aid initiatives randomly in some areas and not in others, and to measure how much change occurred and at what cost. This approach is expensive but gives a much clearer sense of which interventions are most cost-effective.

The upshot is that we can now see that there are many aid programs that work very well. We don’t need to distract ourselves with theoretical questions about aid, so long as we can focus on deworming children and bribing parents. The new synthesis should embrace specific interventions that all sides agree have merit, while also borrowing from an important insight of the aid critics: trade is usually preferable to aid.

I was recently in Liberia, a fragile African democracy struggling to rebuild. It is chock-full of aid groups rushing around in white S.U.V.’s doing wonderful work. But it also needs factories to employ people, build skills and pay salaries and taxes. Americans are horrified by sweatshops, but nothing would help Liberia more than if China moved some of its sweatshops there, so that Liberians could make sandals and T-shirts.

Paul Collier, an Oxford University economist who exemplifies the emerging synthesis in his brilliant book “The Bottom Billion,” has lately argued that the best way to rescue Haiti is for America to encourage a local textile manufacturing industry, which could export to the United States, creating jobs and a larger tax base.

As these ideas spread, we’re seeing more aid organizations that blur the boundary with business, pursuing what’s called a double bottom line: profits but also a social return. For example, the New York-based Acumen Fund is a cross between a venture capital operation and an aid group: it invests “patient capital,” accepting below-market returns and offering management help in a Tanzanian company that makes antimalaria bed nets, for instance, and in a hospital company in India that offers a for-profit model to fight maternal mortality. The founder of Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz, recently published a memoir, “The Blue Sweater,” that argues for this kind of approach.

In the 1960s, there were grand intellectual debates about whether capitalism was heroic or evil; today we simply worry about how to make it work. At last, we may be doing the same with foreign aid.

Nicholas D. Kristof is an Op-Ed columnist at The Times and the author, with Sheryl WuDunn, of “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”

Writing A Research Paper

The main elements for writing a research paper are, “research, critical thinking, source evaluation, organization, and composition.” A research paper includes many sources, it is choosing a topic to investigate and learn more about. Yet, it is not an informative paper,” The goal of a research paper is not to inform the reader what others have to say about a topic, but to draw on what others have to say about a topic and engage the sources in order to thoughtfully offer a unique perspective on the issue at hand.”It requires you to analyze the information found and interpret it in a unique way. There are two types of research papers: analytical and argumentative. In an argumentative research paper the topic must be controversial, having two different points of views. In an analytical research paper, is a question in which the researcher has taken no side-objective.

When you choosing a topic, one should begging brainstorming ideas down. This is a helpful way which =exposes patterns and main ideas, to help you conclude your topic. Yet, you must also take into account what audience you are going to write about. This will help you determine the tone and diction you will use in your research paper. Yet, the writing standards are not all to it, “one must not only pay particular attention to the genre, topic, and audience, but must also become skilled in researching, outlining, drafting, and revising.” These are skills many don’t take into consideration, but are very important and useful when writing a research paper.

Writing a research paper is not impossible or hard, it just takes time practice and basic skills.

Wikipedia

When I searched love in Wikipedia a very complete definition and description of love showed up. I never thought I would find so much on love. Yet, I found many different topics all related to love. I liked how Wikipedia divided love into these sections. I found the information very well organized, but I believe in some areas there was not enough information. It lacked information in some of the cultural love views and in some of the religious views. I would add more information and be more specific, so it would be easier to understand and more useful.

While searching volleyball in Wikipedia I found it clearly explains the game very clearly. It also focuses on indoor volleyball, yet does metions other types of volleyball and has links to find more information about that topic. I found this links very useful and very helpful, for you don’t have to do another search, but while reading you can open another window directly. It is very well divided into sections covering everything in volleyball from techniques to rules to the history of volleyball.

When I searched Facebook I found a lot of information on it, yet Facebook I believe is such a huge site, that I felt like there was information missing. Also I thought it should have a quick friendly user explanation of how to use Facebook. I found it great how they at least warn you the information may not e up to date, “This article may need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information, and remove this template when finished. Please see the talk page for more information. (November 2009)”

Interpreting, Conecting, Analyzing

While reading I did some investigation and found out that Voltaire’s uses the Oreillons as a criticism towards Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s was another French Enlightment thinker who believed, that humans were naturally good and that institutions of human civilization like property, business and so forth corrupt this goodness. He came to call man “noble savage”. Yet, Voltaire’s thought all the opposite, he refers to the Oreillons as men filled with prejudice and brutality as the people from the Old World. They killed people on their religious beliefs, “He’s a Jesuit! He’s a Jesuit. We shall have our revenge and enjoy a good meal. We’ll have Jesuit for dinner!” not to mention the practice of cannibalism. I agree more with Voltaire’s view point, for to me it is more realistic. We have to accept human nature, and deal with reality evilness does exist.

Cacambo saves Candide from being eaten. He speaks with the Oreillons and tells him he is not a Jesuit. Cacambo represents a balance of a man who is neither from the Old or the New world. As everything in excess is bad he is the perfect combination who thinks thoroughly and uses his understanding and experience of both worlds to create his wonderful personality. We can see this, “The Oreillons were impressed by Cacambo’s reasoning.” He eloquently and very diplomatically talked to the Oreillons and saved his friend from being eaten.

LIFE

While reading I came across, “I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life.” This quote really surprised me because being the daughter of the Pope, she shouldn’t say such things, for suicide is a terrible sin for the Catholic Church. It is also very ironic how this old lady refers to people not killing themselves because they “love life”, not because they are resigned or scared of eternal punishment (hell). I think maybe because of all the terrible events that have happened to her, maybe she doesn’t believe in god anymore or in the afterlife. I would completely understand her, for if god is so great, was he in all her suffering. Why didn’t he help her out? What did she do to have to go through all that? These are questions I often ask myself, for If god is so great why does he allow so much suffering and hurt to be caused. If he is so powerful, why doesn’t he help the one who really need it?

The old lady also says, “I should have never of my misfortunes if you had not provoked me a little, and if it were not the custom to pass the time on board ship by telling stories.” Even though the old lady is very pessimistic due to all the events in her life, she does not want anybody to feel sorry for her. By telling her stories she is not looking for sympathy, it is only to cope with the boredom. Yet, her sufferings have influenced greatly who she is. She now sees life as being misery, yet forced to love it.

Dual Message

As I read I found more elements of satire. You would never imagine how the old woman, now a servant, was once a princess. It was very surprising and unexpected to hear her, “My eyes were not always sore and bloodshot, my nose did not always touch my chin, and I have not always been a servant. I am the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina.” This case is very ironic to me, I asked myself how someone with so much power and so much wealth can end up being a servant? I also wonder what it feels like for her from being admired by many, respected, and praised to now being a servant: treated harshly and given orders. She says one of her dresses was worth more than all of the magnificence of Westphalia, by using this hyperbole the author emphasizes this old woman’s drastic change. Life is pretty unexpected therefore you must live life fully and not underestimate it, I bet this old lady never ever imagined herself as something less than a princess.

This old woman’s story can be interpreted in two ways. All these events and suffering she has gone through contradict Pangloss optimism. She has lived through the worst of the worst: rape, war, being a servant, being back stabbed and so on. Simply life can't be viewed in an optimistic way, after all.

It can also be viewed as criticism against religion. For, she is the daughter of the Pope, the highest member of the Catholic Church. How in the world does he not protect her and help her when she is suffering? It’s ironic how his wants to help people, and its his job, but when it comes to his own daughter he does nothing about it.

Chapters 6 & 7

While reading chapter six, I found it very ridiculous how, “The University of Coimbra had pronounced that the sight of a few people ceremoniously burned alive before a slow fire was an infallible prescription for preventing earthquakes.” How in the world is burning a person going to stop earthquakes from occurring? Obviously it did not work and towards the end of the chapter, another earthquake occurs.

While reading I detected a false choice fallacy- “The authorities of that country could find no surer means avoiding total ruin than by giving people a magnificent auto-da-fe.” It is saying the government had no other option than to kill these people. This is a complete fallacy and the government didn’t have to kill them, for he killed them and still the problem consisted.

In chapter seven Candide is take care of by an old lady. The strange thing about it is that he doesn’t know her. He keeps asking her, “Who are you?... and what makes you so kind to me?” Yet, she doesn’t reply. If I was Candide, I would start thinking something weird is going on, even more when she says, “Come with me and don’t speak a word.” Candide follows her, not even taking into account she is a stranger and could put in a risk full situation.

MLA

MLA stands for Moder Language Association. It is a standard of used while writing, using English language. It has specific text ciatations, work cited pages, first page format, and section headings. MLA has become very popular used by most people and institutions, it has become a standard for writing in many places.

General Guidelines
Type your paper on a computer and print it out on standard, white 8.5 x 11-inch paper.
Double-space the text of your paper, and use a legible font (e.g. Times New Roman). Whatever font you choose, MLA recommends that the regular and italics type styles contrast enough that they are recognizable one from another. The font size should be 12 pt.
Leave only one space after periods or other punctuation marks (unless otherwise instructed by your instructor).
Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.
Indent the first line of paragraphs one half-inch from the left margin. MLA recommends that you use the Tab key as opposed to pushing the Space Bar five times.
Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor may ask that you omit the number on your first page. Always follow your instructor's guidelines.)
Use italics throughout your essay for the titles of longer works and, only when absolutely necessary, providing emphasis.
If you have any endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works Cited page. Entitle the section Notes (centered, unformatted).
Formatting the First

Vocab Candide

I found it very funny when Pangloss gives his explanation of why syphilis is a positive thing, “It is indispensable in this best of worlds. It is a necessary ingredient. For if Columbus, when visiting the West Indies, had not caught this disease, which poisons the source of generation, which frequently even hinders generation, and is clearly opposed to the great end of Nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.” I found it very humorous how Pangloss priorities are very ironic. He doesn’t care about this harsh contagious disease, for it weren’t because if it we wouldn’t have chocolate or cochineal. For Pangloss having the disease spreading around is worth it, because now we have chocolate and cochineal. As a saying goes, you don’t miss what you have never had. Pangloss loses and eye and an ear due to syphilis, yet he still believes the disease is important. Can he say anything more ironic?


VOCAB
“She was disemboweled by Burglar soldiers after being ravished as much as a poor woman could bear.”
Disemboweled: remove the entrails of



Ravished: to seize and carry away by force


“This sovereign of hearts and quintessence of our souls.”
Quintessence: the pure, highly concentrated essence of a thing




“They produced these hellish torments by which you see me devoured.”
Hellish: highly unpleasant



“Who was indebted for it to a marchioness.”
Marchioness: A noblewoman ranking above a countess and below a duchess. Also called marquise




“Clearly opposed to the great end of Nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.”
Cochineal: vivid red




“The sailor rushed straight into the midst of the debris and risked his life searching for money.”
Debris: the scattered remains of something broken or destroyed; rubble or wreckage

One Question: No Answer.

As I began reading “Candide”, as early as the introduction I could connect with Voltaire. In the introduction he uses the rhetorical questions technique. For, with me at least as a reader it was very effective. The question which most impacted me, and I always ask myself he addressed as, “If the creator is good and all-powerful, as we are told he is, could he not have made a better world?” This question will never have an answer for we believe what we are told, yet what if it was all made up like some myths and legends from different cultures.

Even though I do think about this question constantly, never do I need a more urgent answer than when something bad happens. As Voltaire said, “In times of widespread disasters such questioning becomes more general and more urgent.” This is due to the fact that in a moment of desperation, you can’t seem to understand, how someone who supposedly is so good can’t prevent so much harm. I had this feeling Voltaire describes exactly with the September 11 attacks. Millions of questions like his kept draining in my head. How can such good creator, create such harmful beasts? Why do innocent people have to pay the consequences, for what some bastards decided to do? Why does evil exist if we were created by such good creator? I keep repeating the word good to emphasize that apparently he is not that good after all.

I find it really amazing and brilliant how Voltaire came up with these ideas all the way back in 1758, when there was a diminutive portion of the knowledge there is today. I admire him. I nowhere find him tragic, he is just a person who is not scared to face reality, like most are.

Yet, this is a topic that has gone on for centuries with many different opinions and perspectives. The point is no one will ever know the truth of our creator if there is any, but we are left with this uncertainty we must live on with.