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grace, he would not have brought into exist ence misery as well as felicity. The sage then goes on to ask of his opponents, why the world should be destroyed by him who gave it birth. If it is to stop the evil-doing of the wicked, why did he create the evil-doers at all? Then comes the teleological explanation of creation, so piously stuck to by even critical heads. * The answer briefly is that
Jainism.
* We might very well place by the side of this, a passage from Weber who while writing about Epicurus,
says:
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"How can we assume that a world full of evils is
the creation of the Gods? What have we? Barren deserts
arid mountains, deadly marshes, uninhabitable arctic zones, regions schorched by the southern sun, briars and thorns, tempests, hailstones and hurricanes, ferocious beasts, diseases, premature deaths; do they not all abundantly prove that the Deity has no hand in the governance of things? It is possible, nay, certan that Gods exist; all the notions of the earth agree to that. But these supremely haphy beings who are free from passion, favouritsm and all human weaknesses, enjoy P. 137 History of Philosophy by A. Weber.
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absolute repose.
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