Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz once said that “this is the best of all possible worlds. And this little tidbit of information was mercilessly, MERCILESSLY mocked in Candide, Voltaire's ridiculously funny novel of a good-natured young man named Candide and his philosophical mentor, Dr. Pangloss (who is a barely hidden imitation of what Voltaire thought Leibniz was like). In his journeys poor Candide has to put up with psychopathic priests, finding out that countries execute officers every once in a while just to "encourage the others", seeing war, famine and ridiculous levels of violence, all the while listening to his mentor insist that "Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds". Heck, when Candide's trying to save a good friend, Jacques, from drowning, his mentor stops him and tries to prove that the Bay of Libson had been "formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in".

The musical by Leonard Bernstein adds to the joke over and over. In fact, one of it's best songs, "The Best of All Possible Worlds" praises war as a blessing in disguise for uniting everyone as victims. And don't get me started on the movie "Candy".

All of those things are funny. But they miss the point, sadly. The big, important point that Leibniz was trying to make. So I'm going to explain it very, very simply.

Leibniz was making a rational argument, making a statement based on reason alone that God created the best of all possible worlds.

Yep. Ya heard me right.

Here's the reasoning laid out one piece at a time.

1.There wouldn't be a world at all if God hadn't chosen to make it.
2. The "principle of sufficient reason" states that when there is more than one alternative, there MUST be an explanation for why ONE is the case and why not the OTHER.
3. In the case of God choosing a particular world to create, the explanation must therefore be found in the attributes of God himself, since there was nothing else around at the time.

Alright, the next part you might be able to guess on your own. What do you think of when you think "God"? Let me guess. "All powerful". "Loves me". "Good". "All-knowing". Those are some common answers, right? Well, good! Now we move on to the last, and probably the most important part of the argument.

4. Because God is all powerful and morally perfect, he must have created the BEST possible world. if you think about it even harder, he created the ONLY possible world. God wouldn't have created a world that wasn't the best in terms of potential!

Leibniz's major point wasn't "Everything is hunky dory, there is no evil in the world".

That's fracking stupid, yea!

What Leibniz was trying to say was that for God to have created the world any other way would have resulted in any other way would have created even MORE evil! Or, to sum it up in a good joke: "An optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is so!"

An optimist is alright with how things are in the world. A pessimist hates how the world is. An idealist sees ways to change the world all around. And a rationalist says "That's just life".

Having said that, I'm now going to say something else. This world was CREATED to be the best of all possible worlds. That does not mean that there is room for human stupidity to screw things up. Is the world CURRENTLY the best?

Nope. Nada. Nyet. Naga. Nay. N-O.

Luckily the potential to make this world the best it can be is still there.