My Pastor was discussing the problem of evil recently and he cited the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 which hit on Sunday morning killing thousands at worship. It was a profoundly disillusioning event. After all the faithful in Church were crushed while the heathen at home in their beds were largely spared. Voltaire made much of this in Candide, mocking his character Pangloss for asserting that this was 'the best of all possible worlds' or indeed that categories of 'good' and 'evil' even exist.
Fast forward to 21st century Saint Louis. We sit some 200 miles from the New Madrid fault which upon widely spaced occasion generates some of the most devastating earthquakes known to man. And because of the peculiar geology of the region, much of the energy of such a massive quake would be transmitted to our fair city, as they say 'knocking it for a loop'. Indeed recently a very modest quake whose epicenter was 300 miles away in the wilds of Indiana hit St. Louis with such force that it woke me up. I thought a truck had hit our house. A big one.
One of the other curiosities of Saint Louis is it's penchant for "non-riverboat riverboat casinos". To get casino gambling back into the State its proponents had to accept a limitation that games of chance could only be held on 'riverboats' in 'navigable rivers'. However, this cramped the industry's style so 'navigable river' quickly morphed into lagoon near a river and 'riverboats' became immense floating buildings sitting in these lagoons.
What does this have to do with Lisbon and Candide? Waterborne structures sitting in captive lagoons are perhaps the best technology for avoiding damage in an earthquake. So if like in Lisbon the inevitable 'Big One' strikes us on a Sunday morning, the faithful will be crushed while the gamblers will hardly even notice.
In this, the best of all possible worlds.
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