Professor David Seljak of the University of Waterloo offered this seminar at the University of Waterloo. About 25 people attended this seminar. The modern world has seen great advances. It has also seen unprecedented acts of evil: colonialism and imperialism, the Holocaust, World Wars, the nuclear arms race, and the environmental crisis that threatens the very existence of life on this planet. The seminar discusses thinkers who turn to ancient writings, ideas, values, and practices to address the problem of evil in the modern world to come up with some startling and fascinating suggestions. Can we still find sources of wisdom and goodness in these traditions to offer solutions to the unique forms of evil today? The seminar strongly suggested that the principle of underlying unity is humankind’s only hope in minimizing evil, which is the result of the principle of separation and division. Even doctrines can be divisive and thus evil.
