On November 1, 1755, an earthquake destroyed much of Lisbon, killing between thirty and forty thousand people.
Voltaire used this event to attack Leibnitz’s philosophy. The attack became the basis of Candide.
An Inquiry into the Maxim, “Whatever Is, Is Right.”
OH WRETCHED man, earth-fated to be cursed;
Abyss of plagues, and miseries the worst!
Horrors on horrors, griefs on griefs must show,
That man’s the victim of unceasing woe,
And lamentations which inspire my strain,
Prove that philosophy is false and vain.
Approach in crowds, and meditate awhile
Yon shattered walls, and view each ruined pile,
Women and children heaped up mountain high,
Limbs crushed which under ponderous marble lie;
Wretches unnumbered in the pangs of death,
Who mangled, torn, and panting for their breath,
Buried beneath their sinking roofs expire,
And end their wretched lives in torments dire.
Say, when you hear their piteous, half-formed cries,
Or from their ashes see the smoke arise,
Say, will you then eternal laws maintain,
Which God to cruelties like these constrain?
Whilst you these facts replete with horror view,
Will you maintain death to their crimes was due?
Eric Koch’s new book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
Where was the Rev Pat Robertson in 1755?
Good question!
Certainly the Lisbon earthquake was a great prompter of conversion from theism: either God willed it, in which case (H)e is perverse and not worth worshipping; or (H)e was unable to prevent it, in which case … the same conclusion. But as history fades, belief creeps back.
Perhaps Robertson was a lower form of life at the time … if possible.
Here is the BBC magazine with a philospher examining the question at some length, plus some intelligent comments.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8467755.stm He cites Hume rather than Voltaire, but Robertson too (not sympathetically, of course.)
Thank you. An excellent essay.