This is well worth your time. Please read....... 'Let me explain the problem science has with religion.' The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand. 'You're a Christian, aren't you, son?' 'Yes sir,' the student says. 'So you believe in God?' 'Absolutely.' 'Is God good?' 'Sure! God's good.' 'Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?' 'Yes.' 'Are you good or evil?' 'The Bible says I'm evil.' The professor grins knowingly. 'Aha! The Bible!' He considers for a moment, 'Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?' 'Yes sir, I would.' 'So you're good!' 'I wouldn't say that.' 'But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't.' The student does not answer, so the professor continues. 'He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?' The student remains silent. 'No, you can't, can you?' the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. 'Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?' 'Er...yes,' the student says. 'Is Satan good?' The student doesn't hesitate on this one, 'No.' 'Then where does Satan come from?' The student falters, 'From God.' 'That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?' 'Yes, sir...' 'Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?' 'Yes.' 'So who created evil?' The professor continued, 'If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.' Again, the student has no answer. 'Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?' The student squirms on his feet. 'Yes.' 'So who created them?' The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question, 'Who created them?' There is still no answer... Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. 'Tell me,' he continues onto another student. 'Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?' The student's voice betrays him and cracks. 'Yes, professor, I do.' The old man stops pacing, 'Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?' 'No sir. I've never seen Him.' 'Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?' 'No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't.' 'Yet you still believe in him?' 'Yes.' 'According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?' 'Nothing,' the student replies. 'I only have my faith.' 'Yes, faith,' the professor repeats. 'And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.' The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. 'Professor, is there such thing as heat?' 'Yes,' the professor replies. 'There's heat.' 'And is there such a thing as cold?' 'Yes, son, there's cold too.' 'No sir, there isn't..' The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain... 'You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees.' 'Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.' Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer. 'What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?' 'Yes,' the professor replies without hesitation. 'What is night if it isn't darkness?' 'You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and its called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?' The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. 'So what point are you making, young man?' 'Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.' The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time, 'Flawed? Can you explain how?' 'You are working on the premise of duality,' the student explains... 'You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought.' 'It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it...' 'Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?' 'If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.' 'Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?' The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed. 'Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?' The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided. 'To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.' The student looks around the room, 'Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?' The class breaks out into laughter. 'Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.' 'So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?' Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers, 'I guess you'll have to take them on faith.' 'Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,' the student continues, 'Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?' Now uncertain, the professor responds, 'Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.' To this the student replied, 'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.' The professor sat down. If you read it all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, feel free to pass it to your friends and family. PS: The student was Albert Einstein.
That was the worst argument I've read today regarding the existence of god and I've read a few really (*)(*)(*)(*) ones so far. And PS, it's made up as Einstein never argued that and it's insulting to a great scientist that he would make such a (*)(*)(*)(*)ty argument, but hey, what do the religious have if they can't lie?
Claim: While a student, Albert Einstein humiliated an atheist professor by using the "Evil is the absence of God" argument on him. Status: False. http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp Got any other lies that some fundie has come up with for us?
A) The story is manufactured, not a true account. Einstein's actual idea of god was radically different from that proposed by any Christian church. He vehemently disagreed with the notion of an anthropomorphic omnipotent deity. That's not only dishonest, it's an attempt at an argument from authority. A badly constructed argument from authority at that (since Einstein was not an expect on matters of ethics). B) The word 'cold' describes a level of heat lower than a normal range of temperatures. That does exist. Darkness is in the same category with respect to light. That particular line of argument is basically avoiding the point by criticizing imprecision in natural language. In a logic class, that would probably be classified as reification (the confusion of abstract notions for concrete notions, and the use of said confusion to make a point), which is an informal fallacy. C) The more important point of this long-since-countered copypasta revolves around a redefinition of evil, which is also an example of a logical fallacy--equivocation. It basically involves a hypothetical debate about a term, when neither party agrees up front about a definition of the term. The professor is approaching the matter of evil from a positivist perspective, where evil is defined as actions against social norms.The student simply rejects that definition and argues about something else by redefining the term to something more favorable to his position (that evil is an abstract notion caused by a lack of another abstract notion). The student never actually addressed the professor's point in a meaningful way, and any credible philosophy professor would have pointed that out.
The professor's argument is flawed and can easily be argued against, but a clever person who has reached that conclusion is not likely to be speechless against that counter argument.
There's a plethora of things wrong with this story, but I'd just like to point out one of them that I often see overlooked. Other posters will, I'm sure, point out a lot of the rest. Right. When you run out of heat to take away, you reach the maximum possible "coldness". Right. When you run out of light to take away, you reach the maximum possible "darkness". What now? Can you reach a zero value of god? No - you can always get more evil. The comparison fails to hold up.
Well; the premise of the story is a lie and the poster appears to be religious. The evidence has been weighed and measured. Truth and Science, WINS!
Where did you get this? The best match I find is "the humble Christian", does that sound unbiased to you? Did you consider for a moment to double check the facts? I know this is an internet forum and no important political debating program or anything, but discussing politics or religion gets a lot harder when you're so eager to post this that you can't even google it first.
If a religious person can understand this then how on earth can it be incomprehensible to her that there can also be an absence of faith?
lol Einstein a Christian? I suppose Christianity now encompasses deism and pantheism? The Christian god sent Einstein to hell a long time ago.
This is a great example of what passes for Christian apologetics. Once it has been determined that the story helps to support the idea of the faith, it is cannonized as truth. Investigation ceases and the comfort the story gives becomes it's truth. It is much like the Bible itself. The comfort received negates any real need to investigate the text critically. God equals absolute truth, and it doesn't matter where that truth is found. To reveal it, however, requires a heartless dedication to fact and logic. The truth may lie beyond those two factors, but it can't ignore them.
P.S. Albert Einstein was born a Jew... and when did he ever claim he was a Christian? Ugh, really old Email chain letters make for terrible threads.
Yeah, a lot of people I know who were born Jewish just don't really care about their religion. So I'd say many Jews (considering those born Jewish, maybe being a race/ethnic thing) are just non-theist/apathetic. lol
If light is the fastest thing there is, how come darkness is always there first, waiting for it? .... j/k I'm a Pratchett fan.
Does it matter? It's already been proven that the chain letter OP is false. Attributing any of that story to Albert Einstein is a complete lie and if I remember right, "Thou shalt not lie" is one of the ten commandments, yet here we are the OP being a complete lie.
You do know that Albert Einstein was JEWISH, right? Later on in life, he was a Pantheist. He was NEVER a Christian.
He lived for over 75 years, I think it's safe to say that he probably had several different opinions during the course of his life, as most others do.