Someone sent me a link to this blog entry at some random weblog that appears to be a new variation on the popular Evil Atheist Professor versus the True Believer student chain letter that’s been making the rounds for years. Previous versions were much shorter and attributed the student as being Albert Einstein, but this version has replaced making the student someone famous with making the fiction considerably longer. This isn’t the only blog with this email up as of late and just about every site that has it marvels over what a great bit of logic it is.
Well I’m hear to say it’s a load of crap, but first I should start by relating the sad story in question:
A science professor begins his school year with a lecture to the students, “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.”
“Then tell us if you’ve ever heard your Jesus?”
“No, sir, I have not.”
“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.”
“Every body 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 it’s 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.
This students statements are true, can you or can you not make night darker?
Is it possible for it to get colder after absolute zero -458 degree’s F.
Can you feel,taste,see,hear,or smell your brain,
If anyone can contest this please do.
So I did. I left the following comment at the blog I pulled this from and, as it’s rather lengthy and there’s a good chance the site owner will just delete it outright, I thought I should post it here as well.
Here’s my reply:
It’s a fictional story that’s been attributed to any number of people including Albert Einstein, but has no basis in reality. It’s also a very flawed argument that’s only really impressive to the scientifically illiterate. It’s kind of sad to see it making the rounds once again, but at least the latest incarnation isn’t attributing it to Einstein.
Let’s start with the most obvious problem with this entire argument: The Christian God is supposedly omnipresent therefor if God is literally everywhere how can there be the absence of God anywhere? This is a fatal flaw to the Absence of God = Evil argument. Additionally there’s the problem with the simple fact that many believers commit acts of evil in spite of their belief in God and often because of their belief in God. This would also be an obstacle for the evil = absence of God argument.
Secondly it relies on conflating two different meanings of the word faith. Namely the faith required for something that’s pretty well established—the fact that the professor does have a brain—versus the faith required for something with absolutely no evidence—the existence of God. In the former there are any number of ways to prove the existence of the professor’s brain, some of which would be extreme but definitive (open his skull and look), but a simple cat scan should suffice for most people. The existence of brains is so well established, in fact, that most Christians wouldn’t be stupid enough to question that reality in the first place.
In comparison you’d first have to nail down exactly what you mean by the word “God”, because even among believers of the same religion there’s often a difference on opinion about the nature of God, before you could even begin to try and establish whether or not it would be possible to determine if he exists. Clearly the type of faith it would take to believe in such a being is miles beyond the faith it takes to accept our lowly professor as having a brain without resorting to cracking his head open to check, though that would at least be possible if it had to come to it.
This particular version managed to work in the anti-evolution angle as well though that too is a flawed and incorrect argument. Evolution has been observed in both simple lab experiments and by studying fossils from antiquity. That is an entire argument unto itself, however, and more time than I wish to expend at the moment.
Furthermore the definitions for heat/cold and light/dark demonstrate that the author of this fiction has only a limited understanding of the concepts he’s writing about. The whole paragraph where the student explains the concept of heat is wrong, but most people aren’t scientifically literate enough to grasp that fact. They just see a lot of scientific words and their eyes glaze over and they think something really intelligent was said.
The author contends that “heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy” and that is flat out wrong as heat is actually the transfer of energy caused by a temperature difference. If two systems are not in thermal equilibrium with each other then heat transfer will occur with the flow going from the higher temperature system to the lower temperature system until thermal equilibrium is obtained. Or, in other words, if one system is hot and the other one is cold then heat will transfer from one to the other until they are the same temperature. The statement that we can have “super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat” is just nonsense. The author is conflating the word “heat” with the word “hot” the latter of which is, like “cold”, a relative term describing the temperature of an object in relation to something else.
So too the author goes on to demonstrate only a partial understanding of light and dark. He starts by conflating the scientific definition of light, which includes the entire electromagnetic spectrum, with what is known as “visible light.” What we refer to as dark is actually just a low level of visible light, but not the absence of light as is claimed in the text. Even in the total absence of visible light all objects will continue to give off infrared and gamma radiation due to heat transfer and as such there is no absence of light at all even though you can’t see. A simple pair of infrared goggles is all it takes to see in the darkest of environments. In order to remove all light you’d have to remove all energy (absolute zero) which isn’t possible to do outside of the realm of theoretical mathematics.
So the answers to the questions at the end of this missive end up as follows: Yes, you could make night “darker” by blocking out more and more of the electromagnetic spectrum. No, you can’t make something colder than absolute zero because that’s the point when a system has no energy. For that matter it’s not possible to reach absolute zero either, though you can get close and matter starts to do some funky stuff at those temperatures. Yes, you can feel, taste, see, hear, and smell your brain if you really wanted to, but some of those would be messy and probably leave you damaged in the process. For some folks, though, it might be an experiment worth undertaking.
Please feel free to chime in with any other flaws you find in either the original story or my rebuttal.
It’s the usual equivocation. Faith as in confidence vs. faith as in belief without evidence.
I see the point of stories like this to open dialog about the content, its meaning, and even, perhaps, to learn something about ourselves.
Of course it is made up. No college professor would single someone out due to religion…he’d have activists up his ativass…but it does insight argument, dialog, and beliefs—whatever those beliefs are.
Don’t hate the sender…if hate is what it inspires, then perhaps a mirror is what you need more than a website.
What about the fact that science is based on observations? We cannot observe everything. Our senses are limited which is why scientific is by its own definition unable to “Prove” many things. For example, science cannot prove a universal negative. A statement like “There are no sea monsters” may be true but is outside the realm of science to prove because we would have to be every place at once to prove it. Science also cannot deal with feelings or emotions because these are not concrete things. These are not things we can impirically test. Science also can only deal with the physical world. Science, by its own definition cannot deal with God, Angels, Demons, etc.
Things that are in the realm of science are also sometimes a problem because we have to use models rather than reality because we are limited by our own ability to test things. For example, the heliocentric (planets revolving around the sun) view of the solar system is still considered a theory and not a fact because though we gather the evidence of it indirectly and not directly.
So, it is important that we use science because it is useful not because it is flawless. We should not put our complete trust in something that is based on our senses. Remember all of those illusion pictures we used to look at in school where it looks like one thing but is really another?
Ah, the invisible cat argument.
If there were an invisible cat in the chair, we could not see it. Therefore, since we cannot see the invisible cat in the chair it must exist.
Interesting.
Remember the original movie, “The Parent Trap” with Haley Mills? I loved how the twins got their father’s girlfriend to bang two sticks together to scare away mountain lions. No mountain lions? See, it works!
@Christoff Stander (or anyone who thinks they’re up to it): If God is so omnipotent and so inherently obvious in all that’s around us, why do you need the Bible to tell you what’s up? I’ll bet that had no one ever showed you the Bible nor told you about God, you would treat the ideas contained therein with just a bit of skepticism.
I’ll leave the jury out as to whether or not God actually exists. After all, it could be true. Failing to met the burden of proof is not evidence of absence, after all. But even if he exists, I frankly think He’s a bigger man than to consign me to a horrible fate for not believing him on the basis of a hateful, outdated, self-contradictory book. For all I know That Book was put out there to weed out the people he didn’t want, the sheep who would believe whatever they were told to believe regardless of how objectively stupid it is. I can just imagine that exchange, too:
“God, but what about all the contradictions and advocated violence et cetera in The Bible?”
“…Oh, that? Pfft. I had that written so poorly only a fool would actually try to follow it (you can’t. If you follow one section you’re in violation of another, hahaha), anyone with a shred of integrity or intelligence (you know, the kind of people I actually want to survive) would ignore that for the complete and utter crap it obviously is. Mainly to weed out the complete fools.”
Kepler Fan. Did you know that the pink unicorn that lives in my garden made you type that? You can’t show me I’m wrong.
Dude!,Seriously this BLOG you are trying to discredit!,(GOD vs.science)It is phrased though the eyes of a child,(student-clue),Not bad if written before the knowledge of how things work, We have today(Einstein was probably a bright child as well,and could feel people would not understand him if not to use LAYMAN terms)It is possible,Just like you don’t think the same now as You did as a child,That this was prior to the works that would latter make him famous,The brain is odorless,and tasteless,It is the surrounding fluid that gives it other properties!,Yes we can touch it!,But its purpose is unseen(thought),So your misunderstanding of the metafor is understandable(oxymoron),Also there is complete unmeasurable darkness it is the “VOID”(space),It is a backdrop for “Light” rays to bounce off into many directions,Spectrum is the measurement of light,But the is no measurement of space!, We call it “INFINITE”(NO measure),So also are the other comparisins in which you made,The point to be made(since you do not seem to get IT)Is that “VOID”, Is REAL! we cannot touch it,smell it,feel it,see it,and best of all measure it!and that the VOID in you is REAL!,That can only be explained as the presence of GOD!,Since all things come from(a void),GOD in scientic terms would be the absence of everything.Not the other way around(we are absent of GOD,Not GOD is absent in us!)Thats why it is refered to as an IMAGE,similar to a mirror(sorry about the reference,I know how you feel about them)are images in the mirror are us(real),Yet not us!I will not question the authenticity of the writer,And could not speculate on it,So I will not waste my time to do that,But instead gain from its purpose and what to use from it!, By the way Einstein> believed there was an “old one”, Who was the ultimate lawgiver,He wrote that he did not believe in a personal GOD that intervened in human affairs but instead believed in the GOD of the 17th cent. dutch jewish philosopher Benedict de Spinoza,The GOD of Harmony & Peace,He believed,he was to formulate a master theory that would allow him to “read the mind of GOD”,He would also write,“I’m not an Atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a Pantheist,We are in a position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages…The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books but doesn’t know what it is,That,It seems to me,Is the attitude of even the most Intelligent Human being toward GOD”-Albert Einstein, NOW that is a real statement by the MAN!,Its interesting the way he speaks in examples isn’t IT! Also It tells me He believed in GOD!- Good luck to you! on your own quests may you find GOD in the process!-Weapon X
Dude! “Paragraphs”!
And: tl;dr
Congratulations Weapon X! You win the award for The Day’s Most Incomprehensible Pile of Nonsense!
Come back when you learn how to type and having something worth reading.
Les, you know how some people have cat-flaps? Do you have a weirdo flap? I don’t know another blog that attracts such posters. Can we adopt this one?
I think I just found God – he is the VOID and Weapon-X is the VOID, or was that Weapon-x just voided something? I’m so confused!
why are we making comparisons here? science is all about what is truth and if faith/God is truth, it has to prove it. Now the question is, what is proof? Welll, any answer which satisfies us with least possible doubt, ideally no doubt, e.g, 2 +2=4, Will anybody argue with that?
As it goes ” If you can prove a theory mathematically, it becomes a LaW…Even God can`t deny it then”
Adi
Not correct. A law is a mathematical description of a simple phenomenon, for example Newton’s inverse-square law of gravity. A theory is something quite different. A theory is an explanation of a system. For example, the theory of evolution explains the diversity of life on earth. Theories are explanations of large numbers of observations in a single coherent framework.
If God does not exist and we all came from monkeys why then are there still monkeys and why aren’t there a whole bunch of half breeds still running around about us.
Because you fail at biology.
No, no, no, Herm, you weren’t paying attention in Atheism 101. God’s a monkey.
Herm,
We didn’t “come from monkeys”, we share a common ancestor with monkeys, and with every living thing.
Herm,
You’ve never been to Washington, D.C.???
Peace.
In response to “Evolution”: I do believe that things can evolve(to some extent but not across species). I do not believe we evolved from monkeys, however. If you accept the fact that we did evolve from monkeys, why did some monkeys choose not to evolve. Wouldn’t all monkeys rather be human. Who was in charge of telling some monkeys they could evolve and others could not? And why would worms choose to evolve into worms? Wouldn’t they rather be the bird? Beyond my faith that says “God created man”, the whole science thing doesn’t stand up.
Todd, your comment is so full of stupid that it’s not worth spending much effort on. Clearly you are opining on a topic (Evolution) that you haven’t the slightest bit of knowledge about. Go study up on what the theory actually says and then come back and try again.
This is the most fascinating thread i have ever cared to read in full. Today has really been one of those days ruled by strings of bizarre & soothing coincidences that almost hints of a divine presence or at least divine power over my universe. I don’t think it is unreasonable to recognize the great and wonderful power we all wield as, for lack of a better word, Divine. As a matter of fact, whilst i sit and listen to Pink floyd’s – Atom Heart Mother album this night and recall this day & many others that can only be described, by me, as perfect, I feel that any word not synonymous with divine used in an attempt to articulate the very strange, very wonderful force or presence that, unarguably, resides in each every one of us… LIFE and the unique opportunity to manipulate the reality we experience it in is, if there were such a thing, “blasphemous”. It seems very clear to me that the only It or Thing that fundamentally, by its very nature is worthy of praise and service, and commands respect AND gets it from both man and beast without little favor and no promise in return is LIFE. LIFE giveth and LIFE taketh away.
The romantic in me sometimes entertains thoughts of an omnipresent lifeforce that at every opportunity in a way unknown to us manifests itself with the sole purpose of being a Master of The Universe. Its ultimate goal is tirelessly carried out by servants/beings given little more than an instinct to survive, diversified by chance, and evolved through a process of natural selection past the point and beyond relying on a single rock or star before the Universe, whom does not wish to be mastered, casts down another stone and forces life to start again from square one.
That’s fun right? Yes it is because for all you or anyone knows, with any degree of certainty, it is all true. Which brings me to my point–The skepticism and reasoning skills we are all given or acquire forbid me to side with an atheist or the existence of any god. Both stubbornly require faith, either in god or ones own argument against his existence. Neither of which can be known or proven by any means.
Hello. My name is John C. and I’m an agnostic.
duh, this is such a dumb argument. I received it in mail.
well if hot–>cold is same as god—>satan then absolute extremities of both are impossible.
and who on this earth can miss evidence of evolution.
any way gr8 counter argument, but atheists do not need to spread stupid chain letters as they are sensible.
cheers
avadhoot
ISIAIh 41 BRING forth your IDOLS did they PREACH to you see they can’t speak they can’t DO ANYTHING all they do is cause confuson. Jeremiah 10 they nail hier IDOL down like a scarecrow it can’t move cant speak can’t move must be caried these are nothing but the WORK of CON men. john 10 jesus christ sais his sheep hear his voice and another voice thy will not follow and if another person tries to preach to tem they WILL FLEE from him. jeremiah 5 the priests bear rule on thier own auhority what will you do whe your judged my word is not inside them. Now here is the kicker john 5 son of man voice goes back in time mathew 16 jesus christ claims to be th son of man. 1 cor2 mind of CHRIST preached internlly and john 16 sais the spirit of truth comes in the future. Ezekiel 13 lying prophets of ISRAEL my word is not inside them saying god sais god sais god sais wrote hoping mankind would CONFIRM thie WORDS. all of this is EASILY verifyable.