You read it...

This popped up in my inbox, no i doubt if this conversation ever actually happened (the students answers being far too succinct, and the prof. not failing him immediately!)- but it raises some interesting ideas, hey at worst it's just a story, and i've asked a couple questions/ made comments at the end...

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 ma gnetism, 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.

Now at the risk of starting arguments (never my intention) the point about cold/darkness/evil sounds fairly valid- not that i'm saying that all 3 are necessarily related, but the idea that evil is the absence of God is interesting and possibly worth some sort of debate?

A very interesting and enlightening post sir glenjamin, but i will not be participating in this debate.

but thank you, i enjoyed reading it.

You're most welcome- i thought the philosophy ideas might interest you, but each to their own...

Oh they do. But since they are invariably going to be linked to religious argument in this thread i will refrane.

However, should you wish to make an 'unrelated thread' with that argument in it, i.e. can something which is defined by the lack of something else actually exist, i would be most interested in participating.

Well I obviously don’t have as much self-control, polite refrain, or sexual charisma as Tom because I am going to reply. The reason for this, I’m going to pretend, is because I have a great deal of respect and hope for the human activity that is science, and not just because of my petty personality. Because I must admit that I almost took umbrage at some of the things mentioned in there, but then I remembered what someone said, to paraphrase, about “not to just take offence, but to actually discuss.” I believe it was Dawkins. So I, too, appreciate the opening of any discussion.

So, to start, I’ll query, in mild surprise: You actually receive these sorts of things via email? Wow. I must say that it is not about, as the “professor” of Sci-osophy (or whatever he was) says in the allegory, “Science’s problem with religion,” But more about religion’s problem with science. No serious scientist spends their time with these sorts of things (unless directly provoked); their too busy doing science.

Anyways, since I’m not a serious scientist: trying to equate a purely subjective, anthropocentric, emotional concept with a quantifiable physical phenomena is at best inaccurate, but most probably just misleading and/or misguided. But hey, this is the G.C. so let’s do it to it!

In my humble opinion, saying that evil = absence of God is a cop-out. It seems to be just another variation on all the previous theological mind games e.g. Good things = God’s good work, Bad things = God’s good work wrapped in an enigma.

By saying that evil is done by those who haven’t let God into their hearts may be a nice thought or interesting fable or an effective way to spread the faith or several other things. But what I don’t think it is is ‘accurate’, accurate in the everyday sense of the word. This is simply because the large population of people who haven’t ‘let God into their heart’, at least not your God, do not perform evil, or at least they do not perform more evil than those who have God.

This also reminds me of several other theo-morality arguments presented to philosophy students in that it only really attempts to deal with ‘human evil’ and glaringly omits dealing with what is called “Natural evil” e.g. floods, droughts, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, poison monkeys etc. etc. etc. All of which relentlessly rain down upon humankind regardless of whether we have God in our hearts or not. You could obviously come back to this by saying “well maybe it is because of our wholesale ‘rejection’ of God as a species that results in this.” I don’t find that a persuasive argument because, well, for starters I feel it’s just another cop-out to skirt the issue, but more tangibly I think that shouldn’t God just have changed that? This even deals with the original ‘human evil’ problems. Why did God make it so that the absence of him was horrifyingly cruel? Of course, you could say “He didn’t make it like that, it’s just that it is like that, like the analogy of the light/dark.” But the point is that the analogy doesn’t hold up because light is a mindless, law obeying, a-moral, natural phenoma, whereas God is not supposed to be that; he is supposed to make the laws.

Once again, the amount of light or heat can be quantified via fairly simple mathematical operations from pre-defined positions. The acts that humans perpetrate upon one another or the capricious and indifferent natural variations that our environment permutes through cannot be expressed in the same way. I feel that the analogy is so far from describing any actual resemblance between the two as to be nothing more than a poetic metaphor, and one that I personally don’t find helpful.

And just to finish, although this is kinda off the point and you may not have even agreed about it or cared, but the little blurb about ‘evolution’ in there couldn’t have been factually more incorrect. Just so it was out there…

Glen wrote: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 ...

A science professor begins ... atheist professor of philosophy

A science professor ... professor of philosophy

science .... philosophy

...
Is philosophy a science, or is science a philosophy?

Andy wrote: No serious scientist spends their time with these sorts of things (unless directly provoked); their too busy doing science.

I actually laughed at this. Don't take umbrage dude (), but this is a ridiculous assumption, or merely opinion. I might as well say 'no serious painter ever pats his dog'. Basically, you're crowning yourself the person who dictates what a 'serious' scientist is, and then claiming to understand their behavioural patterns. You also used the wrong 'their', and I judge you when you use poor grammar.

Andy wrote:In my humble opinion, saying that evil = absence of God is a cop-out. It seems to be just another variation on all the previous theological mind games e.g. Good things = God’s good work, Bad things = God’s good work wrapped in an enigma.

In my opinon, there's no such thing as a humble opinion. But yeah, that is a fairly general Christian standpoint on a lot of 'why do bad things happen to good people' questions. But you're a little bit off on the reasoning. It's not normally used as a method of proving God exists, more than it is a method for already faithful Christians to learn more about God's character. (ie, two established facts, 1: God exists, 2: Bad things have happened. What can we learn from/about God from this?)

Andy wrote:By saying that evil is done by those who haven’t let God into their hearts may be a nice thought or interesting fable or an effective way to spread the faith or several other things. But what I don’t think it is is ‘accurate’, accurate in the everyday sense of the word. This is simply because the large population of people who haven’t ‘let God into their heart’, at least not your God, do not perform evil, or at least they do not perform more evil than those who have God.

Agreed. You don't need God to do good things. I was doing good things before I was Christian, when I was Christian, when I wasn't Christian again, when I was Christian again and now in my quasi-religious state I'm still doing good things. But then again, there's this whole massive argument about what is 'good'. Is what we consider good, good? Is God's view of good the same as ours? If it isn't the same, shouldn't we be looking at God's version (surely He knows better)? It goes on and on and on.

Also, it's a little bit trickier to say that people with God in their hearts do evil. See:

John 14:15 wrote:If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Basically says that if you love Christ, you just plain will follow his commandments. If somebody's claiming to have Christ, but still doing evil, he's God-less baby! Glenface, you could probably provide more scripture to back this up?

Andy wrote:for starters I feel it’s just another cop-out to skirt the issue, but more tangibly I think that shouldn’t God just have changed that? This even deals with the original ‘human evil’ problems. Why did God make it so that the absence of him was horrifyingly cruel? ... snip ... whereas God is not supposed to be that; he is supposed to make the laws.

I think the 'WELL GOD MADE EVERYTHING SO GOD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MY PAIN/DRUG ADDICTION/CAR ACCIDENT LOL!!1' is a cop-out argument too. To take things from a Christian perspective: Hell yes, God made the rules. He threw down this whole universe and branded it hardcore. 'You wanna come chill with me in H-town? This is what you gotta do. You don't wanna do it, that sucks man, but you cant come'.

The whole thing with 'natural evil' (your natural disasters thing), the Christian view is that the world itself is separated from God, and therefore broken. Or something. Ask Glen.

Andy wrote:Once again, the amount of light or heat can be quantified via fairly simple mathematical operations from pre-defined positions. The acts that humans perpetrate upon one another or the capricious and indifferent natural variations that our environment permutes through cannot be expressed in the same way. I feel that the analogy is so far from describing any actual resemblance between the two as to be nothing more than a poetic metaphor, and one that I personally don’t find helpful.

Agreed. Although you used a lot of words there to say, basically, very little. For those of you playing at home, Andy just said that light and heat can be measured, whereas evil cannot, and therefore the analogy doesn't really work, which is true. The reason I find this fascinating is that evil, in theory, SHOULD be measurable. Surely evil is finite, and there is such a thing as 'lesser' and 'greater' evils, so shouldn't there be a way to measure it?

I think this ties in with the other thread, the one Andy started about whether or not certain things exist. This is another one. What is evil, really? Is evil the absence of good? If so, at what point do we say that there is no good left, and we are in a state of evil? What do we use to measure the amount of good that is left? Is it possible to actually commit 'pure' evil? That is to say, is it possible to do bad things for bad reasons? I might be leading us off on a tangent here though.

Simmo! wrote:but this is a ridiculous assumption, or merely opinion.

Oh, it’s an opinion, sure. I wasn’t trying to claim that it was an ‘absolute truth’ about the physical world. I was just trying to make the point that I believe religion has more of a problem with science than science has with religion.

Simmo! wrote:You also used the wrong 'their'

There’s another one?

Simmo! wrote:But you're a little bit off on the reasoning. It's not normally used as a method of proving God exists,

But I never said that it was that. ...? You’re just trying to make me angry, aren’t you?

Simmo! wrote:But then again, there's this whole massive argument about what is 'good'. Is what we consider good, good? Is God's view of good the same as ours? If it isn't the same, shouldn't we be looking at God's version (surely He knows better)? It goes on and on and on.

Yeah, good questions. And, although it may not be on topic, I think your question about “Is God's view of good the same as ours? If it isn't the same, shouldn't we be looking at God's version (surely He knows better)?” is interesting and I would ask “Why should we look at God’s version?”

Simmo! wrote:To take things from a Christian perspective: Hell yes, God made the rules. He threw down this whole universe and branded it hardcore. 'You wanna come chill with me in H-town? This is what you gotta do. You don't wanna do it, that sucks man, but you cant come'.

The whole thing with 'natural evil' (your natural disasters thing), the Christian view is that the world itself is separated from God, and therefore broken. Or something. Ask Glen.

But...surely... that— that’s just silly, isn’t it?

Simmo! wrote:What is evil, really? Is evil the absence of good? If so, at what point do we say that there is no good left, and we are in a state of evil? What do we use to measure the amount of good that is left? Is it possible to actually commit 'pure' evil? That is to say, is it possible to do bad things for bad reasons? I might be leading us off on a tangent here though.

That is interesting, and a good tangent. In fact, I hadn’t thought of this before but your mentioning of “at what point do we say that there is no good left” was good, and prompted some further thought:

What I’m thinking is that darkness, although not existing (awaiting debate), can be measured, in a sense, as the inverse of the amount of light presence e.g the less light there is the greater darkness there is, and no light = maximum darkness, and, it would seem, maximum light = no darkness (although, interestingly, I don’t think “maximum light” makes any sense and so I doubt that “no darkness” makes sense. I’m also not suggesting that this is how scientists measure it—I’m almost positive that they don’t—but I think it works for the argument.)

So, if we try to say that evil = absence of God it would seem to suggest (or require) the same thing i.e. there is a continuum along which any point could be said to have such an amount of ‘goodness’ and an inverse of that amount in ‘badness,’ so, as Simmo mentioned, according to this analogy, only at the end point of ‘zero goodness’ do we have ‘maximum’, or ‘complete,’ ‘evil.’ And, in addition to that, no act could be said to be purely ‘good’ because it would always contain an inverse amount of evil (unless the act is of ‘maximum good,’ which I doubt makes sense.) So, I think this kinda highlights why I think that the analogy doesn’t work: I don’t think you can measure the amount of ‘evil’ and ‘good’ in an act; and it certainly isn’t of an inverse relation; and, probably most significantly, different people at different times will obtain different results.

Andy wrote:But...surely... that— that’s just silly, isn’t it?

It depends. It's no sillier that the rest of Christianity, when you think about it.

Your point on the inverse measurement of good/evil is awesome. I'll have another look, when I've got more time. But all this talk of maximum good and maximum evil reminded me of Broly from Dragonball Z



HIS POWER IS MAXIMUM!

Simmo! wrote:It depends. It's no sillier that the rest of Christianity, when you think about it.

Hmmm. Yeah, good point.

Simmo! wrote:all this talk of maximum good and maximum evil reminded me of Broly from Dragonball Z

Ha! That's great.

The following post will be numbered so my points are clearly separated :-)

1. I think the general viewpoint on this from the Christian perspective is that everything good comes from God, basically because that's what the Bible says.

2. Upon thinking more about your good/evil inverse measurement thingy I don't think I really agree with it. It's too easy for me to perceive a small good deed with no amount of evil to it. For example, by your theory there should be some point equidistant from the points of maximum good and maximum evil. I shall call this point 'true neutral'. Now, imagine a slightly good act. Say, you're walking down the footpath and you see an old lady about to step in dog turd. "Hey!" you say, "Watch your step there". The old lady thanks you and is on her way.

This act, considered ever so slightly on the good side of true neutral due to being an incredibly small grace, would have had absolutely zero evil intentions or actions. However, by your theory, it would be 51% good, 49% evil. Nearly half of that action was soul-consuming evil. I don't think the theory really works.

Although, don't get me wrong. There's certainly some acts that have both good and evil in them. It's possible to do good things for bad reasons, or bad things for good reasons. The thing that interests me (you may remember this from my first post) is that while it's totally possible to do good things for good reasons, I don't think it's actually possible to do bad things for bad reasons. Discuss.

3. When you said different people obtain different results, it made me think about how good/evil could never really be measured because it's subjective, depending on the person perceiving it.

Then I started to think 'Wait, is it? Really'? Just because a person thinks that an act is evil or good, does that make it evil or good? If the mass-murderer truly believes his work is righteous, is it good? Is it evil purely because we see it as evil? Are there actions that are universally accepted as evil or good by everyone, no matter their perspectives? Discuss.

Snopes article on this chain email

Your initial reaction was correct, Glen. This is an urban legend. The variation presented in Mr Article above attributes it to Einstein.

Not that it was a bad debate or nuffin.

Simmo! wrote:Now, imagine a slightly good act. Say, you're walking down the footpath and you see an old lady about to step in dog turd. "Hey!" you say, "Watch your step there". The old lady thanks you and is on her way.

I agree. I couldn’t really think of a way to say that that act was evil (especially not 49% evil). But you see this is just my point: light does behave in this fashion (I'm pretty sure), whereas morality doesn’t (or doesn’t seem to), and therefore the analogy between “darkness being the absence of light” and “evil being the absence of God” would seem (to me) to not exist.

Simmo! wrote:The thing that interests me (you may remember this from my first post) is that while it's totally possible to do good things for good reasons, I don't think it's actually possible to do bad things for bad reasons.

That is interesting. I’m curious to know more.

Simmo! wrote:Then I started to think 'Wait, is it? Really'? Just because a person thinks that an act is evil or good, does that make it evil or good? If the mass-murderer truly believes his work is righteous, is it good? Is it evil purely because we see it as evil? Are there actions that are universally accepted as evil or good by everyone, no matter their perspectives?

Yes, these are all interesting questions. I certainly don’t know the answers, but I would just want to suggest that suppose there was an absolute moral code, carved in some astrological tablet—the stars perhaps, or whatnot— carved by the universe itself (or whatever authoritative being). What would that mean? I’d have no choice but to agree that “yes, these are what is moral.” But in what sense would that make them ‘good’ or ‘right’? Suppose again that in this tablet it happens to say, to everyone’s surprise, that murder is, in fact, virtuous. My initial response would be to disagree with the tablet. Is that right? I don’t know.

Marc wrote:Snopes article on this chain email

Nice sleuthing.