Posted in "Evil" Thread 15:06 Dec 31 2009
Times Read: 746
The following was a members post relating to The Definition of evil. A popular Anacdote used By Fundimentalist. following this post I have an article response to the Anacdote.
Posted as follows:
catobates
Caitiff (17)
Posts: 178
Evil?
Posted: 04:03:45 - Dec 31 2009
Times viewed: 23
This, is to restate my point on Evil.
This anecdote says what I would like to say, much, much better than the way that I say it.
Yes, you do have to read it all the way through, and yes, if you're an Atheist, you probably won't like it.
For the rest of you. Enjoy.
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.
......... Response Article....
Source Tiny Frog http://tinyfrog.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/i-get-email-god-vs-science/
Response to God vs Science Anacdot
How many problems did you find? I’m sure I didn’t find all the problems. Here’s some of the issues that occurred to me as I read it:
Minor Issues:
- The story seems to be confused about whether he is a science professor (first sentence) or philosophy professor (third sentence). The argument is clearly more suited to a philosophy professor. But, making him a philosophy professor deprives Christians of the satisfaction of having a science professor be completely unable to defend evolution.
- The professor comes across as a smug know-it-all atheist who picks out a random Christian student from the class, makes him stand up and embarrasses him in front of the class. I guess they just want to make atheist academics as unlikeable as possible, but it seems like a pretty big stretch since any teacher should know better than to abuse a student in front of the class.
Major Issues:
- No decent science professor would argue that science is about things you detect with your five senses. For example, no one has seen a radio wave, or an electron. Ernest Rutherford determined the structure of an atom without ever seeing protons or electrons. No one has seen the tectonic plates, and even our detection of extra-solar planets involves not seeing the planet directly, but detecting its gravitational effects on its star. “We detect its effects” is a good way to know something exists — and that includes the existence of a professor’s brain. Theoretically, we could even detect the existence of psychic powers (without seeing psychic energy floating through the air) – if psychics could actually do better than chance at things like reading people’s minds or knowing future events. By using this narrow definition of science, much of science (including the structure of the atom) is deemed to be “unscientific”, and therefore on the same level as faith in God. It’s fallacious to put them on the same level.
Now, some Christians might try to argue that God’s effects can be detected – they feel His love, etc – but psychological effects are difficult to distinguish from placebo effects. Even worse, other people from other religions and cults might feel the same things. If they actually had more empirical effects (legitimate faith healing, knowing things when they shouldn’t, prophecy, etc) then they might have a point. The professor’s point about God not healing the sick is one example of an indirect effect of God’s existence that could be detected.
- Evolution – The student tries to argue that no one has seen evolution with their five senses, therefore, it’s “faith”, just like faith in God. (Actually, this is a pretty good description of what creationists think about evolution. They think that the idea of evolution was created when scientists weaved together conjecture with a need for an non-theistic explanation for life.) Apparently, in order for evolution to be elevated to science, you’d need to watch evolution happen over a period of tens or hundreds of millions of years AND prove that God didn’t interfere when you weren’t looking. And, if you pointed out observations of evolution in fruit flies and bacteria, they’d call that “micro-evolution”, which is “totally different” than primate to human “macro-evolution”. But, as I said earlier, science does not need to rely on direct observation. Ultimately, the argument fails because there’s so much information from paleontology, genetics, etc.
- The student makes the argument that good and evil are like hot and cold. The problems with the “evil is the absence of good” arguments are this:
First, I don’t think “good” can be can be compared to heat. The student talks about infinite heat, but is there such a thing as “infinite good”? I don’t think so. Sure, Christians might say God is infinitely good, but I’m not sure how that’s anything but words. I think it’s entirely valid to say “on a scale of 0 to 1, zero means maximum evil and one means maximum good”. The problem is that there is no ‘right’ answer because good and evil are mental concepts, not physical, measurable characteristics, like heat. Further, we could imagine a cold, lifeless planet. Is there good or evil there? If evil is simply the absence of good, then it must be somewhere on the continuum between absolute good and absolute evil. But, that doesn’t work because a cold, lifeless planet cannot be described as good or evil – it simply is. You could say that it is absent of both, but you could never say that it is absent of heat and cold, absent of light and darkness.
Second, he says evil is the absence of God. If “evil is the absence of God”, then the cure for evil is God. This suggests that more prayer, more Bible study, and more moral living is the cure for sickness, famine, predators, and natural disasters. Yet, none of those things seem to have any effect on the natural evil in the world. This gets even more confusing with the Biblical teaching that ‘wherever two or three are gathered, God will be there’. Why, then, are sick Christians still sick if they meet and pray with a few other Christians? Why does God withhold his healing power? Is it possible to be “infinitely good” if you aren’t doing things to save people? For example, if you avoid throwing a life-preserver to a drowning man or ignore a man trapped inside a well, can you still call yourself perfectly good?
Third, sickness, predators, and death existed long before humans existed. Are we supposed to believe that snakes have venom and fangs because God wasn’t visiting earth frequently enough millions of years ago? At the same time, they deny evolution, so a complex system like fangs and venom (which paralyzes muscle) must’ve been “intelligently designed”. Apparently, God is designing the evil – and he’s perfectly good, too. He’s such a mystery.
COMMENTS
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dabbler
18:58 Dec 31 2009
Further, The opposite of "Evil" is Holy.
Good, and bad are simple Negative, and positive with no alignment to faith, or religion.
Holy, and Evil are exclusive to theistic docterine.
Sacred, and sacreligios.
Blessed, and Cursed
Is it any differnent when you heckle atheist? Regarding your smug prelude?