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GOD & EVIL, a witty story
LOGICAL-THREADS

God the creator entails god created evil; this has connection has been used to argue against the existence of a universal creator.  A witty presentation of this problem was sent to me by a friend's wife. 

Read carefully the arguments and then consider their merits.  JK did in his subsequent analysis.

Did God create everything that exists? Does evil exist? Did God create evil?

A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."

The student became quiet and did not respond to the professor's hypothetical definition.. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "May I ask you a question,

Professor?" "Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?"

The other students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. 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 (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat." The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present." Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples 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.

The young man's name -- Albert Einstein

A true story.

 

 

There are many confusions in that proof, which you had sent me before.  Remember a meaning of a term is determined by its usage.  First, there is a difference between cold and absolute zero.  And absolute zero doesn’t exist, but cold does.  The absences of light in a space does exist.  That too is different than darkness, and darkness exist (if it didn’t we would use the term).  Third, there is evil, for just like cold, darkness it is defined by our usage.  The usage determines its meaning.  The Christians have defined there God in a certain way.  The question embedded in the discussion by the professor is one of whether this definition of God is in conflict with observable reality on the question of evil.  They also defined their good as omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good.  Since there is evil, there is a conflict; and it is one that won’t go away.  Finally, since they claim that their God created all things, then it created evil.  This is made a fortiori inexcusable given their god being omniscient.  God, as the professor pointed out, therefore deliberately created evil, and thus is evil. 

        The Gnostic Christians had a better solution, that Yahweh was a lesser (imperfect god) who didn’t take the advice of Sophie the highest god and created man.  No amount of sophistry can undo the fact that the Christian definition is in conflict with observed reality and the meaning of the terms that describe that reality.

        Finally, Einstein did not believe in a personal god; moreover, he probably did not have believed in a god period—though he didn’t want to admit that and deal with the intolerance of the Christians.  There are a few lines in a letter that imply that he was an atheist, or an agnostic.  Those lines are on my website. 
 

“From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."

And there is more at that site.

        The end “The young man’s name – Albert Einstein.  A true story, is just one more example of the little regard for both truth and logic those of faith have. 

 EARLIER COMMENTARY ON A SIMILAR VERSION OF THE STORY

 

Tripod again screwed the text.

 

TThere are 3 common proof of the existence of god, 

teleological, first cause, and ontological.  Rene 
Descartes added 3 more.  All of them have been 
properly rebutted.  This one, a seventh, is flawed 
or several reasons.  The first one applies to all
                           
proofs of god, it is a category mistake. 
                           Language 
and logic can never prove the existence of a material 
object.  Language and logic cannot prove the existence
                           
of a unicorn; it is an observational issue. 
                           Language 
can prove that there are no round squares, because the
                           
issue rests upon the meaning of the terms.  To
                           prove 
that god is not of the same class of beings as unicorns 
an observation having a very high degree of certainty is need. 
                           
 
Second, there is a misuse of language, for cold and 
light have meanings different that the special 
technical meaning given to them by physicists.  The 
meaning of fruit as used by biologists
                           includes 
cucumbers, green peppers, squash, and tomatoes. 
It is a fallacy to use the term cold in the common 
mode and to ask for its meaning, and then to fault 
the professor for not
                           giving the technical meaning 
one meaning of that term. 
                           The interlocutor is 
switching between the two meanings.  A word can have 
many meanings, but in a particular context
                           it has 
just one meaning.  As Wittigenstein
                           stated:  The 
meaning
                           of a word is its usage.   
Third, there is put forth a claim that evil  means 
the absence of god,  But, that was not how
                           the 
professor used it when he asked the first student.  
The logic of the
                           professor is correct.  To switch 
the
                           meaning is to repeat the language and logic 
error of the previous paragraph.  
Fourth.  To claim that evil is the absence of god, is 
to commit
                           the error of being circular; viz., to beg 
the question.  One cannot with valid logic prove X 
exists by defining Y
                           as an attribute of X, and then 
say there is Y therefore X exists—where X in this
                           
case is god, and Y is good.  God
                           can only be proved 
by observations of the kind which the ideal observer, 
skilled in science and logic, would find compelling. 
The above disputation is of the cheer type, those who 
are on god’s side cheer at the statement,
                           even thought 
the proof sucks.  It is like the proofs for
                           creationism, 
only one who has taken a side—evidence be damned—would
                           
cheer at the proofs creationist scientists offer.