Good, God, Evil, & Einstein

Good, God, Evil, & Einstein

 

“Does evil exist?”

The university professor 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”, the student replied.

The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil”.
The student became quiet before such an answer.
The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, “Can 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 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. 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 (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; 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 every day. 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 not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. 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.
Excerpt (source)   For those of faith, one of the most troubling conundrums is the question of how evil and suffering can survive in a universe created and managed by a loving supreme being. Postulated explanations of this paradox are known as theodicies, and such answers have been for centuries handed out by members of many belief systems when challenged to provide logical answers to the question of how it is possible that a just and moral God canco-exist with evil. Among these answers are:

• Free Will — God gave his children the right to make up their own minds as to who they would be, and some chose to be rotten.
• Imperfect Supreme Being — God struggles valiantly to cope with a universe filled with random events (chaos), but as powerful as he is, he can’t undo every awful thing the moment it happens.
• The Devil — An evil entity preys upon the weak of will, winning many of the flawed to his side where they are first welcomed, then sent out to do his bidding. While God is ultimately fated to win the final battle against this adversary, until that time the entity’s minions wreak havoc.
• Incomprehensibility — “Good” and “evil” are human constructs born of Mankind’s limited understanding of the universe. Were people capable of seeing things through God’s eyes, they would grasp the morality and rightness of all that now leaves them aghast in horror and riddled with unease at its seeming unfairness.

The Internet forward quoted above draws upon yet another possible explanation: that evil is the absence of God, in the same way that cold is the absence of heat, and dark is the absence of light. This argument has been around for a long time, as has the legend about the pious student using it to squelch an atheist professor.

Although 2004 tellings of the legend name Albert Einstein as the faith-driven student, there is no reason to suppose the renowned physicist had anything to do with the fictive incident. Biographies of the man are silent on his having dealt one of his teachers such a comeuppance. Moreover, this famous scientist gets used in legends whose plots call for a smart person, one whom the audience will immediately recognize as such. This venerated cultural icon has, at least in the world of contemporary lore, become a stock character to be tossed into the fray wherever the script calls for a genius.

Likewise, “the atheist professor” is a figure common to a number of urban legends and anecdotes of the faithful — he gets flung into the mix where there’s a need for someone to play the role of Science Vanquished in Science-versus-Religion tales. But he is not inserted merely to serve as an icon of learning to be humbled in tales that aim to teach that faith is of greater value than proveable knowledge; he is also woven into these sorts of stories for his lack of belief. Just as the villain in oldtime melodramas had to have a waxed moustache, a black cape, and an evil laugh, so too must the bullying professor of such stories be an atheist — it would not be enough for him to be merely an insufferable, over-educated git arrogantly attempting to stretch the minds of his students by having them question something deeply believed. No, he must instead be someone who rejects the existence of God, an assignment of role that re-positions what might otherwise have been a bloodless debate about philosophy as an epic battle between two champions of faith and denial and sets up the action to unfold as one putting the boots to the other.

He’s a stereotype, not an actual person. He exists to be knocked over by the persuasive arguments of the faithful in yarns about theology successfully defended. Excellent message, a very useful as a mental stimulant to standby.

Moreover, questions still remain in the minds of man.
Excerpt (source)

 

“Evil is the absence of God?

 

For Evil to exist, it’s opposite must exist, i.e. Good.

 

Good is a relative term but for arguments sake using Einstein’s arguement, Evil is the absence of Good. Well, that leaves all the grey area as Evil.

 

There are also the counter-arguments to consider…

 

Perhaps God is the absence of Evil… or Good is the absence of Evil.

 

This is where the argument get’s complex, redundant, and begs for a proper definition.

 

Good = Not Evil, Evil = Not Good, God = Not Evil, Evil = Not God

 

Evil² = (Not Good)(Not God)… which we break down to:

 

Evil² = (Not² + 2GoodGod + GoodGod²)

 

√Evil² = √(Not² + 2GoodGod + GoodGod²)…

 

Evil = Good God!
…Wait that can’t be correct

 

Is the absence of Evil a by-product of God?

 

Some of the most evil people in the history of man have acted in the interest of God.

 

Example:
-Hitler believed God wanted him to rid the world of Jews.

 

-Charles Manson believed he killed in the name of God.

Some of the meanest people she knows are people who believe they are God’s people.

Perhaps one can argue that these people… even though THEY believed they were acting in God’s interest… are Evil.

But this brings about the objective viewpoint… which we all know is impossible.”

“People have subjective experiences and cannot fully relate this experience with another which means that no person can have an objective experience or be truly objective.”

To what degree is Evil formulated by man in fear of God’s judgement?

Just a little food for thought to get your gears going…The truth is within