God v/s Science

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

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.

If you read it all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, mail to your friends and family with the title: God vs Science

[stephenc]

Excellent read. I'll have to forward this. Thanks!!

[ben says]

Is this a joke....?

Because it's one of the sillier things I've ever read.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Is this a joke....?

Because it's one of the sillier things I've ever read.

Explain.

[Lunican]

I don't get it.

[Dog Walker]

Semantics.  It's just playing with words.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Exactly, DW. 

I usually delete these messages when they pop into my inbox, but this one I actually read through and figured I could throw it up here for discussion.  I was intrigued and wanted to get some thoughts from others.

[ben says]

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."

There's also a finite limit to heat, so by this same logic, we can now say there is no heat either. Since one cannot go any hotter than the hottest degree the universe is capable of reaching. There is such a thing as cold - it's a human sensation as is heat. The actual way the universe works is that the more energy in motion leads to the sensation of heat, and the less energy in motion/less atomic pressure usually leads to the sensation of cold. If we are only going to talk about energy in motion though, while divorcing human sensation than there is not hot or cold; thus again, by this students logic, he's making an illogical argument.

"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."

By this same logic we could simply say the whatever is sensory wise hotter is really the absence of cold. The mere fact everyone knows what the student means by cold, in a sensual relation, means cold does very much exist as a sensation; despite semantic word games, the sensation won't abate.

"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?

Or light is the absence of darkness. You can have black darkness, dusk darkness, etc. This doesn't get us anywhere. Again, by using darkness as that which is the absence of something still implies that the user and listener 'know' what the user means by darkness. Thus it has some level of epistemological substance.

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?"

Vise verse, you'd be able to make light more bright than its finite limit.

"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."

The professor had lots of premises, some were dualistic, and some were analytic, the student is also operating on an erroneous premise: that the professor only had one premise.
The Irony of this entire diatribe is that the student used scientific analysis to justify all his arguments: absolute zero, energy in a vacuum, degrees of photons, atomic pressure, etc. Whether or not science can explain a though doesn't lead us to any extraneous conclusions.

"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.

And again, we could see life as the opposite of death. If we are going to return to our acceptance of science, the universe was dead for 13.7billion years, and will be dead for mostly an infinite eternity, life is but a flicker in infinity; thus, life is the absence of death, the NORMAL state of gods affairs.

Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it."

Presto chango! Life is the absence of death.

"Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"

Primates, not monkeys.

"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"

Yes he has. Himself. He's obviously not an identical copy of his mom or dad, thus he's an evolved/mutated version of their genome structure. That's all evolution is, change by degree. He's also probably been to a puppy mill, dog breeds have been multiplying, mutating, and evolving by the thousands over the century.

"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?"

Yes they have:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070712143300.htm

Since this premise is factually false, all the conclusions leading from it are both not valid, nor sound, and can be wholly dismissed.

"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."

Right, but science also has empirical, stable and demonstrable protocols of the brains capacities and casual relations, of which limb movement, speech, abstract thought, etc, all play a role. We can safely infer the brain from the evidence of limb movement, abstract thought, etc.

Also this same student has never seen absolute zero, nor true absence of photons (darkness), yet he's comfortable asserting their existence. Clearly this students epistemological foundations are scattered, and capricious, and used only to manipulate a pre-conceived truth, not reach logical conclusions, regardless of their emotional impact.


"So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?"

It doesn't...

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.

If this man is a university level philosophy professor, and he's floored by these arguments, he needs to be fired.

Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. "I guess you'll have to take them on faith."

Or the evidence of my linguistic capabilities, ability to abstract, reason, engage in human conversation, breathe, move, etc.

"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?"

The professor never didn't accept that faith existed. If we actually want to go back to his premises - which by now have been so perverted this is a difficult task - he was quite convinced of faith, and wanted to shake students out of it.

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."

Or, presto chango, good is simply the absence of Satan. Since epistemologically we have no basis for consensus, and can merely whimsically assert, and deny, with no foundation, my presto chango move is as valid and sound as the students. 

Here's the real problem, when the student asserted what hot and cold were, light and darkness, he gave us empirical reference points. Now he offers us some terms, god, evil, etc, but gives us no frame of reference. If we are left with faith as the guide post of epistemological truth, than we are comfortable with arbitrary faith assertions. The students references to good and evil (that lack predicates) are as substantiated as anyone's references to Allah, Thor, and blork. Moreover, the student never rejected the claim of god being all powerful, this god can potentially stop what the student accepts is evil; he could create a cosmos devoid of evil entirely. We are still left pondering at the end of the day why he didn't? Is it because god is evil, ignorant, or doesn't exist?

[ben says]

So, while I did say: this is one of the silliest things I've ever read, I meant: this is one of the dumbest things I've ever read.

[ben says]

And not to beat a dead horse, nor to come across as a cruel person, but the fact humans (the same humans that know how to build A-bombs, span bridges over seas, clone sheep, engineer cars and solar panels) can be swept over by such an immature and unsubstantiated "story" about "faith" is pretty laughable.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

 

You have waaaaayyyyy too much time on your hands today.  Thanks.  I appreciate you enlightening un-darkening me on the theories and it really warms un-colds my heart to know you feel so strongly about the subject. 

[ben says]

You have waaaaayyyyy too much time on your hands today.  Thanks.  I appreciate you enlightening un-darkening me on the theories and it really warms un-colds my heart to know you feel so strongly about the subject.

It only took me five minutes to type that...you said you wanted feedback (meant nothing rude or dismissive). 

[Lunican]

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

It wasn't taken to be rude or dismissive.

I don't know you personally, but I can picture you going on that rant with a whole bunch of voice inflection and waving of arms maybe jumping up and down on a couch and such - it was pretty funny.

I have to fact check you, though,    I just don't have time this afternoon. 

[ben says]

It wasn't taken to be rude or dismissive.

I don't know you personally, but I can picture you going on that rant with a whole bunch of voice inflection and waving of arms maybe jumping up and down on a couch and such - it was pretty funny.

I have to fact check you, though,    I just don't have time this afternoon. 

No problemo. And excuse me if I throw in a few other arm-swinging rants...