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An Atheist Professor and his Philosophy
An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new students to stand and.....
Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.
Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm?
(Student is silent.)
Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From...God...
Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Prof: So who created evil?
(Student does not answer.)
Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them?
(Student has no answer.)
Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever
seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No, sir.
Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your
God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.
Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student: No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even
more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)
Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?
Student : You're wrong again, sir. Darkness 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? In reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would be able to make
darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is 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?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)
Student: 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 not a scientist but a preacher? (The class is in uproar.)
Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
(The class breaks out into laughter.)
Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? 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,sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student: That is it sir... The link between man & god is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.
(71) Comments
Does anyone know who that student was?
He was Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, father of India's missile program and the former president of India.
This is a very old story, and not a true one. It is an urban legend told to the faithful to make them feel good about themselves. A few of the details change, but overall the basic story remains the same. So, now for a cold, hard dose of truth.
There is a lot of evidence for evolution, and none against it. In fact, evolution is one of the best supported scientific theories in the world, and many, many faiths accept it. In reality evolution does not talk about the origin of life itself, just about the development of individual species and the diversity of life.
Ways we can tell this story is false: no scientist (and definitely no well thought of prof of a hard science) would accept the statement that humans descended from monkeys... we didn't. We are related to them, but not that closely. We descended from a species of ape, and so did some modern apes. No scientist would just accept the whole cold and dark thing... since science is actually what allowed us to realize that darkness didn't swallow light (what the religious types once thought) but instead was just an absence of light.
Oh yeah, this is a stock response to this story. I have posted this response many, many times with very few modifications... because this story keeps coming up.
This is argument is false and little more than a play on words.
"Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? 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,sir."
This argument alone demonstrates a complete lack of understanding as to how science works. Science postulates theories based on observable evidence and uses the theory that makes the most sense at the time. If new evidence appears that contradicts the previous theory then a new one is created.
It HAS been observed in dissected humans that indeed they do have brains in their head. As the professor is a human then the best theory is that he has a brain in his head. Observable evidence that leads to theories that explain the evidence - this is science.
Religion on the other hand makes no attempt to prove what it says is correct.
There was a zombie-Jesus who came back to life and told people to pretend they're eating his body and drinking his blood. Why? Because a rib-woman spoke to a snake and now there is a dark evil inside all her children!!
Your brother died because he's a fucking human and NEWSFUCKINGFLASH every god damn human in the history of mankind has DIED SO FAR. EVEN THE MOTHERFUCKER WE CALL JESUS H CHRIST WAS FUCKING KILLED.
god created evil so there could be free will
Sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? all invented by man... except for immortality, I'm guessing he meant mortality.
"You haven't sensed God with your 5 senses" thats because you're a fucking retard and you still seem to think god is a fucking dude with a beard thats pulling strings.
If satan was created by god, god isn't on the opposite end of the spectrum. Its right in the fucking middle.
I really like this student though.
"Does anyone know who that student was?"
There was no student. There was no professor. The story is made up. It is one of many examples of the dishonestly and/or ignorance of creationists.
http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp
"Student: And is there such a thing as cold? "
Although cold and light are only concepts, you can measure the lack of heat and the lack of light. You can use those concept to describe things. For example, http://jodhbir.blogspot.com/2005/11/junkyard-siberian-cold-scale.html
"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
http://myxo.css.msu.edu/History.html
"Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? 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,sir."
You can do an MRI on the professors brain. Science does not say that you have to see the brain directly. You can see evidence of the brain. He is thinking and talking. That seems like conclusive enough proof to me.
What if we cut open the heads of 1,000,000 people selected at random and saw they had brains. That would be proof enough for any sane person that if we selected another person selected at random and cut open his head we would find a brain. Just because we don't know for sure without looking doesn't mean that all previous knowledge is irrelevant.
Can you observer the liquid dynamics of glass? Glass is a slow-moving liquid, subject to the effects of gravity, etc. Have you ever seen an atom? Would you deny that an atom exists? God may well exist, but until we can share a sense of him outside our own internal experience, we cannot consider God (or any deity for that matter) to exist in scientific terms. There is much evidence of evolution; if one does their homework, one knows may examples of incremental changes in a species - changes that allowed the species to thrive in their given environment.
Is to say that there's no such thing as a God. There is only faith...since god is something that doesn't exist but people choose to believe in.
What the hell that didn't make sense, Especially this part.
Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor
Of course there is proof, Evolution is a scientific fact.
This article is biased and stupid, You make the Prof sound like an asshole.
The most obvious flaw in the students reasoning is the argument about the professors’ brain: just because no one has proven that the professor has a brain that does not mean that it cannot be proven. It is very easy to prove the FACT that the professor has a brain. Just do an MRI.
Nr 2 Evolution has never been observer. This is wrong
Read more here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
His arguments are to a big part "appeal to ignorance". Just because the professor can’t answer the questions that do not mean that the student is right.
Evolution has been observed to occur on various time scales, including ones that are shorter than a human life span and thus are observable by individual people. In the most common case it is called "breeding" where certain traits are selected for to create a life that was not available before. Speciation is the process under which the breeds become significantly different from each other so as to not allow cross breeding and also has been observed in breeding processes. It is not that far of a leap in logic to assume that natural forces (such as famine) would select for more fit traits (such as being able to survive off of less food) over millions of years.
The existence of scientific observations is not a question of faith, it is a question of proof and logic. By observing that several people have a brain (though actual physical contact to that brain), logic would dictate that barring any other significant differences between people, all people have brains. No faith is needed in that argument because if a new situation ever arose that questioned the existence of that brain, a test could be performed to verify it's existence.
No one has ever provided falsifiable evidence of a God of any religion. Even if you were to assume that the actions told in the Bible is evidence of God there is no way to test Gods existence today. This leaves one of two answers:
1) God no longer exists
2) God never existed
My personal beliefs take the concept of God as the collection of rules that dictate reality including physics, chemistry, evolution, etc. To put it simply, my God created everything at the beginning of the universe including the rules under which the universe would progress. My God had the knowledge and the power to understand everything in all of time from the moment of the Big Bang, which frankly is much more impressive than your God who chooses to continuously tweak his mistakes because his creations complain (pray).
The student's argument is flawed... very flawed. Let me say right off the bat that I do not believe in God, I was brought up very religious, but I no longer believe in any of it. Second let me say the line of questioning this professor started was dick and unnecessary. Third, it is not my intentions to insult anyone, nor to use shock value as an argument, unlike the professor.
You really can't just take some things on faith. I'm going to assume that all the people walking around and talking to me do in fact have a brain, because I see evidence of it. I have been told that eating pizza crust makes your hair curly, and I have been told that the sun and the moon are the same size. Should I take both of these on faith? Should a person living in the middle ages take it on faith that earth is the center of the universe, and there is no such thing as a vacuum? Before that even, people have been killed for saying that the earth isn't flat. Simply because many people across the planet believe in something, does not constitute fact.
One of the main points hindering me from believing in God, is the clear progression of human thought to believe in some sort of higher power, but it is inherently flawed logic. It is human nature to try to explain the world around you. Since they didn't understand how they thought, there must be a spirit inside us, which is confirmed by the fact that dead people must no longer have this spirit. How did any of the world come to be? There must be more spirits that created it all. One created the sea, one the trees, and so on. Wait a minute, Who created these spirits? O, there's another spirit that created all of those (I am referring the concept of a God of all Gods, Zues, for example). Then, the explanation stops. Who created the God of Gods you ask? Don't ask questions like that, it's a good way to be killed.
One of the main points of some is that there is no way the universe could could just happen, there must be some being that created it all. So on this path of something created something which created something else, they basically say "I have seen no evidence of anything higher than me (that would have created me), but I'm going to decide that we are second in line in this creation path." This is the part that doesn't sit with me. If life and the universe is so complicated that it must have a creator who's intricacy is so much greater than ours that we can not even fathom it, then why must this being not have a creator as well by the same logic?
Let me reiterate that I am not trying to convert anyone, that's not my point here. Just try really hard to think for yourself, not just believe what people tell you, which certainly does include me. Do you believe so strongly that you are correct and that you would find this correct answer regardless of your upbringing? If you were born into a Muslim, Jewish, Pagan, or Atheist family (many of all of these exist) what would you believe right now? You being the same exact person you are, just brought up differently. Just think about that.
I get it, and the story has a fun point and all, but to the commenter who tried to claim this was a true story: NO.
How could this sound literally believable to anyone? Does this really sound like something a philosophy professor would say? Can you really imagine a student responding exactly thus? It's a modern parable, not a true story.
The way I see it though, at least we can prove the professor has a brain through an MRI....and we can observe evolution over time. Any engineering student can tell you there is no Cold and no Darkness....but thats the way we measure it. We could have created an inverse unit of measurement as we did with electronics. A resistor in a circuit is measured in Ohms, and because we felt like it, we decided to measure Admittance...essentially the opposite of Resistance.
See, arguments like these are essentially pointless. I'm not religious, but I'm not going to try convincing someone there is no god....Just as I expect that someone will not try to explain to me that there is one. It's a dead end argument, whatever LOGIC you try to apply - you will never convince the other the their belief is wrong.
I believe in Atheism.
Where there is an absence of light - we call it dark. Where there is an absence of heat - we call it cold. Where there is an absence of logic - we call it god. Makes sense to me.
This is an ignorant argument that suffers from the hypocrisy of its own circular logic. Faith is much different than science, but there is no reason why faith has to attack science and those who do not believe have to be attacked and ridiculed by those who do. I believe in perception, and if you choose to believe in a god, go for it. It is only when you tell me how to dress, how to act, how to speak, and even how to think that I will rebel against you. Arguments in the form of stories like these have plagued mankinds mind for generations, can you not see the problems in both of their arguments? The scientist did not understand the scientific method. There was no hypothesis, no experiment, and no data form which to draw a conclusion. The student did not understand the nature of faith, as faith has little to do with reality and much more to do with mentality. He uses wordplay to confuse a simple argument. Tolerance people. Tolerance on BOTH sides.
Actually, The student was Albert Einstein
We can see the Professor's brain. We can touch it. We can taste it. We could even hear it, probably. We would just need to kill the professor and take his brain out.
This whole story is flawed.
This conversation could have never happened because no scientist would say with any degree of certainty that there isn't a God. Just like they can't say there is one. That is what science is based on, the idea of figuring things out to make sense of things. This conversation couldn't have happened as the result of lack of logic in the entire scenario between the student and prof. Any prof. with a science background would have know there is not such thing as cold, but rather lack of heat because how heat is energy.
Faith & hope are the few things that give us the ability to go on. I'm not religious in the least but I do respects other people's faith such as I must have faith in man since man is a more tangible thing to deal with. But the logic of how if there is a all powerful god who make us great can some how be circumvented by an evil deity that he himself created is hard to make logical sense of. Faith in believing in him is one thing but faith on how he could be responsible for all the ills of the world is hard to swallow, I'll blame man for that..
we all know that you can't that god does/doesn't exist.
however, the fact remains that raising your children into whatever religion you believe in is brainwashing/child abuse.
It is possible to measure the absence of something like heat or light, there simply isn't a scale that has been created. Sure measuring light would be easier than measuring the absence of it because the system is already in place. But there are some out there who subscribe to the "Dark Sucker" theory who believe darkness is the natural state of things. Measuring darkness isn't really that difficult of a concept. Take a standard level of darkness, whether it be how dark it is in the middle of the day or absolute darkness or whatever and assign it the value of zero. If another object is darker (has less light emanating from it) it would have a greater value of darkness. If it has less darkness than this preset value, then the value of darkness would be negative. Just because a system to measure something doesn't exist doesn't mean that it is impossible to create.
The student here also states a flawed fact: evolution has been observed by human eyes. And it is actually a rather simple system to recreate. It would just be inefficient for every human that believes in evolution to recreate these experiments when others have scientifically recreated them to create valid sources on this theory.
The student's final logical attack on the professor not only falls under my previous argument but also causes the student to lose credibility in my book due to the personal level of this attack. It would be unreasonable for a professor to provide an MRI or even more drastic a picture from brain surgery to prove to his class that his brain exists and that what he is teaching them is valid. It's not impossible for him to provide this, but it could be done. The other students can also trust his lectures because I am sure that the professor could find other sources that reinforce the ideas he provides.
The nature of this article is an attempt to dislodge the ideas of atheist thinkers. The bias of this article is quite clear with language such as the class being in an uproar or the professor's face being described as "unfathomable." I'm sure a more concrete description of these two unnecessary details would have been more appropriate. Even if they were left out the article could still be used (I think more credibly) as a logical base for religious thinking.
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