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Neil Hanlon
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Well, today marks the first day of the rest of my life - in school that is. It's all new, and I'm not sure whether I like that or not. The buses are new (and bad... really bad). The classes are new (and fun), and apparently we now need cops. (huh?)
I know I'm going to have a great time this year, and I hope to accomplish[...]
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Originally Posted by DanJ at http://www.flixya.com/post/DanJ/1419770/Gods_proof_over_Science
Ever wondered about Faith?, Why does God let things go wrong?
Read this to the end. The answers are here!
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 now 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.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. – Hebrews 11:1
evil1dwk | July 5th, 2009 at 1:18 pm #
You sir are an idiot for even regurgitating the old straw man argument. Let’s pick this apart some.
The Christian God is supposedly omnipresent. Therefore, if God is literally everywhere, how can there be an absence of God anywhere? This is a fatal flaw to the Absence of God = Evil argument.
The author contends that “heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy” and that is flat out wrong as heat is actually the transfer of energy not the mechanism by which the transfer occurs or a means by which it can occur. If one system is hot and the other one is cold then heat will transfer from one to the other until they are the same temperature.
Darkness is not the absence of light. It may be the absence of the visible spectrum of light. However using infra-red goggles you would still be able to see. The infra-red spectrum of light is not visible to the human eye. Then wouldn’t darkness ,to the human eye, be the absence of the visible spectrum of light? So, actually, you could make darkness darker by filtering out more and more of the non-visible spectrum of light.
Both temperature and light are measurable even if not always to the human eye. So how either equate to the existence of an all powerful, all knowing, immeasurable, invisible being is beyond me.
We have actually witnessed evolution. What we haven’t completely figured out is the mechanism by which it occurs (the theory of natural selection). Not only can we actual witness evolution on some level we can see evidence in the form of fossil records.
As for the professors brain (or lack of since he can’t argue against such over simplified and ignorant arguments). We could actually crack open the professors skull and visually observe his brain. Actually we could take a simple cat scan to physically see his brain.
Neil | July 5th, 2009 at 5:39 pm #
evil1dwk:
Nice copy and paste job.
God bless.
evil1dwk | July 5th, 2009 at 7:59 pm #
I guess the same could be said of your post. Nice cut and paste from a chain email. But I guess when faced with actual evidence all you can really do is resort to personal attacks.
I may have attacked you by calling you an idiot but at least I backed my opinion with some sort of evidence. Show me evidence of my cut and paste job, as you put it.
evil1dwk | July 5th, 2009 at 9:24 pm #
What I’m trying to say is keep your God out of science. He has no place. There is no proof. You have faith that he exists and that should be enough for you. It’s the only argument science can’t argue against. When you try to claim that God is somehow provable by science you venture into a world you do not understand.
There is no great scientific conspiracy to cover up the existence of a god. If there were some sort of scientific proof for the existence of a god don’t you think some scientist would be jumping up and down screaming their head off that they had the proof that would win them the acclaim of nearly the entire planet as well as win said scientist multiple awards for the scientific achievement.
The straw man arguments above hold no value in science. A real professor would have easily picked these arguments apart. Hell I’m not a scientist, I’m in IT just like you, and I can pick it apart.
Keep God in your heart and in your mind. That’s where you can prove to yourself that he exists. That’s the only proof you really need for God. I remain skeptical because that’s my nature. I cannot prove God doesn’t exist and you can’t prove he does. No scientist is claiming he doesn’t exist if they do they do so out of personal opinion based on the evidence presented to them. In science Atheism is the default position. There is no God unless there is evidence to the contrary. The burden of proof is on the believer. That’s why many scientists are atheist or agnostic.
You can’t prove invisible pink unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster do not exist. Does that mean we should all spend our Sundays praising them?
Neil | July 6th, 2009 at 10:04 am #
I never said god was provable by science. Your arguments make no sense either. Even in the infared spectrum of light, it is possible to have absense of infared light, which is darkness.
Temperature: when you don’t have heat, humans use the word “cold” to describe what they feel when heat is no longer present.
We’ve never witnessed evolution. We’ve witnessed a series of adaptations that change a species. They aren’t evolving, as in forming a better, more complex organism, they are simply adapting to better survive to reproduce. We do know that natural selection occurs, hell, I witnessed it yesterday. A mother bird pushed two of her littlest babies out of a tree in my backyard. I’m not arguing that there are some parts of the theory (notice it’s a theory, not a theorum. Granted it’s a widely accepted theory) that make sense. But for the most part, there are too many holes and gaps in the theory that make it so it shouldn’t be even considered plossible.
As I can’t prove that god exists, you can’t prove that he doesn’t. As a catholic, it’s my calling to evangalize my religion and tell people about Jesus, my savior. I’m not saying that you have to adopt my thoughts and beliefs. I’m saying that we all have a right to our opinions, and that we should all respect each other’s opinions.
I never said, nor did the article. If I’m wrong about this, please explain, because I see nowhere that it said god has place in science. I see a professor being religion intollerant, and bashing a student for having faith that he can be saved by Jesus.
evil1dwk | July 6th, 2009 at 11:16 pm #
The article is “God’s Proof Over Science” implying that some how there is proof of God over science.
“We’ve never witnessed evolution. We’ve witnessed a series of adaptations that change a species. They aren’t evolving, as in forming a better, more complex organism”
You are completely off base on this one. Look up what evolution is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution It’s not an organism bettering itself. It’s adapting to survive. The series of small adaptations that you allude to is evolution. Some call it micro-evolution referring to macro-evolution being an entire species changes. The theory is not evolution. The theory that Darwin proposed is natural selection which was meant to best explain the diversity of life as well as these small evolutionary changes. Evolution does not contend that these changes will always be for the better. They are supposed to support life in the environment at the time. It is a means for a species to continue life by passing on the best traits to make the next generation better adapted to the environment at hand. Often the simplest organism is the strongest. That doesn’t mean it’s the best organism it could ever possibly be, just better suited to it’s current environment.
My point about darkness is this. The student states that darkness is the absences of light. That’s not completely true. Darkness could be the absence of the visable spectrum of light. The argument proposed that the emprical laws of science state if you can’t see it, touch it, taste it or smell it, it doesn’t exist, isn’t the complete story. What I’m pointing out is that even though you can’t visible see light it still exists and that darkness could be made darker by filtering more and more light. So the students argument is flawed. If you can’t see light doesn’t mean that you are completely void of all light. It means you can’t see the remaining spectrums with the naked eye, the visible spectrum has been filtered or removed. It’s still measurable. Unlike God, light is measurable and tangible. So darkness does not equal the absense of light anymore than evil equals the abence of God. God is not measurable to begin with so you are completely fabricating a God based on the fact that their is evil by saying that “well that’s where God doesn’t exist.” Besides he’s supposed to exist everywhere so how can there be a place he doesn’t exist?
A theorem has nothing to do with science. It’s a mathematical term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorem
Look up what a theory is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
A theory is not a guess that would be a hypothesis. A theory means that the hypothesis has been scienfically tested until found to be the best answer given the circumstances. By the way Newton’s Theory of gravity which was later changed by Einstein is still only a theory. Does that mean we are all going to start floating away.
“it’s my calling to evangalize my religion and tell people about Jesus, my savior.”
You are evangalizing falsehoods. That would be called lying. Wasn’t Jesus against lying? I’m trying to respect your beliefs. I’m not attacking your beliefs I’m attacking you for spreading these falsehoods. Beleive in a God. Have faith that he exists. Just don’t claim you can prove it with science.
evil1dwk | July 7th, 2009 at 12:27 am #
“Temperature: when you don’t have heat, humans use the word “cold” to describe what they feel when heat is no longer present. ”
Humans use the word cold. It is not a scientific term. We measure temperature not hot or cold. People say something is cold when there is a lower temperature. The same could be said of light. We measure light in lumens when something has a lower value people say it’s darker. Darkness is not a scientific term.
Again both light and temperature can be measured. So we can quantify “darkness” and “cold” through some sort of measurement. We can actually see both even when they are extremely low in value “cold” or “dark” as opposed to “hot” and “bright.” You can’t measure God. There is no value for God and then some lesser value that would be equal to evil. The default value for God would then be zero to science. Meaning you would have to be able to measure some sort of value for God and then reduce that value until there is no God.
Neil | July 7th, 2009 at 5:48 am #
I’m evangelizing falsehoods? And you say you aren’t bashing my religion.Again, I never said that I could prove that god exists, and you can’t prove that god doesn’t exist, so it’s a standstill.
I still think god has his place in science. God created everything on the earth, and he made all of it for a purpose. Have you ever heard the joke about scientists who could create life?
One day scientists discovered a way that try could create human life with items found on earth. They immedietely called god down from heaven, and said that they no longer needed him, because they could create life on their own. So God said: “Okay, let’s have a test. If I can create a human faster than you, I win, if you do it faster, you win and I’ll leave earth forever.”
The scientists agreed, and went off to their lab with god. Once there, they picked up some dirt from the ground outside, and began to walk into the lab. God quickly stopped them saying, “Where are you going? That’s MY dirt.”
Neil | July 7th, 2009 at 5:55 am #
Also,
theorem (noun)
—an idea accepted as a demonstrable truth
not just math.
Nice wikipedia articles, I sure trust them. /sarcasm
evil1dwk | July 7th, 2009 at 8:19 am #
You don’t trust wikipedia but you trust a 2000 year old book written by sheep herders? In fact I can’t even call it that because it wasn’t even written in the time that Christ was said to have lived.
“I’m evangelizing falsehoods? And you say you aren’t bashing my religion.Again, I never said that I could prove that god exists, and you can’t prove that god doesn’t exist, so it’s a standstill.”
I’m not bashing your faith. I’m bashing the annecdotal “evidence” you’ve posted here as being false. Big difference. If you put a post that you had faith in God and these are the reasons I would have left well enough alone. You didn’t, you posted “God’s Proof Over Science” meaning there should be some proof of God. Then you posted a poorly written story claiming that some student could quiet his professor with the weak arguments proposed. I am bashing this story as a falsehood. These arguments are weak and some completely meaningless.
Unless we can measure some sort of value for God and then reduce that value until there is only evil left these darkness and cold analogies are meaningless.
By the way I don’t have to prove God doesn’t exist. In fact you can’t prove that a celestial tea pot isn’t floating somewhere in the rings of saturn. You can’t prove that invisible pink unicorns don’t roam the earth. You can’t prove that God isn’t really a flying ball of spaghetti. That doesn’t make any of these statements true. If I assumed any of these positions I would have prove these statements. The default position would be that none of them are true unless there is evidence to the contrary. The burden of proof is on the one making the claims not the denier.
If I called you a murderer I would have to prove my claims. You would not be arrested on my assertion until you could prove that you did not in fact kill anyone ever. The default position is you can’t be accused of a murder until, first, there is a person that is dead and, second, that some how their death can be attributed to you.
evil1dwk | July 7th, 2009 at 8:32 am #
By the way when posting definitions please use all the definitions given not the one that fits your meaning.
Theorem:
1. An idea that has been demonstrated as true or is assumed to be so demonstrable.
2. Mathematics. A proposition that has been or is to be proved on the basis of explicit assumptions.
It’s not used in science even if the first definition can apply.
Relation with scientific theories
Theorems in mathematics and theories in science are fundamentally different in their epistemology. A scientific theory cannot be proven; its key attribute is that it is falsifiable, that is, it makes predictions about the natural world that are testable by experiments. Any disagreement between prediction and experiment demonstrates the incorrectness of the scientific theory, or at least limits its accuracy or domain of validity. Mathematical theorems, on the other hand, are purely abstract formal statements: the proof of a theorem cannot involve experiments or other empirical evidence in the same way such evidence is used to support scientific theories.
evil1dwk | July 7th, 2009 at 8:36 am #
When posting definitions please post the entire definition not the part that agrees with you.
Theorem:
1. An idea that has been demonstrated as true or is assumed to be so demonstrable.
2. Mathematics. A proposition that has been or is to be proved on the basis of explicit assumptions.
Relation with scientific theories
Although the first definition could possibly apply to science the term theorem is not used in science. It is mathematical term.
Relation with scientific theories
Theorems in mathematics and theories in science are fundamentally different in their epistemology. A scientific theory cannot be proven; its key attribute is that it is falsifiable, that is, it makes predictions about the natural world that are testable by experiments. Any disagreement between prediction and experiment demonstrates the incorrectness of the scientific theory, or at least limits its accuracy or domain of validity. Mathematical theorems, on the other hand, are purely abstract formal statements: the proof of a theorem cannot involve experiments or other empirical evidence in the same way such evidence is used to support scientific theories.
Parsa | September 9th, 2009 at 3:45 pm #
That still doesn’t prove the existence of god to me.
Sorry.
Evolution can be proved through fossils and other genetic information
“The professors brain” can be seen by scanners (if he ever happens to have a brain scan).