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Student and Teacher Conversation!!

 


prantikbordoloi
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 fellow. 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.

this is a true story, and the student was none other than.........Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the present president of India

Any opinions!!

--Prantik
Kaneda
Funny, last time I heard this story - don't remember where, but I actually think it was here - the young man was Albert Einstein. Didn't believe that back then, either. It bears all marks of being fiction, and the argument of "evil as the absense of good" is not new (or sound). Neither is putting science at the same level as religion in terms of teaching "unproven truths".

Seeing as there are several different versions on the net (also different length-wise, point-wise, etc. - but always being about an "atheist professor" and including the "evil as absense of good" argumjent, I'd say it's an urban legend, which lives on because it serves several purposes - positive affirmation in the form of a young man teaching his somewhat arrogant professor a lesson + letting the very icon of modern science (Einstein) show the shortcomings of science, and provide the same flawed "logic" that Christians have used for centuries to get back at the logic of science.

Such a fictional story is not really not needed, though, since Einstein already was a religious man (albeit his beliefs were very different from this "young man"'s), and has probably had plenty of discussions like this which were much more profound.

EDIT: Just checked on snopes.com, and sure enough, they agree. Smile
harry088
APJ ROCKS MEN!!

He is kool composed God...
Gieter
What's my opinion on the subject? Another stupid attempt to try to prove the existence to God. You may prove God to a real atheist, he still wouldn't be convinced, and he wouldn't start believing either. Those texts are a waste of time in my opinion.

The student isn't correct either. He really can see the professor's brains if he wants, he can feel them, taste them, when he takes him out. Seeing evolution? There are cockroaches in the very radioactive area of Tsjernobyl, they adapted to the situation because cockroaches can reproduce very fast.

The students confuses things (like concepts of Good and Evil and heat and cold), and makes false conclusions. Not very convincing in my opinion.
Panrac
One word about "evil as the absence of good". It's definitely not new; it comes from Socrates.
And I don't think we should call it an argument it is rather a definition or explanation.

And one more thing, because I'm really bored whit that kind of "arguments", it has been stated long time ago that science doesn’t operate with any real proof (like mathematics), but that doesn’t proof anything.
Gieter
Panrac wrote:
One word about "evil as the absence of good". It's definitely not new; it comes from Socrates.
And I don't think we should call it an argument it is rather a definition or explanation.

And one more thing, because I'm really bored whit that kind of "arguments", it has been stated long time ago that science doesn’t operate with any real proof (like mathematics), but that doesn’t proof anything.


I totally agree with you.
A well-used pattern by believers:
"Thing x, proved by science, isn't that all correct." Then, they conclude that science on itself isn't correct, thus religion is the way to go. Really logical. Rolling Eyes
veeleec
Question:

If I am standing in front of you eating an orange, will you be able to tell me how the orange I am eating will taste is the orange sour or sweet? Remember, you are not eating the orange I am eating the orange.

Therefore, how can a non-Christian tell a believing Christian they (the non-Christian) does not believe in God when they have never experienced God?
liljp617
veeleec wrote:
Question:

If I am standing in front of you eating an orange, will you be able to tell me how the orange I am eating will taste is the orange sour or sweet? Remember, you are not eating the orange I am eating the orange.

Therefore, how can a non-Christian tell a believing Christian they (the non-Christian) does not believe in God when they have never experienced God?


Try again.
Klaw 2
veeleec wrote:
Question:

If I am standing in front of you eating an orange, will you be able to tell me how the orange I am eating will taste is the orange sour or sweet? Remember, you are not eating the orange I am eating the orange.

Therefore, how can a non-Christian tell a believing Christian they (the non-Christian) does not believe in God when they have never experienced God?


Wheter it is sweet or sour is not clear for the other but it may vary, if you have a spoon full of sugar first the orange will be as sour as hell.
But you can't see it unless it is so sour the other will get a sour face Very Happy.
But what does it has to do wheter god exists or not?
But I don't get the conclusion:
You never have experienced god, so you can't tell a christian that he doesn't exist
When you have experienced god, so you can't tell a christian that he does exist unless you want to lie.
Try again..


Last edited by Klaw 2 on Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:29 am; edited 1 time in total
Afaceinthematrix
I would have to say that the student (as well as the professor... in other words, the author) is ignorant when it comes to evolution. Have we ever observed evolution? Of course we have! Evolution is observed in many things such as viruses and flies.

He can also see, feel, touch, etc. the professor's brain if he really wants to. It doesn't matter how much you want to use your five senses on God, it will never happen.

Even though you said this was a true story, I highly doubt that it is. It seems fictional.

P.S. Use quote tags next time.
Indi
prantikbordoloi wrote:
this is a true story, and the student was none other than.........Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the present president of India

Any opinions!!

My opinion: If this is true, APJ had a shitty professor of philosophy. i've taught first year philosophy students who were better philosophers.

Let's take a closer look, hm?
prantikbordoloi wrote:
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.

False.

There is no such thing as heat. There is only energy. We interpret lots of energy (in some cases) as heat, and only a little bit of energy as cold. Neither heat nor cold actually exist. So if you want to base this "evil is the absence of good" argument on physical analogies... try again. The same thing goes for light, dark and photons.

Naturally since someone posts this silly "evil is the absence of good" argument every other month - complete with the completely lame argument between an atheist teacher and a bright, earnest theist student (whether the student is Einstein or APJ) - it's already been beat to death in a dozen different ways. Here's my personal favourite from among my own responses - where i try to turn the argument on its head and make it "good is the absence of evil":
Indi wrote:
Here's something to try. Why is darkness the absence of light and not vice versa (or why is cold the absence of heat and not vice versa)? The answer is because light is just what we call the effect of photons, and taking photons away leaves us with darkness - that is, when there is something there (photons/electromagnetic energy/whatever), we have light, and when there is nothing there we have darkness. (The same goes for heat and cold - heat is what we call the kinetic energy of particles in a substance, and if you take away the kinetic energy, you take away the heat and get cold.) If we had a room, and we took away the light without adding anything else, we'd have darkness. If we had a dark room and we "took away the darkness" without adding anything else, we wouldn't have light.

So what if we define evil things as whatever causes suffering, pain and misery and good things as whatever causes happiness, pleasure and contentment? What if we had a person who was suffering just a little (normal suffering, day-to-day life suffering, not like they're being tortured or anything), and we took away all evil without adding any good? Even though we didn't actually add anything, wouldn't they be happy to be no longer suffering? Without adding any good, taking away evil created good. Now what if we went the other way and took a person that was just a little happy (not in bliss or anything, just day-to-day, average person contentment), and took away all good without adding any evil? They may no longer have whatever was causing them happiness, but without something extra to cause them misery, they won't actually be upset. (Think of it this way, if you were being pricked with needles, wouldn't you be happy if it stopped? On the other hand, if you were getting a nice massage and it stopped, would you say you were suffering suddenly?)

From that, it would seem at least possible that evil is the thing that actually exists, and that good is simply what you have when you have no evil.


prantikbordoloi wrote:
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.

This bit is new... and riddled with fallacies. It's hard to even know where to begin.

First, there is the obvious weirdness of the student decrying duality while using it to justify his or her beliefs in the previous bit with heat and cold.

Second, nothing the professor has said or done implies God is finite.

Third, the professor did not characterize God as measurable. The only thing he said that came close is that God doesn't exist according to science (and the writer screwed that up too - science does not say God doesn't exist, science just says you can't say he does).

Fourth, science can so "explain a thought" - depending on what is meant by that bizarrely vague statement. In fact, several branches of science explain thoughts in several different ways.

Fifth, science does not need to see either electricity or magnetism (which are technically the same thing) - or fully understand them - to know they exist. You don't need to see gravity, or be able to explain it, to know that it exists. And science does understand electromagnetism extremely well. It understands them far better than any religious person "understands" their god.

And there are several more items of nonsense in that bit... but i think the point is made.

prantikbordoloi wrote:
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.

The professor is an idiot. You don't need to take his brain on faith. Every human body we have dissected has had a brain, and we've seen millions of them throughout the ages. There are textbooks of credible evidence for brains in human bodies. No one that has seen a human body has ever made a credible claim that there was no brain in it. So it is logical to assume that the next human body we see will have a brain in it before we even look inside it. That doesn't take faith. That's just simple, rational inductive reasoning.

To put it another way: if you have a thousand identical boxes in a room, and you open 999 of them in random order and find a red ball in every single one of them... do you really need faith to believe that you'll find a red ball in the next one? Come on. -_-

prantikbordoloi wrote:
Student: That is it sir... The link between man & god is FAITH. That
is all that keeps things moving & alive.

Faith keeps things moving and alive? Religious nonsense.

veeleec wrote:
Question:

If I am standing in front of you eating an orange, will you be able to tell me how the orange I am eating will taste is the orange sour or sweet? Remember, you are not eating the orange I am eating the orange.

Therefore, how can a non-Christian tell a believing Christian they (the non-Christian) does not believe in God when they have never experienced God?

Answer:

Your question is nonsensical.

First, most non-Christians don't tell Christians that Christians don't believe in God. That's absurd. If the Christian says they believe in God, then most non-Christians assume they actually do... after all, why would they lie? The non-Christians may think the belief is foolish or misguided, but why would they deny the Christians have it?

The few non-Christians that do tell Christians that Christians don't believe in God don't need to feel the belief to make that judgement. They can make the judgement by listening to how Christians describe God. If what they describe is internally contradictory, then it means that the Christian really hasn't thought about it... and if they really haven't thought about it, then they can't really believe it.

Second, your opening metaphor is perfectly exemplary of how silly the Christian position is. Observe:

So there you are, the believer, enjoying your orange, while i, the non-believer, stand by with no orange... and you stand there mocking me for not knowing what the orange tastes like, telling me how sad it is that i don't know, pointing out that i'm ignorant of what the orange is really like. You keep promising me that if i ever get an orange, it will change my life and open my eyes, yadda yadda, etc. etc.

So why don't you just take your flipping hand, put a piece of the orange in it, extend it in my direction, and let me taste it!?!?!

Seriously, atheists aren't asking for all that much! Just a little taste of the "truth" will be all it takes to convert the vast majority of us.

Instead, for all my life, all i've heard is people insisting they have oranges, and that these oranges just awesome, and that we're so sad and pathetic because we don't have them, but whenever i ask for a piece... all i get is vapour. You know, the first few hundred times, i really did believe that maybe they had something, and maybe i just didn't get it. But no more. You got something? Show it. Otherwise, i'm going to go on assuming you got nothing. Because after all the years of hearing how much people gain by believing in God, i have yet to see any evidence of it.
liljp617
I believe this thread is over.
fpwebs
Wow, it was really interesting reading this thread. I'm athiest and what not, but I thought it was ironic how the topic of the situation got turned around. I would just like to say first: owned. At first the teacher made a good point by stating his values on the subject of God, but it all got turned around when the boy made a good arguement. This topic proves that there are always two sides of every story since there are always two people in the arguement invloved. Both of these individuals have a good point and much evidence to prove each one and both can argue very well. Good topic. thanks.
Indi
fpwebs wrote:
Wow, it was really interesting reading this thread. I'm athiest and what not, but I thought it was ironic how the topic of the situation got turned around. I would just like to say first: owned. At first the teacher made a good point by stating his values on the subject of God, but it all got turned around when the boy made a good arguement. This topic proves that there are always two sides of every story since there are always two people in the arguement invloved. Both of these individuals have a good point and much evidence to prove each one and both can argue very well. Good topic. thanks.

You think the teacher and student made good arguments? From where i'm sitting, neither one put forward anything resembling a good argument.

The teacher's arguments were downright stupid - i mean really bad - until he hit on the problem of evil. But rather than develop a good argument based on that, he went back into stupid again with the whole "have you ever seen God" thing.

Then the student came along with an argument that is entirely a series of faulty analogies.

Seriously, this is not a good discussion, on any level. As has been pointed out, it's not true and was someone's invention... and it was clearly written by someone who has no clue about structuring a good philosophical argument. It's really, really bad. It's on the level of a political debate, not a serious academic debate in philosophy or anything else.

i don't really care what side of the debate you side with, but don't walk away from this thinking it was anything even close to a coherent and intelligent debate on the topic. This is not philosophy, this is no better than a Jack Chick tract.
Afaceinthematrix
Indi wrote:
fpwebs wrote:
Wow, it was really interesting reading this thread. I'm athiest and what not, but I thought it was ironic how the topic of the situation got turned around. I would just like to say first: owned. At first the teacher made a good point by stating his values on the subject of God, but it all got turned around when the boy made a good arguement. This topic proves that there are always two sides of every story since there are always two people in the arguement invloved. Both of these individuals have a good point and much evidence to prove each one and both can argue very well. Good topic. thanks.

You think the teacher and student made good arguments? From where i'm sitting, neither one put forward anything resembling a good argument.

The teacher's arguments were downright stupid - i mean really bad - until he hit on the problem of evil. But rather than develop a good argument based on that, he went back into stupid again with the whole "have you ever seen God" thing.

Then the student came along with an argument that is entirely a series of faulty analogies.

Seriously, this is not a good discussion, on any level. As has been pointed out, it's not true and was someone's invention... and it was clearly written by someone who has no clue about structuring a good philosophical argument. It's really, really bad. It's on the level of a political debate, not a serious academic debate in philosophy or anything else.

i don't really care what side of the debate you side with, but don't walk away from this thinking it was anything even close to a coherent and intelligent debate on the topic. This is not philosophy, this is no better than a Jack Chick tract.


That's why Creationists are a bunch of liars. It's obvious that some Creationist wrote this story intending to make the atheist look bad (even though they also made the Creationist look bad) and then tried to pass this as a true story so that the mind-washed masses will think that atheism is stupid. What a dishonest tactic!
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