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As an atheist, how would you respond to the following apocryphal conversation between a student and his teacher?

  • A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning 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, he certainly did," the student replied. The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil." The student became quiet and did not answer the professor's hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student raised his hand and said, "May 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 other 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 F) is the total absence of heat; and 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 everyday. It is in the daily examples 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.

  • Answer:

    I am confused. The "atheist viewpoint" is that gods don't exist (or that there's no evidence, of the type that would satisfy the Scientific Method -- or the individual atheist -- that gods do exist). This story doesn't even attempt to prove that gods do exist. So, as an atheist, I mostly shrug at it. At least if it's handed to me as refutation of the "atheist point of view." My atheist point-of-view is simply that gods don't exist. This story doesn't address whether they exist or not, aside from some student claiming that they do. I already knew, before reading the story, that lots of people make that claim. Surely, the story isn't making this claim! 1. Evil is the absence of God. 2. Therefore God exists. That doesn't make sense. I could just as easily say ... 1. Bananas are the absence of God. 2. Therefore God exists. As for the story itself, just viewed as a piece of logic and not worrying about the "atheist point of view," I'd say it's lacking. It's an okay story in terms of getting across the idea that evil is the absence of good. It certainly makes that claim and illustrates it nicely with some metaphors about darkness and cold. But it doesn't prove anything. Here's a similar story: ... the student asked the professor, "Does cold exist?" and when the professor said it did, the student pointed out that cold is just the absence of heat. Then, the student asked, "Does darkness exist?" and explained to the professor that darkness is just the absence of light. Finally, he asked the professor, "Do children exist?" and when the professor said yes, the student said, "No! Children are just the absence of adults!" The problem, here, is that when the student makes that statement about children, all he's doing is making a claim. Anyone can make a claim about anything: pigs can fly, circles are round, peanuts are as big as elephants, water is wet, etc. Claims aren't proofs. He hasn't shown the relationship between his first two claims (cold and darkness) and his final claim. There are things that exist (e.g. pie) and things that are just conceptual or human ways of experiencing (darkness). But if you take any specific thing, e.g. evil, just claiming that it's in the exists or doesn't-exist category doesn't prove that it's in that category. 1. There are things that exist and things that don't. 2. Cold is in the category of things that don't exist. 3. Darkness is in the category of things that don't exist. --- 4. Therefore, evil is in the category of things that don't exist. How can we derive the conclusion (4) from the premises 1, 2 and 3? How is this chain of deduction different from the following? 1. There are things that exist and things that don't. 2. Cold is in the category of things that don't exist. 3. Darkness is in the category of things that don't exist. --- 4. Therefore, elephants is in the category of things that don't exist. At best, the story illustrates the idea that before we just assume something exists, we might want to consider that it could just be a human mental construct. Perhaps evil is an example of this. Perhaps good is, too! The story doesn't suggest this, but it certainly makes me wonder about it. Finally, I'll just mention (without going deeply into it, because it would turn this post into a long philosophy book), that this story is making some pretty large philosophical claims while using language in a casual, not terribly exacting way. If we want to look at this with any rigor, I suggest we start by defining what "exists" means in the context of the story.

Marcus Geduld at Quora Visit the source

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Another example of trying to prove the existence of God by playing with words.  No actual ideas were expressed in the story - just lame attempts to manipulate definitions for the purpose of convincing people who are already believers that proof is available.  Of course it's impossible to prove absolutely that God either exists or doesn't.  The common sense view - mine - is that the existence of God (the usual version of God, that is) is extremely unlikely and close to but not completely impossible.

Craig Wilson

Like most arguments for God it convinces me that either: 1) The person who wrote is really an atheist who is trying to make theists look bad by putting forth stupid arguments and claiming that theists came up with them. 2) The person who wrote it has no idea how to think critically.

Peter Flom

I'm not an atheist. I don't know if that disqualifies me from chiming in on this question, but I'll give it a shot. As far as I know, this story is not meant to be thought of as a real conversation that happened. It is meant to make the point that *some* atheists argue against the existence of God because there is evil in the world. Most thinking atheists realize this is not a good argument, but you still run into it by people who haven't given it a lot of thought. There are some who say that God would have to be the creator of a thing called evil. As this parable suggests, there is no reason to think that. Whether you use cold, darkness or a donut hole (not the round, doughy thing, but an actual hole), it is making the point that these concepts represent the absence of something else, not things in themselves. It can be argued by a theist that if God is the ultimate good, then evil in the world is simply an absence to some extent of that ultimate good. Man is given free will to make his own choices, and those choices quite often lead to evil. This is perfectly consistent with a Judeo/Christian worldview. Therefore, the existence of evil should not concern a theist, and in no way undermines our concept of God. It is expected, and there is no concern or contradiction. This little story is meant to counter the argument that God cannot exist because there is evil in the world, or that God cannot be all loving or all good because there is evil in the world. Of course, if you don't believe in God, then this story is not going to be a compelling argument at all for the existence of God, nor is it meant to be.

Rick Yuzzi

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." --Sir Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-1971)

Lee Thé

"Evil" is a term, originating from a religious context that I do not use as an atheist, because I do not believe in religious concepts that deal with supernatural (dualistic) forces. The whole religious "good and bad" dogma does not convince me - because  it's all relative. Example: A 17 years old Suntory Hibiki Whiskey taste good to me, but that doesn't mean it tastes good for everyone. I even believe most humans consider it as bad tasting. Is it a good or bad tasting drink?   Religious people, especially christians tend to try to convince non-religious people of the existence of their god and his virgin born blessed-martyr-messia-hero of a son. "God exists and I'll prove it to you" discussions are just annoying. As an atheist I do not run around and annoy people with stuff like this. If someone asks me, sure'll try to explain the "why", but when the discussion turns into something like the conversation above - I skip the topic.

Eike Reifhardt

Thankfully not everybody follows this line of thought.Else, no one would ever question anything, never prove anything and we'd still be living happy peasants loyal to the word of God without as much as electricity. This is a fallacy. Cols is lack of heat, but you still can measure how cold it is. Hot,Cold,Dark,Light they are all naturally occurring states. Where as God is what you created. I'm gonna say I believe in flying spaghetti monster . Anybody who doesn't believe in flying spaghetti monster will have to prove that flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist. or else, you're dismissing a concept without sufficient proof. Praise The flying spaghetti monster!!!!

Santosh Savadatti

Going by this logic , I can remove all the world's problem in one go War does not exist. It is the absence of peace.(We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no peace.Tell this to ppl in Iraq) Poor dont exist. It is just absence of the money.(We have created this word to describe those people who have no money.Why are we wasting our money on 3rd world countries) Blind dont exist. It is the absence of eye sight. To generalize , no bad things exists.Bad things are just some random words we have created to describe the absence of good things! And we live in an idealized world.

Anonymous

No professor or individual with a modicum of intelligence or education would have responded as the "professor" in this fictional anecdote does. Ignoring the fact that no professor I know of would have answered as this one did about darkness and cold, or made an initial assertion such as the one here, I will limit my commentary to the final exchange regarding the existence and nature of evil. The entire problem with this final argument is simply that the student does nothing to prove that "evil is the absence of god" or the result of a lack of "god's love in your heart," The fact that the student correctly cited the prevailing view of dark and cold does nothing to change that he hasn't proven his point. The analogies are incorrect and therefore irrelevant. The only thing this fictional anecdote shows is that a religious person is only capable of winning a debate when it takes place entirely within his head, where logic and reason are unheard of.

Kent Fung

I would wonder why outside of a theology or philosophy class would any professor bring up religion or the existence of god. This story is making the false assertion that just because a person is a university professor they are automatically an atheist with the highest understanding of science and logic from an "atheist standpoint". Not only was the professors decision to bring up religion in class was a poor one. They way he thought he could refute the existence of god with a clever statement is also poor. This professor is the epitome of the "arrogant know it all atheist who thinks they can prove the non existence of god" trope, which should be a dead give away to the fact that this scenario is fake and highly improbable. I have had professors who were very religious, professors in STEM fields, and not even they brought up religion in my classes. I know that statistically I have had professors that are atheists but no one tried to disprove god let alone  mention god. So I would respond to this incident by reporting the professor. The professors conduct was unprofessional and he sounds likely to have a bias against theists as evident by this childish attempt at using a quick statement of logic to "end" belief.

Chloe Shani Malveaux

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