Happy Atheist Forum

Someone brought this to my attention (It's long, be warned).

'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.

Good and evil are not testable phenomena, therefore the claim that somehow evil is that which isn't god, despite god being literally everythingâ€"having all power, knowing everything, creating everythingâ€"is fundamentally flawed and unprovable, just like all religion.

The professor shouldn't have come to that debate unarmed. I would have pwned that kid.

I think that story was made up...it's one of those things theists like to chain email to people.  If it was a real professor he shouldn't have been bringing his personal beliefs to the classroom...there is a time and place.  

A real professor also wouldn't have let the brain not existing according to science claim go unchallenged because anyone who does have a brain knows how we know that all people have brains.  Plus what Will said.

Well I'm going to entertain this students arguement for a moment. Where there is more evil, is simply an absence of god. The more evil, the less god, is essentially what he's saying, and that total evil would be the absence of god.

In Africa, for decades and decades, they have been in a state of constant civil war, not all of them, but a lot of the countries, and millions of people have died and millions more have become refugees, they kill each other and gun each other down in the streets. According to that students argument, there is a lack of god there, I guess god doesn't care about black people then. I'm not saying I agree with it, but isn't that true according to the students argument?

Goes to show how bored some people get.

Cold and hot are subjective. Cold and heat were compared. Heat is a measured quantity. There isnt a measured quantity for 'opposite of heat,' there is simply less heat.

Essentially the same thing with dark.


All of us know the professor was made to be a bible-humper's bitch. In the same way the person who wrote that beats off to jesus staked to a cross.

There are several problems with this short little dialog. The atheist professor is presented as a fool, and the student presents some fallacious arguments. But, there were two discussion points in the dialog: one was about 'good' and 'evil', and the other was a claim about knowledge.

1. "Evil is the absence of God"

Good is not the absence of evil. Evil is not the absence of good. Rather good is something that is done with the intent to help. Evil is something that is done with the intent to do harm. Neutral is something that is done that doesn't harm nor help. For example:

- Stealing someone's money is evil because it requires conscious intent to cause harm.
- Helping someone that is stuck on the side of the road is good because it requires intent to help.
- Eating a ham sandwich is neutral because it requires neither conscious intent to harm nor help.

In this way we can see that 'good' and 'evil' are actions that only a consciously aware creature can perform. Tornados are not evil, and rainfall to a drought-ridden country is not good, they are neutral. Really, 'good' and 'bad' are just descriptions of the motives behind actions.

Conversely, the argument that "evil is the absence of God" is ridiculous. If evil is the absence of God, then what is God (good or evil)? If God is supposedly good, what makes him good? If God is good because He is good by definition, then 'good' is meaningless because He could do anything and call that action good. If you say that God is good because he is benevolent, then don't call 'evil' "the absence of God." This is merely Christian mumbo jumbo, a catchy phrase, that sounds nice when you first hear it.

2. You can't know anything for sure, therefore the belief in God is legitimate.

This is a clever little tactic. It tries to make you accept ridiculous ideas by having you admit that you aren't omniscient. Obviously, this is not the way things work. People are persuaded by evidence. There are two types of evidence: testimonial and observational.

- Testimonial evidence is a claim about reality made by a person and is not backed up by anything else.
- Observational evidence is raw data and observations that you see and can see.

Naturally, religion is based entirely on testimonies. You are required to believe something is true because a supposedly 'credible' testimony says it's true. You will never discover a religion by observing nature. You need to be exposed to it by the testimonies of other people and take their word on it. This is called blind faith. You need to accept someone's word that what they say is true and that they say violates what you have observed in nature. Dead men don't come back to life, water does not turn into wine, etc. Being expected to believe wild, contradictory claims about the existence of unseen things is just unreasonable. Additionally, testimonies are subject to individual impressions (usually made during high emotions) and is at risk of confabulation and fabrication.

Science, on the other hand, works to make sure that we don't take people on their word when we are learning about something new. Science is a method of discovering the truth through repeated recordings and testing. It works to bring you the most accurate data that you can get. Evolution and the existence of brains are supported heavily through data recovered by the scientific method. We base our metaphysical world view on our observations, and thusly it is based on science.

In this way we justify the belief in evolution and the existence of brains. Based upon that, we can infer that evolution is currently at work and that other people's brains do exist. This renders the entire silly argument, that believing in things that are not seeable (God, Satan, souls, ghosts, angels, demons, etc) is legitimate, as meaningless.

Gawd, you guys are good.

All I could do when I first read it was roll my eyes.  This shows why my major is nowhere near the literal arts or english.

people who believe in god must interject made up logic to support their beliefs! Do I have a problem w/ someone who DOES believe? Of course not. I just don't understand why they have to justify themselves like they are doing something wrong. I sit here and think what I think and I certainly don't need to explain myself to anyone.

Excellent commentary, Martian --- I think your counterpoints are bang-on.

Specifically,

Quote from: "Martian"Good is not the absence of evil. Evil is not the absence of good.

Very very true.  The opposite of good is not-good.  The opposite of evil is not-evil.  While the hypothetical student would be right saying that cold is the absence of heat, and darkness is the absence of light, I completely agree that you cannot categorize evil as the absence of good.  Why not just flip the students arguments and definitions around?

In other words, what if there is a god and that god is evil.  Then, good would be the absence of evil, and therefore the absence of god.  Where the evil god is not, we would find good.  How would the student distinguish between these explanations?  How could we determine which, if either, is correct?

If this philosophy professor were real (I'm sure he's not) then I would say he is a terrible professor of philosophy.

The reason we know darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat is because of empirical experimentation.  Nobody did know this until they experimented and figured it out.  What experiment did somebody conduct to determine that evil is the absence of good?  That evil is the absence of god?  That god exists and is good?

Also,

Quote from: "Martian"2. You can't know anything for sure, therefore the belief in God is legitimate.

This is a clever little tactic. It tries to make you accept ridiculous ideas by having you admit that you aren't omniscient. Obviously, this is not the way things work. People are persuaded by evidence.

Indeed - and kudos!  This was well expressed and totally correct, IMHO.

It reminds me of a show I saw on TV about the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking on Lake Superior.  A guy was arguing that since we don't know why the ship sank, we must accept that the theory of a UFO sinking the ship is equally likely to be true along with all the other theories.  His justification is that since all the theories are unknown they must all be equally likely.

This is fallacious.  We have lots of evidence of how other ships sank, and we know that ships can break apart, capsize, breach, etc.  We have no credible evidence that a UFO has ever sunk a ship.  These unknowns are not, in fact, equally unknown just by virtue of being unknown.

One more example (because this fallacy really bugs me), suppose I find an opaque jar and start pulling things out of it.  All I get is marbles.  And all I pull out are red marbles.  I pull 1,000 marbles out and they're all red.  Now, this guy comes along and says there might be a blue marble in there.  In fact, he argues that the next marble I pull is just as likely to be blue as it is to be red because the color of the next marble is unknown.  Would anyone take this bet?  Equal odds if the marble is blue?  Of course not.  Why?  Because we have no reason to justify this equal odds based on what we do know.  Could the next marble be blue?  Could, after I removed 1,000 reds, there be an equal number of blues and reds left?  Sure.  Hell, there could even be some green ones in there, right?  But ---- everything we do know tells us this is unjustified.  There is no rational justification to even believe that there are blue marbles in the jar.  We have no evidence to support this claim --- we just believe its possible that there may be a blue marble in the jar on the basis that we've seen blue marbles before.  

Which isn't even a fair comparison.  Because what if, like the UFO example, we've never even seen a blue marble anywhere before?  Some people claim to have seen a blue marble once, but nobody can produce one and show it to everyone else.  Now, how does the "equally likely to be blue" bet sound?  Ridiculous!!!

One final comment,

Quote from: "Martian"Naturally, religion is based entirely on testimonies. You are required to believe something is true because a supposedly 'credible' testimony says it's true. You will never discover a religion by observing nature. You need to be exposed to it by the testimonies of other people and take their word on it. This is called blind faith.

Absolutely - rock on, brother!

Apparently this chain letter is started to make it's rounds again: http://www.atheistthinktank.net/thinkta ... pic=2492.0 (http://www.atheistthinktank.net/thinktank/index.php?topic=2492.0)

Snopes:  http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp (http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp)

excellent point about testimonies vs observation, i couldnt have made a better point

This is an excellent post, Martian. Bravo!

However, I would like to ask how you came to the conclusion that the words "good" and "evil" are best defined in relation to intent?

Quote from: "Martian"Good is not the absence of evil. Evil is not the absence of good. Rather good is something that is done with the intent to help. Evil is something that is done with the intent to do harm. Neutral is something that is done that doesn't harm nor help.

When I looked up the word "good" in the dictionary, of course there were many definitions. The closest one to yours was, "kind, benevolent." There was another, which is the one I have been playing with recently, which is, "profitable, advantageous." IMO, the words "good" and "bad" (or "evil," I suppose) are best defined in relation to goals. For example, if our goal is to go to heaven then it is good to praise Jesus and bad to deny god's existence. If our goal is to survive, then it is good to board the life raft and bad to let someone else have your seat. If our goal is to make other lives better, then it is good to sacrifice our own happiness if it helps others and bad to cause harm to others. By my way of thinking, without goals, the words "good" and "evil" are meaningless.

Now, who determines which goal is good? In your post, you indicate that it is good to intend to make the lives of others better (another word based on the word "good," with a different definition). Why is that the worthy intent and not something that might be just as (if not more) practical? I mean, eating a ham sandwich helps me stay alive, so why doesn't that get to be "good" instead of merely "neutral?"

If good intentions lead to damaging results (in other words, failing to reach the goal), is the action still good just because it was intended to be so?

One problem with defining good and bad by if it achieve a goal or not is that some people have the goal of raping innocent women...to define good as reaching a goal it would be good to rape.

I think Martian's definition of good or bad is something which can be more universally agreed upon.  Doing good is that which helps others, doing bad is what hurts others....ethics is about how we interact with others in a society.  Then one ought to want to perform good, or at least neutral, actions because how you get along with others has a strong impact on your survival and quality of life.

Eating a sandwich is neither moral or immoral unless doing so has a positive or negative affect on others.  You may consider the sandwich to be good or good for you, but that's a personal fulfillment rather than one that relates to how you interact with others.  

Of course, some may consider actions which harm the self to be unethical...such as gluttony and drug use.  However, except for cases where crimes against the self are illegal (suicide and drug use), I don't see a basis for them to be considered immoral outside of the concept of sin (in which their basis for being unethical is that doing so harms god's wishes).

I don't believe it's the atheist way to try to define something so abstract into a solid form. Theists are the ones with strict unbreakable rules and interpretations, it takes all logic and reasoning out of it. It would be a more atheist thing to do to just decide whether something is good or evil on its individual circumstances. We should leave ourselves open to using logic, reasoning, and common sense to figure out what is good an evil, rather than a set definition. Trying to define good an evil is almost as impossible as trying to define love.

Shim...but if we can't define morality then we can't have a basis for deciding if something is fitting to be described as moral or immoral.  Philosophical studies of ethics tend to deal with not only why one should act morally but how we can determine what is moral.  Of course, I also think it is possible to define love...just not necessarily in a way that conveys the actual emotional feeling to others who have not experience love.

If there are no parameters for determining what is good or evil then we would fall into that trap the theists always try to set up that claims there is no basis for morality outside of religion....if that claim were true it would be a good argument for religion.  However, I do not think the claim has any grounding in reality.

Oh, was Martian equating "good" with "moral?" Hm. In that case, I responded off topic, as I don't equate the two. Yes, eating a sandwich is unrelated to morality.

I think the reason we have universally agreed that it's "good" to help others and "bad" to harm them is because our universal goal is to survive on the same planet together. The conclusion thus becomes that moral behavior is "good." But I wasn't talking about the conclusion; I was talking about the logical process which leads to that conclusion, and what we really mean when we say that something is "good." It's apparent to me that relating that word to intentions is insufficient when you break it down, and leads to an incomplete conclusion.

Hey laetus, I just wanted to pull out a few thoughts:

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Doing good is that which helps others, doing bad is what hurts others

I'm not sure I agree with this completely.  I'd rather say that doing good is not infringing upon the rights of others, doing bad is infringing upon the rights of others.

Whether these actions lead to the benefit or detriment of others in other ways is not necessarily a moral concern, I think.

Quote from: "laetusatheos"ethics is about how we interact with others in a society

I agree with this.  How we interact is not necessarily why we interact (following commonly agreed rules granting each other rights & responsibilities, rather than working for each other's benefit or detriment).

Put all this together, and I think the below is a sort of blended concept:

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Then one ought to want to perform good, or at least neutral, actions because how you get along with others has a strong impact on your survival and quality of life.

I see sort of two pieces here: if we all agree to interact ethically, I think this does lead to a better quality of life.

If we take actions to benefit each other, this may indeed also function the same way --- we may be stronger working for each other than apart.  But in this case, I'd say that choosing to work for each other's benefit is more "wise" than "moral" or "ethical".

Suppose two people are stranded on an island and they need to find a way to open coconuts to survive.  They don't interfere with each other, but neither do they cooperate.  They both perish having completed, individually, the two different halves of a technique to open the coconuts.  Had they worked together, they would have both survived.  I would judge their actions more as "stupid" than "unethical".

Firstly, I would like to point out how over used the word 'good' is. Take a look at all the variety of definitions there are and the different contexts it can be used in. (definitions of 'good' (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+good)) I merely presented my thoughts on what the definitions should be. Though, I must admit that I'm still learning about ethics and have not said my final word.

Quote from: "ShimShamSam"I don't believe it's the atheist way to try to define something so abstract into a solid form.

I'm not sure what 'solid form' means. I believe a definition that goes along the lines that I have provided is still an abstraction because I didn't say any specific action was right or wrong. Rather, I was trying to get a meaningful definition out of the words in the way they are most commonly used in this context.

Quote from: "Eris"It's apparent to me that relating that word to intentions is insufficient when you break it down, and leads to an incomplete conclusion.

In most cases, one would consider an evil person someone who wants to harm people and a good person as someone who wants to help people. Note, this is within the context of a society. A man who never encounters another person cannot be good or evil because he has no one to want to harm or help.

Generally, we can only tell if a person is evil or good by the nature of the actions they take. In a crime where one was quick to harm others, we would consider that person evil. It's sort of a way to describe the danger level a person is at. 'Good' is merely something nice that is done for other people, though totally unnecessary. I didn't intend it to mean that helping people was compulsory. It's just nice.

I suppose you could come up with an argument for why one should not be evil. I would have to think more about this.

These "professor versus student" stories are in dense circulation among Christians. They appeal to their desire to be the underdog, as well as their disdain for higher education. Few fantasies bring a Christian more pleasure than the revenge fantasy of outsmarting an academic, an experience which routinely eludes them in real life.