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The professor of a university challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student answered bravely, "Yes, he did".

The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil. The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.

Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? " "Of course" answered the professor.

The young student stood up and asked : "Professor does Cold exists?"

The professor answered, "What kind of question is that? ...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"

The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist. According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if we don't have body heat or we are not hot."

"And, does Dark exist?", he continued. The professor answered "Of course". This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong, Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of light."

Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the world, and those things are evil."

The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man."

After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.

The young man's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN.

Spot The Logical Fallacy(ies)

It cracks me up to to take an apocryphal forward-mail tale like this one seriously enough to locate fallacies in it. Anyway, here goes an attempt:

1. Equivocation: 'God', commonly understood to mean 'supernatural supreme being', is conveniently treated as synonymous with 'goodness'.

2. False analogy: In what way is God like Heat or Light?

(05-02-2011 10:31 AM)lalitmohanchawla Wrote:  The professor of a university challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student answered bravely, "Yes, he did".

The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil. The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.

Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? " "Of course" answered the professor.

The young student stood up and asked : "Professor does Cold exists?"

The professor answered, "What kind of question is that? ...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"

The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist. According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if we don't have body heat or we are not hot."

"And, does Dark exist?", he continued. The professor answered "Of course". This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong, Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of light."

Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the world, and those things are evil."

The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man."

After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.

The young man's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN.

This one is an internet hoax which is in circulation. I guess you must have seen a video of this.

We had a small discussion on this here
http://nirmukta.net/Thread-God-exists-ta...-to-school

Leaving aside the false analogies, which Arvind pointed out, here's a slightly different take.

We must first dismiss the straw professor.

Quote:The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil. The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.

The professor is an idiot, and he has not proved the proposition that god does not exist. The fallacy here is a type of non sequitur (as are all formal fallacies).
1. Even if god created evil, it doesn't necessarily make god evil (unless you introduce additional and compelling qualities defining god).

2. Even if god is evil, how does that prove that belief in god is a fairy tale (again, unless we are provided a bit of essential information about this thing called god).

Given additional qualities about god, such as the (really twisted) Judeo-Christian notion that god is all-loving, we can say that there is an inherent contradiction in an all-loving god who created evil.

Quote:The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man."

This looks to me like Special Pleading, although I could be wrong. In any case, its easy to see the errors in reason here.

1. If "absence of God's presence in the hearts of man" is indeed what "evil" is, then concluding that evil doesn't exist also necessarily dictates that god is always present "in the hearts of man".

2. If god created everything, and the "absence of God's presence in the hearts of man" is the definition of evil, then god also created hearts of men where he could not (or preferred not to) be present, thereby creating evil.

So either god is always present in the hearts of men and there is no such thing as evil, or god created evil.

3. All terms are created by humans to describe something or the other. Evil is described by humans in tangible ways, often concerning morally abhorrent behaviors. What's ironic here is that the term is actually used by believers more than anyone else, and almost always to describe behaviors. The use of the definition "the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man" to describe evil constitutes cherry-picking an intangible definition of evil in order to simply win the argument.

(05-02-2011 06:22 PM)United_Floyd Wrote:  

(05-02-2011 10:31 AM)lalitmohanchawla Wrote:  The professor of a university challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student answered bravely, "Yes, he did".

The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil. The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.

Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? " "Of course" answered the professor.

The young student stood up and asked : "Professor does Cold exists?"

The professor answered, "What kind of question is that? ...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"

The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist. According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if we don't have body heat or we are not hot."

"And, does Dark exist?", he continued. The professor answered "Of course". This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong, Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of light."

Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the world, and those things are evil."

The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man."

After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.

The young man's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN.

This one is an internet hoax which is in circulation. I guess you must have seen a video of this.

Suppose there is a Jar full of cookies and I take all of them. You do not have any. And
you blame for emptying the Jar. And I would say that I was the source of the emptiness
but there is no positive quality called "emptiness." It is just privation of cookies. Wouldn't
you punch on my face?

(08-09-2011 02:40 PM)Jojo Jacob Wrote:  Suppose there is a Jar full of cookies and I take all of them. You do not have any. And
you blame for emptying the Jar. And I would say that I was the source of the emptiness
but there is no positive quality called "emptiness." It is just privation of cookies. Wouldn't
you punch on my face?

Emptiness maybe thought of not just as deprivation of cookies, but also deprivation of marbles, of pebbles, of sand, of sea-water, of air, of little leprechauns, of anything.
To suggest that the apparent absence of a deity counts as evidence of His vacation, is about as ridiculous as suggesting that the emptiness of jar testifies to the presence of cookies in the world. The kookiness of this argument is evident and this could very well be used to argue for the presence of anything that is absent, from tooth fairies to leprechauns, not just 'god'. It is true that to an epistemologist, absence of evidence is not strictly evidence of absence; but somehow to a theologian, absence of evidence is evidence of presence!

There's a another version out there doing the rounds; but with a subtle twist. In this version the atheist professor(always haughty, snooty and full of hot air to give the readers a feel of the professor's arrogance) says that despite numerous pleas to a God for intercession, nothing happens. He says something to the effect of " If God is there, may he strike me down". Nothing happens. The professor smiles widely to have had his point proven. At this juncture, a religious marine (or some variant of a theist) gets up and smacks the professor and says, God was busy so he sent me. The theists love this feel-good story.

here's the source:

Quote:"An atheist professor was teaching a college class and he told the class that he was going to prove that there is no God. He said, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you 15 minutes!"

Ten minutes went by. He kept taunting God, saying, "Here I am, God. I'm still waiting."

He got down to the last couple of minutes and a Marine just returned from the Gulf and released from
active duty and newly registered in the class walked up to the professor, hit him full force in the face, and
sent him flying from his platform. The professor struggled up, obviously shaken and yelled, "What's
the matter with you? Why did you do that?"
The Marine replied, "God was busy watching over my buddies engaged in combat."