“LET ME EXPLAIN THE problem science has with Jesus Christ.” 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.”
“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. “Ahh! 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 them? Would you try?”
“Yes sir, I would.”
“So you’re good…!”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Why not say that? You would help a sick and maimed person if you could…in fact most of us would if we could….God doesn’t.”
[No answer]
“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?”
[No answer]
The elderly man is sympathetic. “No, you can’t, can you?” He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. “In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones. Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?”
“Er… Yes.”
“Is Satan good?”
“No.”
“Where does Satan come from?”
The student falters. “From… God…”
“That’s right. God made Satan, didn’t he?” The elderly man runs his bony fingers through his thinning hair and turns to the smirking student audience. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies and gentlemen.” He turns back to the Christian. “Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Evil’s everywhere, isn’t it? Did God make everything?”
“Yes.”
“Who created evil?”
[No answer]
“Is there sickness in this world? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness. All the terrible things – do they exist in this world? ”
The student squirms on his feet. “Yes.”
“Who created them?”
[No answer]
The professor suddenly shouts at his student, “WHO CREATED THEM? TELL ME, PLEASE!” The professor closes in for the kill and climbs into the Christian’s face. In a still small voice, he asked, “God created all evil, didn’t He, son?”
[No answer]
The student tries to hold the steady, experienced gaze and fails. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace the front of the classroom like an aging panther. The class is mesmerized. “Tell me,” he continues, “How is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?” The professor swishes his arms around to encompass the wickedness of the world. “All the hatred, the brutality, all the pain, all the torture, all the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is all over the world, isn’t it, young man?”
[No answer]
“Don’t you see it all over the place? Huh?” Pause. “Don’t you?” The professor leans into the student’s face again and
whispers, “Is God good?”
[No answer]
“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?”
The student’s voice betrays him and cracks. “Yes, professor. I do.”
The old man shakes his head sadly. “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… in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?”
[No answer]
“Answer me, please.”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“You’re AFRAID… you haven’t?”
“No, sir.”
“Yet you still believe in him?”
“…yes…”
“That takes FAITH!” The professor smiles sagely at the underling. “According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son? Where is your God now?”
[The student doesn't answer]
“Sit down, please.”
The first Christian sits…defeated.
Another Christian raises his hand. “Professor, may I address the class?”
The professor turns and smiles. “Ah, yet another Christian in the vanguard! Come, come, young man. Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering.”
The Christian looks around the room. “Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I’ve got a question for you. Is there such thing as heat?”
“Yes,” the professor replies. “There’s heat.”
“Is there such a thing as cold?”
“Yes, son, there’s cold too.”
“No, sir, there isn’t.”
The professor’s grin freezes. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The second Christian continues.
“You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don’t have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit 273 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 -273°C. 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. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.
“Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?”
“That’s a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn’t darkness? What are you getting at…?”
“So you say there is such a thing as darkness?”
“Yes…”
“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 and give me a jar of it. Can you… give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?”
Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him. This will indeed be a good semester. “Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?”
“Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error….”
The professor goes toxic. “Flawed…? How dare you…!”
“Sir, may I explain what I mean?”
The class is all ears.
“Explain… ohhhhh, explain…” The professor makes an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he is affability himself. He waves his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.
“You are working on the premise of duality,” the Christian explains. “That for example 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 cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them. 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, merely the absence of it.” The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the desk of a neighbor who has been reading it. “Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids this country hosts, professor. Is there such a thing as immorality?”
“Of course there is, now look…”
“Wrong again, sir. You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?” The Christian pauses. “Isn’t evil the absence of good?”
The professor’s face has turned an alarming color. He is so angry he is temporarily speechless.
The Christian continues, “If there is evil in the world, professor, and we all agree there is, then God, if He exists, must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil.1 What is that work God is accomplishing? The Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil.”2
The professor bridles. “As a philosophical scientist, I don’t view this matter as having anything to do with any choice; as a realist, I absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological factor as being part of the world equation because God is not observable.”
The Christian replies, “I would have thought that the absence of God’s moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going, Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! 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 makes a sucking sound with his teeth and gives his student a silent, stony stare.
“Professor. 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?”
“I’ll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical discussion. Now, have you quite finished?” the professor hisses.
“So you don’t accept God’s moral code to do what is righteous?”
“I believe in what is – that’s science!”
“Ahh! SCIENCE!” the student’s face splits into a grin. “Sir, you rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. Science too is a premise which is flawed…”
“SCIENCE IS FLAWED..?” the professor splutters.
The class is in uproar. The Christian remains standing until the commotion has subsided. “To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?”
The professor wisely keeps silent.
The Christian looks around the room. “Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor’s mind?” The class breaks out into laughter. The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. “Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s mind… felt the professor’s mind, touched or smelt the professor’s mind? No one appears to have done so.” The Christian shakes his head sadly. “It appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the professor’s mind whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science, I DECLARE that the professor has no mind.”
The class is in chaos.
The Christian sits.
—-
If you didn’t get it, here is a brief synopsis. The atheist argument is that since God created everything, He is responsible for the creation of evil. However, “evil” is a word that we use to describe certain things that happen to us (most of which are caused by other people). In reality, it is not a physically created thing at all and, therefore, does not fall within the realm of something created by God. So, the argument is fundamentally flawed. As stated on this site, evil is allowed by God so that free will beings can choose between good (i.e., God) or evil (absence of God). Without evil, it is not possible to choose between good and evil, and the universe would have no ultimate purpose.
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Charles Darwin, Christianity, featured, Judeo-Christian, Scientist believes in God, True Christianity, truth
That dialog is just stupid. That professor that is supposed to be a scientist don’t even understand it. A scientist never ever believe in something particular. Science is not a belief system but a system based on fact and being a skeptic. Now about the christian who says he/she’s evil because of the bible, hum who is this ignorant. Only children talk that way.
Now the only purpose of the universe is like anything else: to die one day.
If science is not a belief system but based on fact and being a skeptic, you contradicted yourself with the last statement!!!!
If you say that the purpose of the universe is like anything else, to die one day?!?!?!?!
And then you say that the science that you follow is not a belief system?!?!
That’s my belief as a human Jeejo
For science, there is no such thing. Don’t mix the two.
What is your belief based on? If you believe that your belief system is true, then where does your truth come from?
It doesn’t matter what I believe here. What’s matter here is to understand that science is not a belief system.
Then I’m convinced you are the one who mixed the two
I don’t see how. Any human has its own believes whatever you are or not a scientist.
Of course, it means that if try to discover something with the science point of view, you try to never ever put your believes forwards. That’s the catch that many failed to apply or even comprehend.
In other words, you are choosing to close the door of the possibility of Intelligent Design, i.e. GOD and try to find clues to life and everything else. Nice! How is that ever going to be a true science application? Also, who defines that Intelligent Design and the possibility of GOD needs to be out in order for it to be science? Something is very fishy, eh?
You still don’t understand. Belief has no place in science. Therefore if you consider something that is not backed by some facts then you have to discard it.
Let’s take the hypothesis done by a french scientist a while ago that water had a “memory” of any solvent you put into. He tried to beck it with experiments that all failed. You can’t seriously keep that hypothesis anymore.
Intelligent design has the same flaw. This hypothesis can’t be backed by any facts or experiments whatsoever. I can consider look at it of course. But since nothing comes back then I have to discard it.
That’s that simple.
You are making the very same mistake. You are defining the limits before you explore, which is absurd. Lets leave the “Belief” for a second.
Now speaking of intelligent design, how do you say that intelligent design doesnt exist and because of that intelligent designer doesnt exist.
How do you conclude that? If you cannot conclude that then you cannot possibly say that this door is closed for Science to explore.
You are making the fundamental mistake when you say that belief has no place in science. If science is to explore and learn without bias, you have to have a science that is inclusive, not exclusive.
I’m not making any mistake here Jeejo.
Let’s imagine I’m have the following hypothesis: chickens dream of eggs.
OK fine. That’s fair. Not the next step is: what can I do to verify such statement? can I do electroencephalogram of those chickens ? can I decode the results and see the notion of eggs….. etc, etc you see the point
Now let’s go back to ID. and to repeat again: ID is an hypothesis like any other and that’s fine. Now what can we do to back it up ? what kind of experiment I can use and specially an experiment I can reproduce n times and get the same result?
That’s the point.
So the same goes for evolution. We have absolutely no data but guess work of a number of so called “scientists” who are biased about what Darwin said.
ID in fact has much more validity in its claims because we experience ID every single second.
ID is what you see around, there is nothing more to say about it.
There are things that in my personal opinion that science should attempt to answer and one such subject is “Origin”
Now if you say that science is up for definition change according to any Tom, Dick and Harry, then yes you will see scientists trying to explain away the things in their way.
Science as it says that “through experimentation and observing” requires “current” times, not guess work from the past. Recreating something in the lab in a short period of time says just that the very process was done in the lab and does not correlate to the past.
Actually it’s the reverse here.
Remember what you experience can’t be a fact or a proof. Because you can’t reproduce it.
For evolution, the amount of proof is now more than huge. Between genetics, geology, geochemistry, chronography and molecular biology, you can’t escape it.
Another thing, geology is NOT guesses on the past. It’s tons of observation, experiments, and facts. If you need the long list I can start now.
What?! How is your experience not a fact or a proof? What?!
How then is your experiments fact and proof?!?!?!
Let me repeat that again: anything you can’t reproduce has to be discarded.
Dude! You are digging the grave again. Are you saying science strictly follows the path that anything that needs a proof should be repeatable?
No read carefully when I’m saying. An experiment producing results must be repeatable.
If it’s not then it was merely an artifact and has to be discarded.
Let’s imagine that’s measuring the concentration of calcium in the stone I have sampled across a given region. And doing that I didn’t label the samples where they were located. Suddenly my measure is useless because of course nobody will be able to reproduce it since I lost the location information. In the other hand if all my samples are carefully labeled with the location and the date, then somebody else can use the exact same method I used and the exact same location and compare the results.
That’s why when you study a medicine you always study it several times with the same modus operandi by different teams to avoid having a spike or any other artifacts.
I understand what you are saying. Would you agree there are things in this world that cannot be experimented with? That is outside science but still a fact regardless.
How do you make known and current science the ultimate measure of truth?
Unfortunately you can’t accept things you can’t experiment with. If not that’s the open door to anything and everything. There would be no distinction of what it is and it’s not. A good example is all those so called studies for a given behavior or medicine that promise you good health but have been backed by just one team. Most of the time, it’s false and even more dangerous.
Now what is important here is science try to understand the “how” but not the “why”. “Why” is what is called metaphysics and usually where lives all the religions.
Well said, if that is the case Science will never attempt the “Why” of origin. Good.
Logically speaking you cannot look a product made (how) without understanding the reason (why) behind it.
The very reason you are searching to find answers to the origin of the universe and us has an ultimate purpose. If that reason has a purpose, your reason has to make sense. If your reason has to make sense, the “why” needs answers.
Now if science cannot answer the “Why” something or someone has to find answers so that science can start work on the “How”
If you are starting the quest the other way around, it would be catastrophic.
Actually what is funny is to think that perhaps searching for the why makes no sense.
That’s one of the favorites topics in philosophy in high school for graduation
“Does it make any sense to see a why for anything?” …
Science reigns on the “how” like an ageless king that’s for sure.
But when comes the why, then we don’t even know if it’s a valid question or not.
Incredible. Yet you found a way to do the first “Why Science”?
If you were on purely on “how”, then the matter of science itself doesnt arise. It was the “Why” that got “How” started, dont ever forget that!
in other words,
Validate “Why science Why not religion?” or anything else
Not sure to understand here. Specially the first sentence.
But since when you need to know the why before the how?
My first sentence was, how would you say that you do not need the “Why” but need “Why science” need to answer the “Hows”
Incredibly funny!
Lets make a test between the “true believers” and the science guys, we need two hills both with a nice high towers one with a lightning-rod ( that scientific object made by old Benjamin Franklin after scientific experiment and observation of a natural event) that one will be for the science guy, the ID guy go for the other tower with out a lightning-rod, he can pray and use any ID because ID is what you see around, wait for a nice thunderstorm with a few electric big nice lighting…..smile for the light, ok maybe one of this fellow will meet his creator or get a weird hair do. Will you bet who will be? You dont need to believe in the law of gravity not in those tiny objects like viruse or bacterias, and dont need to use evolutions rules to make vaccines Did you know the past 20 years, more than 14 million leprosy patients have been cured about 4 million since 2000? How many leprosy patient ID get cure….i will let you count the JC cures but personally i think he will laugh of the ID idea, but that is my personal opinion? “You can keep on things that in your personal opinion science should attempt to answer and one such subject is “Origin”? Why if you know already the answer to that question? Why you want science 2 loose time with it…or you dont know….are you loosing your faith Jeejo Pallayi?
Still not sure to follow you here. Don’t focus too much on those famous “why” and “how”. It’s just a metaphor, and metaphors are only valid in their context. Now what I need here is just irrelevant.
Alexander,
I’m not sure where you see the lack of faith in this conversation. Yes, I’m saying we know the “Why” and make that as a foundation for the “How” and it will be less frustrating
Cheers!
you all bone heads !!! why cant you just sit for a while and try to think… that this is all GOD’s creation… Cant you see? how well the world has been designed? Do you want evidence?? Look at your self in the mirror …look at your body & how it functions …!!! all the systems!!! Tell me morons.. do you believe that your hand phone or the engine of your car have come out of nowhere? or..or they all came from evolution?? you will definitely laugh at this wont you?? if your answer is no!! then how many times the creation of your body is complex,& how many times does it worth ?? look at the water cycle. the rain, the sun , the night & the day,human birth,, they are all linked together.. if the the greatest scientist can believe in GOD, the ones who taught the science to the world …why cant you morons with B.Sc. degrees cant believe ????????????
I don’t think that anyone should be taking the approach that belief in God and belief in science can’t coexist. It’s not one or the other… it’s both. God created science, after all.