Matt D From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (9 years 10 months 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 1850 times:
Please...no Mini Me jokes for now.
Just thought I'd share this email with you.
At a certain college, there was a professor with a reputation for being tough on Christians. At the first class every semester, he asked if anyone was a Christian and proceeded to degrade and mock their statement of faith.
One semester, he asked the question and a young man raised his hand when asked if anyone was a Christian. The professor asked, "Did God make everything, young man?"
"Yes, he did, sir," the young man replied.
The professor responded, "If God made everything, then God made evil, and if we can only create from within ourselves, then God is evil."
The student didn't have a response and the professor was happy to have once again proved the Christian faith to be a myth.
Then another man raised his hand and asked, "May I ask you something, sir?"
"Yes, you may," responded the professor.
The young man stood up and said "Sir, is there such a thing as cold?"
"Of course there is, what kind of a question is that? Haven't you ever been cold?"
The young man replied, "Actually, sir, cold does not exist. What we consider to be cold, is really only the absence of heat. Absolute zero is when there is absolutely no heat, but cold does not really exist. We have only created that term
to describe how we feel when heat is not there." The young man continued, "Sir, is there such a thing as dark?"
Once again, the professor responded "Of course there is."
And once again, the student replied "Actually, sir, darkness does not exist. Darkness is really only the absence of light. Darkness is only a term man developed to describe what happens when there is no light present." Finally, the
young man asked, "Sir, is there such a thing as evil?"
The professor responded, "Of course. We have rapes, and murders and violence everywhere in the world, those things are evil."
The student replied, "Actually, sir, evil does not exist. Evil is simply the absence of God. Evil is a term man developed to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. It isn't like truth, or love, which exist as virtues like heat and light. Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light."
777236ER From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (9 years 10 months 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 1818 times:
The student replied, "Actually, sir, evil does not exist. Evil is simply the absence of God. Evil is a term man developed to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. It isn't like truth, or love, which exist as virtues like heat and light. Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light."
Nevertheless, God created the universe which means he created everything and a lack of everything. A lack of something is still something! An absence of God must have been created by God because God by definition created everything.
Jwenting From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (9 years 10 months 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 1808 times:
How to define good if there is no evil to compare it against?
Ergo, if God did not create evil there would be nothing that would make people call him/her/it (depending on your religion) good and therefore God would not be good.
Evil far from being the absence of good is actually the diametric opposite of good and therefore will always exist where good exists as a counterweight so to speak. As the ballance swings towards good the definition of evil will change to emcompass more and more.
777236ER From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 4, posted (9 years 10 months 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 1807 times:
Well God doesn't exist (in my opinion .'. it's true).
But God can't logically exist. Humans can't comprehend God so there's no point trying to argue where he (or she) came from.
But the fact that he can't logically exist doesn't seem to be a problem, and wouldn't be a problem if he was omnipotent and able to do anything. If he were omnipotent he could do anything without actually existing.
Bobrayner From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (9 years 10 months 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 1783 times:
I don't see any particular justification for believing in G*d, so Occam's Razor applies.
Plus, I think there can be no individual free will with respect to G*d, in which case judgement / sin / &c are irrational.
Evil far from being the absence of good is actually the diametric opposite of good and therefore will always exist where good exists as a counterweight so to speak. As the ballance swings towards good the definition of evil will change to emcompass more and more.
We could argue about the precise relationship of good and evil for years. The only uncontroversial thing we can say is that good things aren't evil, and evil things aren't good, so these qualities are mutually exclusive. This doesn't get us very far.
NormalSpeed From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 10, posted (9 years 10 months 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 1739 times:
Man or God? Are we so narrow in our understanding to believe that it could only be one or the other? In other words, I'm not so sure that evil is quantifiable commodity that could be created or destroyed. Rather, I define evil as the absence of charity, which is to say, the love for others which is like pure love that Christ has for us.
Strickerje From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 12, posted (9 years 10 months 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 1694 times:
IMO, the biggest hole in this transcript is that professors tend to know that darkness is the absense of light and that cold is the absense of heat. I don't believe any professor would respond to those questions the way this one supposedly did.
Another thing I don't buy is that "evil" is the absense of God. If God is supposed to be everywhere all the time, and evil still happens, then evil has happened under God's watch.
A brief look at history shows that various people throughout the ages have had widely varying religious beliefs, and none have been proven right or wrong. There may be many gods, as the Greeks and Romans believed, or there may be just one supreme being (with maybe a few subordinates) as the Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe. Or there may be no being higher than man. So, did God create man or did man create God? It could be both. Mankind came up with religious beliefs due to the absense of any definite proof, so in a sense, man created his own god or gods. But that doesn't mean there couldn't still be a god who created all mankind.
So did man create evil or did God? It could be both. If you believe that God gave man free will, then God created the concept of evil by making it possible, but man creates evil when he acts on it. Does any of this make sense?
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