Einstein and the existence of God
Jan. 19th, 2012 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigoneutrino----------------------
Professor: You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Professor: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Professor: My brother died of cancer, even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn’t. How is God good, then? Hmm?
(Student was silent)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Professor: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From.. God.
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Professor: So who created evil?
(Student didn’t answer)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immortality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them?
(Student had no answer)
Professor: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son.. have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your God.
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God, for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.
Professor: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, Science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my Faith.
Professor: Yes, Faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as Heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as Cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student: No, sir, there isn’t.
(The Lecture Theatre became very quiet with this turn of events)
Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 Degrees below Zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of Heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was a pin-drop silence in the Lecture Theatre)
Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student: You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness 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? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, You would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is, your Philosophical Premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student: Sir, you are working on the Premise of Duality. You argue there is Life and then there is 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?
Professor: If you are referring to the Natural Evolutionary Process, yes of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed Evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going)
Student: 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 not a Scientist but a Preacher?
(The class was in uproar)
Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter)
Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? .. No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable and Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on Faith, son.
Student: That is it, sir.. exactly! The link between man and God is Faith. That is all that keeps things alive and moving!
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That student was Albert Einstein.
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Firstly, I'm pretty sure this is a myth. Secondly, Einstein's comment about quantum physics - "God does not play dice" - was actually used to try and demonstrate why quantum theory was wrong, but yet experimental evidence proves quantum theory is right.
True, we can't know if the professor has a brain unless we cut open his skull and check, just like we can't know if Schrodinger's Cat is dead or alive until we open the box. But we can observe the effects of the professor having a brain - that he is living and talking - much in the same way we can observe the effects of adding a second slit in the double slit experiment, even though we can't observe the process of a photon passing through one of the holes.
I'm not even an atheist, but this argument bugs me. Everything Einstein says about cold being the absence of heat and darkness being the absence of light is true, but you can't apply that to God. God is an abstract concept that can't be measured - heat and light aren't. You can have varying degrees of heat and light, you can't have varying degrees of God or faith. That's a personal thing, and just because on person manages to interpret this argument as proof of God, it doesn't mean everyone will because it is subjective and not empirical.
It also bugs me how people think that saying that the student was Albert Einstein lends this argument more validity. It doesn't - it's probably a myth that this was Einstein anyway, and even if it's not, Einstein was wrong about a lot of things. True, he was a genius when it comes to the photoelectric effect and the theory of relativity, but he fluffed up by his own admission with his cosmological constant and the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics proved to be right despite Einstein's insistence it was wrong.
Seriously, I can think of plenty of philosophical arguments in support of the existence of God, but I really hate this one. For what it’s worth, I hate the professor’s arguments about “Is God good?” as well, because again it’s entirely subjective and isn’t so much about proving the existence of God as whether or not God is a good thing. But either way, I wish people wouldn’t quote this to support the existence of God. Keep philosophical and theological debate in the realm of metaphysics and don’t try bringing in actual physics to support your argument.
