This
may or may not be a true story but it is a nice bit of logic.
A university professor challenged his
students with this question. "Did God create everything
that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, He
did!"
"God created everything?" the
professor asked. "Yes, sir," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God
created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists.
And according to the principal that our works define who we
are, then God is evil."
The student became quiet before such an
answer.
The professor was quite pleased with
himself, and boasted to the students that he had proven once
more that the faith in God is a myth.
Another student raised his hand and
said, "Can I ask you a question, professor?"
"Of course," replied the
professor. The student stood up and asked,"Professor,
does cold exist?"
"What kind of question is this?
Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The
students snickered at the young man's question.
The young man replied, "In fact,
sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics,
what we consider cold is, in reality, the absence of heat.
Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or
transmits energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total
absence of heat. All matter becomes inert and incapable of
reaction at that temperature.
Cold does not exist. We have created this
word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."
The student continued.
"Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded,"Of course it
does."
The student replied, "Once again
you are wrong, sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness
is, in reality, the absence of light. We can study light, but
not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break
white light into many colors and study the various wave
lengths of each color.
"You cannot measure darkness. A simple
ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate
it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure
the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a
term used by man to describe what happens when there is no
light present."
Finally, the young man asked the
professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded,
"Of course, as I have already said. 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 not like faith, or love, that
exist just as does light and heat. 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.
The
young student's name -- Albert Einstein.
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