What do you feel about this argument between Einstein and a professor about God, long but very interesting?

Question

The 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 Christian faith was 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 and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit 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 too little 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. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths 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?

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 every day. 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 mans name --- Albert Einstein

Answer 1

I think that's awesome! Very true. Just as Hell isn't an actual place filled with fire, it's just a state of being, a state of perpetual torment because you have been banished from God's love. Heaven is being close to God.

God didn't create evil. He created us with freewill. We make the choice how to act. Either to live in love and follow God, or to live in hatred and reject him. Satan said he would rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. We all have the same choice & are accountable for our own behaviour. We are not God's little puppets. If he controlled our actions what would be the point? As our father, he provided us with guidance, but then he leaves us to live out our lives however we choose. This life is a test. How we do is up to us.

People love to blame God for the world's evils, for crimes & tragedies rather than taking responsibility for their own role in it. A criminal makes his own choice. God isn't making him evil. He has rejected God. Natural disasters are not God's doing. They are often the planet's response to our mistreatment of it (global warming etc).

Answer 2

It's a wonderful story. But evil is a relative term. What is evil to one pair of eyes may be dinner to another. Just as light cannot exist without darkness, all things are one and do not exist independently. You people need to read up on the Tao. You've got splinter vision. If you can for a moment look about you without any idea of yourself, you will be amazed at how much farther you can see. People have used meditation to accomplish this. In the recent study printed in Time about the physical responses to meditation, it was noted that the part of the brain that is used to identify oneself was inactive during meditation, and that's when the perception of oneness occurs. Try it. Surely you can imagine even without meditating that your view is limited by your "point of view." You wouldn't want to go through your whole life that way, would you?

And here's a tidbit of doubt for you all, no extra charge: Just because something may not be measurable by current means does not prove it doesn't exist. Don't forget about germs, which at one time no one could see, and yet they are exuberantly existant.

Answer 3

It is wrong to accept physics without questioning. I understand that physically cold does not exist but I do not agree with physics. We must look the sense-data and concepts. As a concept, cold exists. As a sense-data, cold exists. Evil is something which cannot be understood with physics and such an argument like this will become a good word game but nothing. Of course, everybody can say that evil is absence of good, but it does not mean that evil does not exist. Moreover, good needs evil necessarily! Without absence of good, we would have no concept of good,because; everything would be same. We need the evil which exists as a concept. This does not make God bad, because; it is very normal for an infinite being to have everything. I mean evil is bad, and good is good but existence of bad can be something good. It is certainly about FREE WILL.

To conclude, Free will gives us the opportunity to choose between good and evil. It gives us the opportunity to choose bad. Choosing evil is something evil, bad but having this opportunity is something good.

Answer 4

I agree with you about the gist of it; evil is a lack of good (as cold is a lack of heat), but is something we can experience. But I agree with the above poster that the story is apocryphal. I've heard it, but Einstein never did this. Einstein was not a Christian; he was Jewish (though nonpracticing) and became more of a Deist or Freethinker later on.

Answer 5

This is complete crap and never happened.

Evil is not the absence of god, evil is pursuing a goal regardless of who is hurt in the process. This is so logically flawed as to be laughable.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

Answer 6

eh, i think thats kinda lame.

the are an infinate nuimber of these types of thoughts each no more provable than the others.

i could contruct 50 argument for and against god and evil for you right now but the bottom line is that the exisance of God cannot be proven with logic.

Answer 7

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Regardless on my own, or any ones personal or religious beliefs.

A very thought provoking read for sure.

Thank you for the time and effort taken to post.

Well done.

Answer 8

I must agree with plc 7.

Good work, keep it up.

Answer 9

i thought einstiene was athiest