Just wanted to share a thought provoking email I received..

[therulz]

I can't testify taht the source of this is correct, but it is thought provoking and I thought I would share it with you.

This has a thought provoking message no matter how you believe.
Does evil exist? 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 or 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 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. 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?
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

 

[Jamila]

Thanks for this post, therulz, it is certainly food for thought!

I agree with Einstein - Evil IS simply the absence of God.

If one has God living in their Heart and Soul, then the tendency to do harm, to speak negatively, to stand by silently as people suffer will NOT be in one's Heart/Soul and one's actions will be helpful.

YOU WILL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUIT.....

 

[A_Wanderer]

Evil the Absence of God? Please ellaborate, I would disagree by simply looking at the evil commited by those with strong religious conviction from The Crusades to 9/11, religion is great because it can be used to justify any action and make it divinely unquestionable and allow you to ignore the problems of others because they dont have the same beliefs or sit back and say they will simply enjoy an eternity of happiness in the afterlife. Religiously sanctioned murder, elimination of pagans and infidels, misogynism, fundamentalism are all elements that make up religion, they are inseperable parts of religion, the glue of it and no matter how hard people try to dismiss them as deviations they forget progression within religion is the only deviation from the normal. The greatest thing achievement of the civilized world has been secularism, removing religious influence on the state and ensuring that all people are free to think for themselves. Religion has been the best way to divide people since the begining of mankind and you will not see unity until everyone subscribes to the same relgion, or the entire concept is abandoned.

Five Truths of Mine

o There is no God
o Religion is control
o Good is the best parts of Humanity
o Evil is worst parts of Humanity
o Humanity can be bettered through technology, knowledge, reason and tollerance - all things that comprise the antithesis of the underlying concepts inherent within religion

The world is only going to get better if we abandon the devisive concepts of Nationalism and Religion and embrace the common humanity we all share.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Oh and as for the existence of God, the concept of a sentient being with absolute power to wield over the universe who cannot be detected but chooses to show itself to a few lunatics and "messiahs" throughout all of history does seem to be a little bit too much.

There is talk of souls and afterlives with no evidence, we excuse ourselves from asking hard questions by simply inventing impossible questions that lead us to easy assumptions. Humanity invented God to excuse itself from reflecting on its own nature, by creating a moral policeman with which to control people.

We do live in a universe, we can understand the universe by studying it, only through science may we uncover the mechanisms of reality - anything less would be a simple lie. God may or may not exist, but if it does exist then I am sure that we could uncover it by understanding the universe objectively.

 

[Diemen]

A_W, you may want to tread a little lightly here, as you are no doubt trampling on the beliefs of many (if not most) of the people here.

As for the email...sounds like something my dad would send me.

 

[annj]

A-wanderer I find your point of view very intriguing and I can understand totally why you arrive at your point of view.. yes you are very correct about religions in the world holding mankind back and causing more divison and harm than good because the evidence of our eyes shows this..

it bothered me a lot too, but then I realised it was perhaps most of these religions are not practicing tolerance love, and you are right they put nationlism and political agenda's greed and power ahead of their fellow man even when they claim they worship some sort of God. But that does not mean that God is not good or he does not exist.. rather he is very badly represented by those religous leaders who claim they believe in him and if we do have a sense of goodness and compassion in us they are actually reflections of what God meant when he said let us make man in our image.

We live in a very technical advanced world today.. but really are we any better for it, yes it can make a lot of our lives more comfortable.. but technical advances have also led to bigger more dangerous weapons that could annilate every one on the planet

I grew up with a very sceptical view of God much like the way you feel so I do understand where you are coming from. because I seen the damage many of those who claimed to follow God or claim they were doing it for God.. or that God was on their side.. it really sickened me.

But you might be surprised to know that God does not support those religous fanatics and hypocrites he is as sickened by them as you are, and whats more you said that they need to be wiped out.. well God is going to do it.. I was rather surprised myself when I discovered this.

The problem is not with God.. as the first post claimed it is an absence of people having a love for God, And I don't mean a fear of God in the sense you are going to burn or suffer in hell or some other after life.. because that is another false and actually pagan assumption that got mixed in with Christianity and ended up turning people like yourself away.

My love for God stems from having a close personal relationship with him, by following his guidance, I would never hurt or harm another human being because it would be displeasing to him, he teaches love and tolerance and you cannot blame him for those hypocrites who say they believe in God then go around doing everything the opposite.. the truth is they are not letting the love of God have power in their lives. Jesus commandmentwas to love your enemies to love your neighbour to do good unto others to treat people how you would want treated yourself.. are these not teachings of tolerance if every one practiced these would it not be a better world? Humans say they believe in God then ignore all these commandments..
He also avoided getting involved in nationalism or politics and expected his followers to do the same.. as we see today once more they have ignored what he told them and the world is the mess that it is


but you have to understand that by doing so they are being Judged by God even more so and they will have to answer to him.
In Jesus day he called the religous leaders then hypocrites, he showed them up for what they were ..thats why they wanted to kill him and he warned us there would be hypocrites in our time

I would love to give you several examples and proof how following what God says is beneficial and is indeed the right way of life, when you do PRACTICE what you PREACH.. but I don't want to take up room in the forum so if you want to email me
my addy is annjane38@hotmail.com


You might be surprised to realise you have more in common with how God thinks and feels than you realise

 

[A_Wanderer]

EDIT

 

[A_Wanderer]

I was never turned away from belief, I never believed in the existence of God in the first place. The entire concept for better or worse just doesn't appeal to me, I think that true salvation for humanity can only be achieved if we can deliever a true peace on earth and make life worth living for everyone. It can be achieved but not through coersion or force, but mutual acceptance (which is a little hard to come by today, or well ever in human history.) I would love to see peace on earth, a world where everyone can live their lives to their full potential in freedom and without fear because I am sick of seeing the brutality in the world commited by mankind. God has nothing to do with evil in this world, that is done by man - we can also do so much good on our own and for ourselves, that is what I am trying to get at.

I can think of plenty of wonderful acts of kindness that have been done in the name of God, the charity and love shown by those that do, practice what they preace and I truly respect that. I simply think that these acts of kindness are derived from our own humanity rather than some form of divine inspiration, everybody is capable of doing a good deed - people just need a reason, religion is a very good motivator. Just as the most unmitigated acts of evil can be commited in the name of God that too comes from our humanity, or lack thereof. This is where we will begin on the track of the nature of evil and that discussion can get very deep so I wont raise it. If God exists then it would not have anything directly to do with the evil in the world, im sure that that evil would be the result of pesky free will but if God doesnt exist good and evil are simply parts of humanity.

If we all do good for the sake of humanity and try to make the world better for ourselves then if God does exist we shall be judged on the good deeds, if it doesnt exist then we will have made the world that little bit better for the next generation. Its the same basic message at the core of all religions and it is a part of commonality for the better, just without the rest of the baggage. Good knowledge is good knowledge, religion is a database of knowledge in regards to morality that helps guide billions of people, in the end its all the same basic message, I ask you why do we need this message, this good advice and knowledge to be corrupted by relgion which in itself does more bad than good?

I can tell this may get to some pretty contentious points so I will make it quite clear that when it comes to the existence of God that is pretty uncertain thing with no clear evidence, my point of view that God doesnt exist is worth just as much as somebody who thinks that God does exist, just making sure that you understand that when dealing with such a universal unknown theres not (yet) a solid answer. I do however dispute that Jesus, Mohammed or any prophet was inspired or told to do anything by an actual factual supernatural being, just dont buy that seems to be a bit of propaganda used to gain new acolytes.

 

[Salome]

since I do believe that god = love
I tend to agree that in a way hate/evil is the absence of god

 

[arw]

A Wanderer....we think a lot a like.

 

[DaveC]

FYI, that was definitely NOT Einstein who said that. Einstein was an agnostic for most of his life. You can actually read about this here:

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

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

There's people who believe in a god and are evil.
There's people who believe in a god and are good.
There's people who don't believe in a god and are evil.
There's people who don't believe in a god and are good.

That's how I see it. And even so, aren't "good" and "evil" really subjective terms, anyway?

Angela

 

[Jamila]

Whether Einstein really said this or not, it's one of the most thought-provoking posts that I've seen in a while.

It definitely merits some serious contemplation by all of us.

I did find these two quotes of Einstein's:

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

I think he was predicting my reception here in these forums.

"I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details."

So, in some part of his Heart, Einstein MUST have wanted to know God.

Thanks again for this thread - I found it inspiring.

 

[U2girl]

.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Einstein wanted to know The Universe, if you look at his opinion of quantum mechanics in particular the copenhagen interperatation he makes it clear "God doesn't play dice", he wasnt talking about a quantum state being a choice of God, he was saying that he didnt accept uncertainty being such a large part of the universe. Looking at Einsteins own politics and philosophy as well as his beautiful General Relativity he looked at the universe and desired to understand it rather than desiring to see God in any real sense.

 

[Klaus]

If you look here:
http://www.alberteinstein.info/Low/36-798.jpg
or here http://www.einstein-website.de/glaubens.htm
I can see that Einstein believed in a power above. But that dosn't really matter what other people think, it dosn't make the truth more true and lies even more wrong.

Anyway, we shouldn't mix Religion and God here since many people who claim they worship their religion do horrible things.
And i Agree that God=Love. Because of that i think that anyone who does horrible things in the name of his religion (Crusades etc) just wants to abuse the religion for his personal hatedriven attacks.
I believe in a god that is full of love and gives everyone in this world the free choice if he wants to join him (love).

For the agnistics:
If you use the word Love as a synonym for god you might agree to posters above:
"Evil is the absence of love"

 

[DaveC]

"Evil is the absence of love"

Precisely.

 

[Saracene]

I don't think I'm entirely convinced that the two scientific examples cited translate into the realm of ethics. Unless someone found a method to study and measure amounts of love.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Well mate, quantifying love - I think that may well be a measure of neurochemicals.

 

[Klaus]

Or you can measure the brain-activity at certain spots

But anyway, before there was a scientific way to mesure Light - was it unscientific to say darkness is the absence of light?

 

[Ft. Worth Frog]

A Wanderer, I am not sure that secularism is the greatest thing to hit civilization. For example, communist regimes across the world are totally secular, yet are responsible for shedding the most blood in the 20th century. Stalin alone was responsible for killing more than Hitler. Throw in Lenin, Mao, and a few other dictators and you have an approximate 100 million dead because of secularism.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

A Wanderer, I am not sure that secularism is the greatest thing to hit civilization. For example, communist regimes across the world are totally secular, yet are responsible for shedding the most blood in the 20th century. Stalin alone was responsible for killing more than Hitler. Throw in Lenin, Mao, and a few other dictators and you have an approximate 100 million dead because of secularism.

Similar stuff has happened in areas of the world that were quite non-secular, too. Either way, you're bound to find some cruel people running around.

Angela

 

[nbcrusader]

Yes, people have been killed in secular and non-secular environments. Ft. Worth Frog's point, however, is that in the last 100 years, secular (communist) regimes have been responsible for the most deaths.

 

[pax]

I think it is not just the lack of a spirituality that calls for the respect for every living thing that makes a secular totalitarian state so dangerous, but also the amazing strides made in technology. Before this century, it was much harder to kill thousands of people all at once; you pretty much had to do it one or maybe a few at time. But now that insane, amoral leaders can also have access to technology that is exponentially lethal, you see the problem.

That said, I don't think that "religious" leaders are incapable of such things (see Muqtada al-Sadr, David Koresh). But you have to admit that a belief system with no respect for life, no thought of an afterlife, no basic admiration for creation is more dangerous than one that holds such things to be important or, dare I say, sacred.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Communism killed those 100,000,000 people, not secularism. Surely people were killed because of their religious beliefs because inevitably there must be coercion to force subservance to the state. Churches were smashed and priests murdered but the majority those killed were shipped of to Gulags, killed in "great leaps forward" or massacred in acts of collective punishment. Communism is the most vile political ideology put into practice in the 20th Century. I am an atheist and I have a tremendous loathing of communism because it is inherently opressive, people do not give up their belongings to the "greater good" without a fight, they dont just throw away free thought without a fight: they are coerced into doing it, the state becomes an opressive force and people suffer because of it, they may well have the label secular - but they are no different than theocracy in that subservance to a state entity is demanded, failure to do so is punished by death.

"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called." - John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, ch. 3)

Pax, why do you presume that somebody who thinks there is no afterlife has no respect for life, I would think that in the absence of such a fantasy people would be more sparing in throwing lives away, unlike those who insist God is on their side and will send millions to their deaths safe in the knowledge that they will enjoy an eternity of happiness. I would say that if you remove religious belief from the equation then respect for people is based on their merit and not their religion, we can see how easy it is for those of very strong faith and conviction to see non-believers as evil, subhuman, worthy of death. If you dont have believe in God then all religions are equally invalid and all people are equally fucked up. There is no way to remove religion by coersion and force, that is plain wrong and nobody should advocate it. But to seperate religion from the functions of the state and prevent it from hindering development, to foster mutual understanding between people is surely a more noble system than the archaic and draconian functions of control and division that organized religion is built upon. Only when people have the freedom to question and live free may they choose to abandon the flawed moral contraints put upon them by religion. Logic, reason and respect can deliver more to the betterment of mankind than religion ever can.

Secularism is a brilliant concept, it is a seperation of the church from the state. There is no religious interference into peoples lives, the state is not given a divine right to act and it is held to account for its actions, people have the freedom to question and think for themselves. Liberty and Secularism go hand in hand and are the foundation of the Liberal Democracy. This system is the best that we can do today, it may not be perfect, things go wrong but it is a lot better than anything that came before, the only way to guarantee peace is to give every individual on earth freedom and the ability to protect their freedom - until we do that ignorance and opression will maintain their iron grip on humanity and nothing will get better.

"The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement." - John Stuart Mill

 

[OneBadLemon]

commenting on the first post (the email forward, or whatever)

evil is not the abscence of god.
for god is terrifying, makes you tremble with his power. you should be fearful of god. god isn't evil, but are you saying that the only quality that god has is goodness?

evil is the abscence of good. or the other way around. good is the abscence of evil. you can always switch things around.

oh, and please apoligize for the lack of capitalization. i fear my pinkie may fall off if i press the shift key too often.

peace, love & bad lemon,
toni

...is the acropolis crumbling?
this just in: nachos are merely a vehicle for salsa to enter my mouth. i love salsa.

 

[pax]

I have no problem with separation of church and state. I don't think, either, that someone who believes in no afterlife has no respect for life. What I am saying is that when government is totally controlled (i.e. totalitarianism) by people who don't believe in an afterlife AND have no respect for life/creation--who see people as means to ends rather than ends in themselves--we should not be shocked when such regimes end in utter violence, despair, and destruction.

I'm a liberal at heart and I certainly don't want to live in a theocracy. But I think it's only logical that a government that outlaws all expressions of emotion, spirituality, etc. would end badly. And this is not a slam on atheists. I know atheists who live very ethical and peaceful lives, who are committed to nonviolence and veganism and the like. It is when people not only don't believe in a higher power, but also don't believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person and don't believe in any kind of future accountability that worries me.

 

[A_Wanderer]

And I will stand by my statement that the abuse of power that winds up killing people is despotism, it is seperate from theological debate as it is just that, an abuse of power by an individual; it can be done by anybody if they are in such a position of power and they become corrupted by it. Banning of religious expression is a banning of free thinking which is wrong, having people abandon organized religion by their own free will however would be a proper way to remove the problems caused by religion, that can only happen when people are given true liberty and peace.

Religion has done far more damage to the world than it has improved, it is a lock on the wheel of progress and I think that reason and understanding do far more for humanity than the brittle and rigid confines of religion. The promise of an afterlife was a fiction invented to make people conform, there is no (silicon) heaven (but where would the calculators go).

The world would be a whole lot better if relgion was volunteraly abandoned, putting an end to the "opiate of the masses" and having humanity wake up to the fact that we can only improve ourselves if we work for the betterment of mankind.