I cam across this forwarded email which had this amazing conversation between an atheist professor and theist student. Searched about it on net and found several interesting versions and discussions about it on online forums. The conversation is as below:
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An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty.
He asks one of his new students to stand and.....
Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.
Prof: 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 this God good then? Hmm?
Student: (Student is silent.)
Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From...God...
Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Prof: So who created evil?
Student: (Student does not answer.)
Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them?
Student: (Student has no answer.)
Prof: 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.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No , sir.
Prof: 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.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.
Prof: 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.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student: No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes 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 is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)
Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: 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 were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: 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?
Prof: 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?
Prof: (The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize
where the argument is 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 endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir?
Are you not a scientist but a
preacher?
Prof: (The class is in uproar.)
Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
Prof: (The class breaks 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, demonstrable
protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
Prof: (The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student: That is it sir.. The link between man & God is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.
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Pretty interesting conversation isn't it.. Click below to find some interesting comments on the above conversation that I picked up from an online forum from some atheist vs Theist guys..
CLICK HERE
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VizagDude
But, I am not that convinenced on the example that the student gave to explain FAITH. Though, none of them saw the Prof. brain, there is scientific proof that the HAS one and every human being does as well and thats good enough for me. I know if rquired (u know what Im sayin...), I can see it, touch it, feel it.So, that does not explain FAITH to me.Correct me if Im wrong.
TT
science doesnt go with teh belief of God itself, its just an explanation in terms of science against science, but when u say scientifically u can touch and feel the brain, then everytime u r in peril and think abt God, u r actually touching and feeling God..Does that answer ur qn bhai??
VizagDude
I agree that sicience does not go with the belief that God exists. Personally I am not an Atheist. But just for the argument sake, what Im trying to say is... the Student was not able to convinence me that example of the Brain and Faith. And what you answered is totally different.
Painkiller
if faith is such an irrefutable thing, what if someone has faith that there is absolutely no god?
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id also like to add this its from douglas adams hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
(the discussion is about babel fish, which when inserted into the ear can transalate any language into your own)
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything
so mindboggingly useful (like a babel fish) could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching
proof of the non-existence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I
exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am
nothing.'
"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it?
It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so
therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly
vanished in a puff of logic.
"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to
prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next
zebra crossing.
TT:
ur logic is correct bro, faith of a human being is created with his beliefs in various things and when arguments like this converstaion prop up showing that God mite be there, an atheist mite as well believe it r probably stop arguing based on science....
Trigger_jam
I don't think it reached any surprising conclusion. All it showed was that both science and religion were built upon faith but as far as proving/showing/explaining the existence of god it failed. You don't need faith to know you exist. You need faith to believe otherwise.
Castanza
Guys, there is no God there is only Google. That conversation fits a telugu masala movie. that is not real class room stuff, it is just another tirade of believers against the non-believers. you can find the remaining part of the story here at this link. http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/brain.htm
TT
depends on how u look at it dude, u found out a website that gives u the other side of the story as it states in the start itself it has different versions. Check these sites for the version that I have posted.....
http://www.sconsig.com/inspirations/faith.htm
http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/christian/faith.html
http://gwenc.myblog.com/7717.html
I can give tons of those sites which do mention this side of the story.
So the moral of the story is THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT A GLASS WITH WATER
U MITE LOOK AT IT AND SAY IT IS HALF EMPTY WHILE I CAN LOOK AT IT AND SAY IT IS HALF FILLED. the optimistic way of looking at it......no offense bro, just bringing up my side of the point.....
Dhaavak
Of course faith is necessary in realization of God. However, God realization is not illogical. This creation is a proof of God's exisrence. Albert einstein, who was himself a thiest had an atheist friend who belived in the Big Bang theory that everything just evolved out of nothing. Gases compresiing and decompressing etc. So whenever Einstein would ask him that if there were no god then where did everything come from, and he would always say it was just there. So one night Einstein mad a really cool looking model of the universe with planets in orbit and everything and set it in their lab. When the friend came to visit him the next day and saw the wonderful model of the universe he asked who had built that wonderful replica of the universe. Einstein replied: 'I don't know I woke up this morning and it was just there'. The friend asked numereous times but Einstein's reply was the same. Finally Einstein just told his friend that if even such a small imperfect model of the universe cannot come into existence on its own then how could this creation which has so much order and precision just evolve out of mere gaseous combustion. The freind was finally able to understand the fault in the theory of The Big bang.
Harihar2006
this argumet is not factual...
for a fact the statment that evoloution is not seen is not true...it could be seen every minute in viruses and bacterias etc...
also to sujjest that creation is possible only cos sone things are not seen is not acceptable... nealy all tyhe foundations of nucler physics are not seen and are only a model proped by observation of traits...
and prediction based on the model holds true and therefore the model in genereal is accepted ...
also the child does not answer the questions of evil abd suffering beging around if a creater had his way... and also as to why is it not stopped by the creater...
i hope atleast someon could answer me this question as to why the creator has alooved so much suffering to go on and for somepeople who do all evil do carry on with impunity...
also there is nothing called light as well...it is the presence of enegy whithin a certain frequency ... when the frequency chages the energy will take a different form...
also in darkness there is energy...( for example night vision thermal imaging...) the only thing is that it will not be in the frequency of light...
then it is safe to argue in darkness the essence of light is infact there...( the roort enegy of sufficient will produce light)
so basically the argument goes to the bhuddhist phylosaphy...
in strict theory where there is darkness there is light as well as darkness...depending on what state the energy is... in total darkness if one rubs hands tight and sees through a night vision you will see bright light...
buddhism does not believe in a creator...it also has some complex explanations about life and matter...
this principle is discribed in the complicated set of preachings of buddha called the "abidhamma" ...it is known as the theory of uncertaincy...which goes on to explain the atom the begiing of life and many other interesting nd complex physical issues....
basically budhissm does not accpt the logic which goes set= (A,B) : if A is taken off ... what reamains is B...
it says that as A and B could always be in a state of constant exchange while maintaining its equilibrium what that remains could be either at the time of extraction...
A , B or something inbetween but no less than (A+B)...
in the same sense and with modern science...it cannot be agrued that darkness is the mere absence of light...
or eveil is the mere absence of good...!
the argument which i put forth was for the first time ever in the world put forth by the enlightened one...
in western logic there was no place for an intermediate state...(check the A,B example) it took about 200 years for them to accept the intermediate state theory which was forced on them by the quantom physics observations which could be explained in no other way...
if some one wants to know more please feel free to ask also you can find more about abidhamma in many sri lankan buddhist web sites...
p.s - a nother aspect of the car argument is this...
according to abidhamma what we call an object is only a perception it is infact not true contrary to what the child and the professor said...
if the same car is broken in to pieces and thrown on the ground no one will call that car...! do u....? despite being the existence of all the pieces that made the car...
so what that was present as a car if u take it in a strict physical sense was not a car buit simply an accepted perception...when the perception is gone the car too is gone...!
this principle is refeered to by lord buddha as "sammuthi" or accepted perception... in elglish...also accepted perception is never the sole truth...! just like the exaple of car...
please feel free to ask if u want more information...
TT
gud argument there in terms of budhism, well talking abt the evil part of ur argument, lets think abt it like this, lets say if there is no evil like the mishaps which claim lives, and if every1 starts living forever then the very balance of the whole universe is lost, like we learn in our elementary classes, if we look at teh cycle of insect-frog-snake if insects are not eaten by frogs, the world will be full of insects, if more insects are eaten and less frogs are eaten by the snakes, the frogs grow and if more frogs are eaten, the population of insects again grows, i hope u got the point, what i mean 2 say is what is being looked upon as evil like the mishaps killing people mite be a balance of nature or GOD to achieve a harmony. Lets put it this way, if there is no evil and every1 starts living for a life cycle of average expectancy, then the alarming growth of population wud leave no land for human beings in the near future. Also we can think of it in terms of Punarjanma of teh Hindu philosophy I donno if Buddhism supports it but what I can say is tho people are good in this janma, they mote have committed sins in the previous janma, i dont say i am not a sinner but this mite be an explanation for the evil too...
koolhead
god...hmm..i like him...
there is no difference between good and bad, death and life, love and hate, curse and bless, poverty and wealthiness, evil and devil.....HEAT AND COLD....
these all are just a state, without one, the other has no meaning. they are like a glass- half filled with water..one can say this state either as HALF EMPTIED or HALF FILLED..both are correct...in fact both are same..but difference will be in views and every different view will lead to different results....LOVE or HATE...both are correct...in fact both are same..but difference will be in views and every different view will lead to different results..amazing..isnt it?
when i die, i lose my body..but what abt my thoughts? i cant imagine that i will disappear in this universe forever.....even not knowing my own presence....even not knowing that i ever existed...this cant happen....i wont let it happen..thats why i must believe in god..thats why i must believe in love...
ponting
The point of "heat" vs "cold" is also meaningless if one uses the concept of entropy or order/disorder in molecules. The professor-student conversation is not the greatest I have seen, having myself been engaged in some debates as a strong-headed atheist. I can now see the futility of such discussions
as "Science" has had to correct itself several times on a number of (mis)conceptions and is yet to answer many questions, some popular ones being the apparent absence of "missing-link" in evolution and many aspects of the origin of the mind-boggling universe. Now I have come to understand that just as "faith in God" can be the ultimate thing in someone's life (I don't have any right to say what that thing is), science likewise can be a spritual experience for some people with its ability to evolve, modify and discover,
(almost) always showing potential to benefit mankind in some ways.
TT
science says that entropy or the randomness of the universe is increasing but if the randomness of the universe is increasing everything shud start occuring in random, sun shud be able 2 rise in east r west r north r south, but it does rise in the east, earth does rotate in and revolute in the same way, and there are a lot of patterns if one observes closely, what i wanna say is that there are a lot of flaws in the heavy topic of science itself as u said, science takes that part of anything that it can explain and leaves the rest to bay, so y dont we justify the student taking that part of the argument which justifies his argument like science does....
all said and done, i am science student and believe in the discoveries of science as much as u do, but at the same time, I believe that God r a Spiritual Force runs the entire universe maintaining its balance.....
Castanza
TT,
In all of the three links that you posted there was nothing that continued after the professor's reply to the student's logic that I posted. I never found anything that proves logically that there is God. As someone said in a later post we can't prove that there is God by logic. Actually it is easy for the people trained in Logic and philosophy to cheat us by proving either way.
And how would the concept of believing in God be optimistic when "He doesn't save us from rushing in tidal wave"(from the story).
As it is said in the story God is a concept based on "belief", so no believer should ever try prove God's existence by logic because it is bound to fail.
Thanks brother for starting the discussion. But you should have posted the rebuttal that I posted with your first posting.
(baala vinodam vinnaarooo baallaalaara ee pooota.. )
Have fun,
George Castanza.
TT
gud one castanza bhai, actually i am neither an atheist nor a complete theist, i just believe that there is a spiritual force that runs the world in harmony bringing it in2 a balance. Like I said in my previous post, if the tidal waves dont hit and people do not meet their end in some way r the other, then the harmony of the nature would be destroyed (plz refer 2 my previous reply) the balance wud be missing, I am not saying people should be killed, but every1 cannot die in a heartache r in sleep, so death r the absence of life shud come in some form or the other, r may be we can believe in Punarjanma as I said, people who mite have sinned in previous birth mite have been facing teh consequences now, otherwise how wud we explain the fact that people come put of great mishaps safe and sound and call it being miraculously saved and stuff like that. Again, I am not saying that people shud be killed, its only an optimistic way of looking at it, every1 has 2 meet their end in one way r the other may be that was the way they were destined 2......
neway this is turning out 2 be an interesting discussion....
9 comments:
touching yes, but ultimately flawed. evolution is easily observable on smaller levels, even in insects. there are moths in Texas that have evolved an immunity to common pesticides. the common cold evolves into so many variants each year that a cure is not possible. evolution occurs generally in small increments, and is easily documented.
@Anonymous: As I stated in my post, its a forwarded email chain and has been pretty popular I guess. In the link I gave below, I posted some sites which have the opposite version of the same too :)
I have in no way mentioned that whatever is presented in the conversation is true and neither have I mentioned that I agree with every bit of it. So it estimates your understanding of one's understanding. Regarding being an Idiot, perhaps I am and perhaps I am not. But, for you to decide in the split of a second and post, I guess that sure is instantaneous and did not "evolve" over a period of time ... :)
@hunter: Totally agreed that its touching and perhaps it is flawed. One thing, I would like to mention is if Evolution was the only thing that caught your attention. I am surprised that other things didn't get noticed by you. Evolution is probably documented, I am not taking sides nor am I against evolution, it's just that the conversation is an interesting read and opens up a brief channel of thought even if it was for a brief moment..
I don't agree with the theoretical conversation either, karthik. But I appreciate your honest and humble way of approaching things. Bloggers everywhere could learn a few things! The blogosphere is full of people (sadly incl me!) that think they have all the answers.
keep up the spirit of enquiry!
Ohho hoooo I have seen this sort of posts n number of times. THis is a crap of first kind... U may have certianly wasted much time posting this and me answering this...
n tends to infinity......
The Familiar Challenger
@anneK, If the first poster or other anonymous commenters want to reveal their identity when they blurt out something instantaneously, then we would probably end up in blog wars all over the internet :) But, as you said comments in blogging world is indeed a great place to say what you want to say behind the "anonymous" tag, call it cowardice or call it lack of total belief in what they want to say to an extent to back it with their name, these anonymous commenters are here to stay in this blogging world for long :)
@ragerman: Thanks for your nice words, I don't agree completely with the conversation either like you, but I tend to see it more from a theistic point of view. I don't know if I placed a few things for bloggers all over to learn here, but I sure have learned it the harder way that when someone is convinced about something, you can only get your side to be heard but not believed in. I wouldn't believe you are one of them, since I am guessing you are an Atheist and still didn't get provoked by the post, which shows you are a lot more balanced...
@anonymous 2: I am sorry you had to read this post (n+1)th time, but as n tends to infinity, (n+1) tends towards infinity too and so I don't think reading it one more time got you any closer or farther from infinity at all. But anyways, thanks for dropping a couple of lines saying what you feel about the post. I guess Atheists are more outspoken and hence most of the comments of an online forum below my original post or the comments here tend to weigh the balance towards Atheism, but hey we can't decide from smaller samples :)
"Dialogue with a young theist." by Todangst.
A philosophy professor challenged his students with a form of the Euthyphro dilema: Did 'God' create everything that exists?" A student replied, "Yes, he did!" (The 'bravely' part is removed, seeing as civil disagreement is the very point of philosphy courses, no bravery is required for dissent. In fact, civil dissent is often rewarded in a philosophy class.)
"God created everything?" the professor asked. "Yes," the student replied. (The 'sir' part is removed, as no student in the 21st century addresses a college professor in this fashion, and the use of 'sir' is just a pretense of 'respect' from the theist mouthpiece who's actually feeling little more than contempt for the professor.'
The professor answered, "Well then, here's a logical puzzle for you: 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 silently enraged over his worldview being 'attacked'. He began to project out his feelings of inadequecy as smugness coming from the professor.
The student then said: "Can I ask you a question professor?"
"Of course," replied the professor. That's the point of philosophical discourse. (The writer of the original story clearly has little experience with a real college classroom. The whole point of a philosophy or theology course is to foster discussion.)
Student: Is there such thing as heat?"
Professor: Yes, the professor replies. There's heat.
Student: "Is there such a thing as cold?"
Professor: "Yes, there's cold too."
Student: "No, sir, there isn't"
The professor doesn't grin or frown or react with any emotion other than curiosity. (The desire to see the professors 'smug smile wiped off his face' is just another projection of the feelings of inadequecy found in theists who argue like this sort of pablum...)
The student continues. You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, 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, otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458, You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it"
Professor: (Nodding his head in dismay, and working out how many times he's heard this bad logic by now). Do you remember the section in your workbook on semantic fallacies? By your "logic" we could also say there is no 'heat', only differing degrees of cold.
Student: ( gives a confused look a dog might make)
Professor: Your choice of 'heat' over 'cold' was arbitrary. In reality, both 'heat' and 'cold' are subjective terms... what the philosopher John Locke properly called "secondary qualities". The secondary qualities refer to a very real phenomena: the movement of atomic and sub atomic particles. We refer to their different rates of movement as 'temperature.' So what we 'really' have is temperature.... the terms 'heat' and "cold' are merely subjective terms we use to denote our relative experience of temperature. So your entire argument is specious at best. You have not 'proven' that 'cold' does not exist, what you have done is shown that 'cold' is a subjective term. Removing the term we use to reference the phenomena does not eradicate the phenomena.
Student: (a bit stunned) "Uh... Ok.... Well, is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"
Professor: You are still employing the same logical fallacy. Just with a different set of of secondary qualities.
Student: "So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"
Professor: "What I am telling you is that you are repeating the very same error. "Darkness exists as a secondary quality.
Student: "You're wrong again. Darkness is not something, it 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? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, Darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?
Professor: Sure, right after you give me a jar of light. Seriously, what we call 'light' is actually a reference to photons. You've confused a secondary quality with an attribute again. "Light and dark' are subjective terms we use to describe a measure of photons. The photons actually exist, the terms 'light' and 'dark' are just subjective, relative terms... Doing away with a subjective term does not eradicate the actual phenomena itself - the photons.
Student: (gives a look not unlike a 3 year old trying to work out quantum physics)
Professor: I see your still struggling with the fallacy hidden in your argument. But let's continue, perhaps you'll see it.
Student: Well, you are working on the premise of duality", the christian explains.
Professor: Actually, I've debunked that claim two times now. But carry on.
Student: "Well, you assume, for example, that there is a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure.
Professor: And here, my class, we have a special plead fallacy. Be careful, my student. If you want to place your god beyond the grasps of reason, logic, and science and make him 'unmeasurable', then you are left with nothing but a mystery. So if you use this special plead to solve the problem, you can't call your god moral either. You can't call him anything. You can't say anything else about something beyond reason. So your solution is akin to treating dandruf by decapitation.
Student: (Gulps. Continues on, oblivious to what was just said) Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them.
Professor: You just said that science cannot explain a thought. I'm not even sure what you mean by that. I think what you mean to say is this: there remains many mysteries in neuroscience. Would you agree?
Student: Yes sir.
Professor: And, along the same line of thought, we accept that there are things like thoughts, or electricity or magnetism even though we have never seen them?
Student: Yes!
Professor: Recall the section in your textbook concerning fallacies of false presumption. Turn to the entry on 'Category error'. You'll recall that a category error occurs when an inappropriate measure is used in regards to an entity, such as asking someone what the color a sound is. Asking someone to see magnetism commits such an error. However, there is yet another error in your argument: it assumes that empiricism relates to vision alone. This is false. Sight is not the sole means of knowing the world. We can use other senses to detect these phenomena. And we can view their effects upon the world. Furthermore, Again, you are conflating the fact that science is incomplete with the ridiculous implication that science knows 'nothing' about these phenomena... so you'll also want to review the section on 'arguing from ignorance.' Do you have more to say?
Student: (The student, continues, mainly unfazed, due to the protection his shield of ignorance affords him.) .... Um....... 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, merely the absence of it"
Professor: You are really in love with this secondary quality fallacy, aren't you? You are again confusing a secondary quality with the phenomena in of itself. "Death" and "life" are subjective terms we use to describe a more fundamental phenomena - biology. The phenomena in question, however, does exist. Biological forms in various states exist. Doing away with the subjective term does not eradicate the existence of death.
Nonplussed, the young man continues: "Is there such a thing as immorality?"
Professor: (Reaches for an asprin in his desk) Son... you're not going to again confuse a secondary quality for an attribute, are you? Please... what can I do to help you see this problem?
Student: (Continues on, fueled by ideology and oblivious to reality) You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?" The christian pauses. "Isn't evil the absence of good?"
Professor: So, if someone murders your mother tonight, nothing happened? There was just an absence of morality in your house? Wait, I forgot... she's not dead... she's just experiencing an absence of life, right?
Student: Uh.....
Professor: You're beginning to see that something is missing in your argument, aren't you? Here's what your missing. You are confusing a secondary quality... a subjective term that we can use to describe a phenomena, for the phenomena itself. Perhaps you heard me mention this before? (The class erupts in laughter, the professor motions for them to stop laughing.) 'Immorality' is a descriptive term for a behavior. The terms are secondary, but the behaviors exist. So if you remove the secondary qualities, you do nothing to eradicate the real behavior that the terms only exist to describe. So by saying that 'immorality' is a lack of morality, you are not removing immorality from existence, you are just removing the secondary attribute, the term. And notice how dishonest your argument is... in that it speaks of morality and immorality devoid of behavior, but 'evil' exists as a behavior, evil is an intent to do harm. By the way, are you really trying to imply that immorality or evil are merely subjective qualities?
Student: Gulp! (Reeling from the psychological blows to his corrupt worldview....) Sir, Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"
The professor soothes his aching forehead, and prepares for the 1 millionth time that he will be subjected to the 'can you see the wind' argument.
Professor: What an interesting turn this conversation has taken. Can I advise you to read Brofenbrenner's suggestion against arguing over subjects over which you are uninformed? It's in your textbook.
Student: "Professor, 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 now not a scientist, but a priest?
Professor: Interesting indirect comment on the priesthood. But let's leave that aside... We do observe the process of evolution at work, for the process works at this very moment. As for the implication in your argument that one must 'be there' to observe a process at it occurs, surely you realize that we can infer the process through examining the evidence that these processes leave behind? In a sense, we 'are there' when we observe artifacts. Consider for example the science of astronomy. How do we know about super novas? Because we can observe diferrent supernovas in different stages of super nova, by observing their 'artifacts' in the night sky. The same stands for any historical science. Your mistake here is that you think science is merely observation, and 'real-time-observation' at that...This is a strawman of science. Science is both direct and indirect observation... it also allows for inference.
Student: "But sir! You stated that science is the study of observed phenomena.
Professor: No, this is a strawman of what science is... Science is more than just real time observation, we also make inferences. But continue....
Student: (Responds to this as a goat might respond to a book on calculus) May I give you an example of what I mean?"
Professor: Certainly.
Student: "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen air, oxygen, molecules, atoms, the professor's brain?"
The class breaks out in laughter. The christian points towards professor, "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain... felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain?" "No one appears to have done so", The christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science, I declare that the professor has no brain!"
Professor: You mean, according to your strawman view of science. I am glad that you are here in my class so that I can help you better understand what you criticize. Science is not merely 'looking' at things. Science is empirical, but also rational. We can make inferences from evidence of things that we do see, back to phenonema that we might not be able to directly see. And one inference I can make from observing your behaviors here today is that you've wasted the money you've spent on your logic textbook so far this year. I strongly advise, for your own sake, that you crack open that book today, and start reading
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