Another is a a viral article on Facebook as well as many blogs which claims the student was Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
Link: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/96175_awesome-conversation-abdulkalam-as-a-student
The very fact that the student is claimed to be a different person (scientist) in different versions and yet the story is claimed to be true shows a pathetic attempt of a (theist) person to sell-off their ideas under the name of established scientists just because people tending towards atheism would be more likely to agree with a scientist. Shame on you believer!
I don't know about Dr. Abdul Kalam, but I seriously doubt Einstein had that conversation ever. As far as I remember, according to a lesson in my school, Albert Einstein was kinda a slow learner and reticent in his childhood, thus making it unlikely that he would answer back the teacher with such articulation. Whats more, Einstein went to a catholic school. Do you honestly believe, a teacher in a catholic school would try to preach atheism in the first place?
The argument of the student is not at all convincing if you reflect on it but even then this conversation keeps enduring. So here's my critique on the conversation given in the article (the video leaves out some parts from the article).
I'd like to start with criticizing the most obvious flaws first:
1) When the student mocks the syllogism of the professor to question the existence of the professor's brain, the professor could have easily refuted the student's point. Questioning the existence of human brain in this way is not similar to questioning the existence of god. The professor could have easily said, "It has been established with practical evidence that the brain does exist within the skull. People have seen it, felt it, smelt it. This is NOT the case with god. Hence the two cases are not analogous. If you are still reluctant to believe that I have a brain, I can bet you that I have a brain... kill me and have a look; the bet being, after you kill me, you should deposit 1 billion dollars in my wife's account and then kill yourself since it is due to your puerile insistence that i would have to die."
2) Regarding the evolutionary theory, yes it is a "theory", which means it is not a proven fact, but a very probable one. That is why it is taught in schools. On the other hand, the idea that an omnipotent, omniscient god exists who urges people to follow some set of rules (religion) is a theory with an infinitesimal probability. Moreover, it does not explain most of the observations that we encounter in life. Then why teach it? Hence it is called preaching. This absurd idea is like saying "There is one powerful raven who is white in color. We know all the ravens we see around us are black, but have faith, there does exist the white raven. And we must worship him (his deity)." And this ridiculous idea cannot be disproved without examining each and every raven all over the world. But common sense dictates that this idea is highly improbable which is why we call it ridiculous.
Its also noteworthy that the evolutionary theory is considered heretic mostly in the West. Now, I don't have much knowledge about the Abrahamic religions (or any religion for that matter), but I reckon this may be because it conflicts with the Christian teachings that God created Adam and Eve and that is how humans came into being. Eastern religions do not have a grudge on the evolutionary theory. So the point is, the conflict is between a particular religion and science, not between the idea of god's existence and science. Hence, since all the religions don't have a consistent view, we can discard the aversion towards Evolutionary Theory.
3) The argument about how cold is just the absence of heat and likewise evil is just the absence of good, is cogent and I might agree to it. Absence of heat is cold implies that the coldest something can get is fixed i.e. -273C or 0 Kelvin - there is a fixed absolute zero point. The temperature cannot go below this value coz this is where it starts. Similarly absence of light is darkness implies there is a fixed absolute zero point for the magnitude of light whence darkness is said to be maximum. However, can you think of a fixed deed which is the most evil i.e. a deed in which there is complete absence of good? There is no such absolute zero point. You can have neutral attitude toward something, you can have a positive attitude towards it or you can have a negative attitude towards something. The "Goodness" extends infinitely towards the positive axis. And, similarly, you can go in the negative axis also, infinetly! The more you go in the negative direction, the lesser the Goodness and more the evilness. The point whence good becomes evil (neutral point) is a matter of personal, social and cultural view. Its different for everyone. You can think of the scale like a Rainbow - there is no fixed neutral point. For some yellow maybe neutral attitude, for some green maybe neutral.
In essence, Yes, absence of good is evil but the scales of Light and Good are different. Light has a fixed minimum value below which it cannot go while the value of goodness can go below any point and extend infinitely in both directions. The idea that evilness can extend infinitely practically means you can come up with more and more evil intentions. There is no single most evil deed. Similarly for goodness.
Lastly, immaterial of the validity of the arguments presented by the student, the final claim that "The link between man & god is FAITH" rests flimsily on the concession of the Professor "I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son."
First of all, what kinda Professor resigns so easily from his principles giving in to a simplistic, fallacious argument made by a kid? Clearly the conversation is forged to favor the theistic opinion. If the Professor had continued his case like I mentioned in my 1st point, the student could never have made his conclusion about Faith.
Therefore, Checkmate you piece of bogus conversation!
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Finally, my view on faith, god and religion:
Imagine the prehistoric time when the concepts of religion, god, etc are yet to be thought of. People wonder why they exist. They keep thinking about existence, purpose of life, what everything around them means. They keep enduring pain at the hands of natural calamities and predators. More importantly, they have to feed themselves regularly else their body gives them pain.
Life seems meaningless just like the life of a mosquito seems meaningless to us presently. They get frustrated, confused, chaotic because they cannot come up with an answer. To appease the frustration, some clever guy comes up with an explanation which is undeniable although without proof. The explanation is -
"A supreme power called God created this world. Since he is the Creator, he controls everything in this world. Since he created us, we must thank him and worship him. Since he is the Creator, we must always trust him. Have Faith in him. He will always do good. God has given us life, so he wants us to live it. Have Faith in him."
This gave the people a purpose to live, which, although fake, was undeniable (see eg. of white raven above).
As years and centuries went by, the story could have branched out into various versions. Moreover, artful people could have added their own ideas to it which would benefit them. Hence the rise of religions.
This is what I think could have happened. Instead of giving in to this fallacy, I prefer to accept the reality that life is but with an unknown purpose or even meaningless. I prefer to think of our purpose of existence every moment and come up with plausible Purposes. And if ever I'll be tired and frustrated, I would resort to accepting the least objectionable Purpose from the pool of purposes I would have thought of till then. As of now, my least objectionable purpose is:
"Our purpose of existence is, since we don't know what it is, to find out what it is."
This purpose is definitely not attainable overnight, not even in a few more millennia maybe, but by living our regular life and by engendering a smarter generation every time (owing to genetics) we can and would definitely contribute toward this ultimate purpose. Hence we must live on.
Its also important to remember that, a single definition of God is not accepted universally. Some consider God as preached by their religions, to be a single entity like Jesus; some consider God to be just a mysterious force; some consider Gods to be the manipulators of natural forces like in Norse, Greek mythology, while some consider God to be the answer to everything.
A quote by someone (I don't remember who) is a nice aphorism -
"For Religion, God is in the beginning. For Science, God is in the end".
---Also see this article on the same conversation: https://croor.wordpress.com/tag/existence-of-god/
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u can measure the temperature because u have an instrument to measure the temperature.. but u dont have anything yet to measure darkness or goodness or evil... maybe someday u will have them and u will be able to measure the absolute of each of these two.. so then will be say that this point is valid??
ReplyDeleteIts not about the ability to measure with an instrument. Good or Evil is kinda abstract. Your opinion of evil might be different than someone else's opinion of evil. A classic example is: Some vegetarian people do not approve of eating non-veg because they consider it cruel or evil to kill animals to eat while other people who do eat non-veg, opine that there is nothing evil in eating animals; infact some might also sport T-shirts saying "I Love animals, especially Deep Fried"
ReplyDeleteAnother good example but confined to the fans of "Death Note" (anime) is: The lead character "Light" in it does deeds which many would argue is evil. But the opinion is not universal. A search on the internet reveals that half the fans empathize with him while half the fans don't.
creation/existence is random. when u try to make sense of this randomness u tend to give it a purpose.Interpretation of this purpose may vary among individuals but there is no such thing as absolute truth and never will be.
ReplyDeleteTry this, throw a fistful plastic beads on the floor and look for any sort of shape which may appear to be meaningful.Thousand people may find thousand different shapes, many of them may not make sense to u, but to others they will.Ultimately no one will succeed in discerning the true nature of fallen beads since there are infinitely many more shapes perceived by other people,that's the nature of randomness.
Yes existence may be random and meaningless. Life may in fact be nothing more than just chemical reactions going on inside our brain every moment which account for sentience and consciousness. But this consciousness itself rouses itself to question its own purpose i.e. Since we are conscious, we are curious to know why we are conscious.
ReplyDeleteGood Question on Atheism at 28min:21sec in below video
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymotion.com/video/x296ip4_hamza-tzortzis-and-pervez-hoodbhoy-part-b_school