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With all due respect, the post in that link was pretty intellectually lightweight.
The professor was a buffoon. I've been exposed to great philosophical professors, and none would make as simpleton and easily deconstructed argument as the one this religious person put in this "professor's" mouth.
Likewise, the conclusion drawn by the student - first off about the brain (one could easily do a scan or x-ray to falsify the student's assertion). Then, to jump to a conclusion that the absense of evil is "God"??!?!?
Maybe the absence of evil is simply Good. Why must it inherently be an individual sitting high above?
Anyway. I sound like a prick saying it, but that was written by an intellectual lightweight who probably convinced some pretty uneducated people that it was profound because it talked about light and heat. I'd like to see that author face a real philosophy professor. S/he'd get blown out of the water.
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Weak maybe, but a plausible basis for the example. Show me the thoughts in the brain. Not the electrical impulses, but the conscious thoughts.
You're confusing the brain (which is an organ) with the mind. If this author would have focused his student's "damning" sermon on the mind, then he would have left the nuts and bolts of an easily identifiable organ of all human bodies and entered into territory ripe for a philosophical discussion (perhaps you would be interested in reading philosopher Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" if this subject interests you). But, the fact that the author couldn't differentiate the brain from the mind suggests that we are already treading in waters too deep.
ALL that said - I think the concept of evil being the absence of good rather than the opposite of it is critical to understanding the human psyche and a construct that would serve mainline Christianity very well to adopt.
Your actual thoughts on this subject are far more compelling than the link you posted.
I think we will soon reach a point of understanding human consciousness in which we will no longer construct an external God (which I believe has been a place holder for a primitive mind) and we will begin to have "faith" in the power of our own minds to unleash the powers we have long attributed to a God.
Pretty exciting times. We should all keep searching as you are. Much we do not know.
With all due respect, the post in that link was pretty intellectually lightweight.
The professor was a buffoon. I've been exposed to great philosophical professors, and none would make as simpleton and easily deconstructed argument as the one this religious person put in this "professor's" mouth.
Likewise, the conclusion drawn by the student - first off about the brain (one could easily do a scan or x-ray to falsify the student's assertion). Then, to jump to a conclusion that the absense of evil is "God"??!?!?
Maybe the absence of evil is simply Good. Why must it inherently be an individual sitting high above?
Anyway. I sound like a prick saying it, but that was written by an intellectual lightweight who probably convinced some pretty uneducated people that it was profound because it talked about light and heat. I'd like to see that author face a real philosophy professor. S/he'd get blown out of the water.
You're confusing the brain (which is an organ) with the mind. If this author would have focused his student's "damning" sermon on the mind, then he would have left the nuts and bolts of an easily identifiable organ of all human bodies and entered into territory ripe for a philosophical discussion (perhaps you would be interested in reading philosopher Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" if this subject interests you). But, the fact that the author couldn't differentiate the brain from the mind suggests that we are already treading in waters too deep.
ALL that said - I think the concept of evil being the absence of good rather than the opposite of it is critical to understanding the human psyche and a construct that would serve mainline Christianity very well to adopt.
The intellectual lightness of that post does not change the fact that it highlights good points. Obviously, no philosophy professor, atheist or otherwise, would make strictly scientific arguments, because science is very much limited to naturalist philosophy. Even if it were a philosophy of science class the professor would not attack religious belief on scientific basis. Philosophers know better. Even the atheist philosophers typically don't base their disbelief in God on science, but rather on broader philosophical premises.
As for your contention for the "mind", the "mind" is an abstract construct of our language. Philosophically, the existence of the "mind" is based on faith. It is a word used to describe an abstract functioning of the brain beyond instinctual functions. The "mind" directly results from and refers back to our ability to reason, i.e. philosophy and philosophical logic and the resulting imagination, emotion, thought, etc.
But the student's point about the professor's brain's existence is valid. It is only through scientific logic in particular, not necessarily broader philosophical logic, that it can be believed that the professor has a brain. The old argument of "well, you can take an x-ray and see the professor's brain" is logically invalid, because it is a supposition until the x-ray is actually performed, and even then it is not proof of a brain's existence so much as proof that an x-ray will produce a photo that indicates the presence of a brain based on what we know about x-rays which is arguably limited. There is still a lot of faith involved even in the case of an x-ray; it is faith that is backed by scientific evidence and is most likely reliable, but it is faith nonetheless.
People believe many things on faith. Our belief of history, our belief of places we have never visited and things we have never sensed firsthand require a certain degree of faith.
I have never been to Australia. How do I KNOW it really exists? Scientifically I can "know" it exists, but philosophically, purely on logic, I can rightfully doubt its existence, until I physically experience it in a manner that is convincing. When I bring up this example (usually I put it on the other person, asking them if they believe Australia exists even though they haven't been there), the responses I get are remarkably marked by the faith people have in their sources. People say things like, "Well, I can prove to myself Australia exists because I can hop a plane and go there." To that, I say that since the person hasn't done so yet, then that's an unknown and isn't scientific evidence at all. People tell me they've seen pictures and read books about Australia so they know it's real, but they refuse to accept a person's reading of the Bible or Baghavad Gita or Koran as evidence of what's recorded in those writings, so I can't rightly accept books and pictures as evidence.
I've read books and seen video that shows and tells of a place called "Middle Earth", where hobbits and other creatures that I've never seen live. So, is that proof of Middle Earth? No. So why should it be proof of Australia? It's not.
I've read books about the existence of a man named "George Washington", but if I choose to believe that he never existed, who can prove me wrong? Nobody. Of course, they'll argue that there are writings and books by historians which document the existence and actions of George Washington, but many of those same people will reject the books and writings of historians that account for the existence of Jesus Christ; so, how can I accept books and writings as evidence for George Washington but not Christ?
The answer to all of this is simple: ALL beliefs that people hold require faith. Right down to the beliefs have about our senses being reliable tools for interpreting the reality of our world. Some beliefs require more faith, some require less faith, but they all require a degree of faith. Various branches of Philosophy explore the relationship amongst reality, knowledge, faith, evidence, proof, and logic.
The story about the student highlights some of these salient points. It certainly does not fully explain or delve into any of these areas but it does raise good points, primarily the point that the disdain of "faith" by people is hollow since those people, along with everyone in the world, formulate beliefs by incorporating faith into the process.
All people live every day with lots of faith; it's high time people stop criticizing others for having faith as if they themselves have none. It is impossible to have fully proven beliefs in the philosophical sense, since all logic is based on premises which are "given" and themselves not proven. Even within scientific, naturalist philosophy the "universal" laws are accepted as "given" and "self-evident" and never actually "proven" through logic. "Proof" in the scientific sense is not sufficient as "proof" in a broad philosophical sense.
Good story, it makes good points, but I'm afraid the narrow-minded science-worshipers are not going to be happy with it...
Sure...you can claim all of our beliefs are based on faith...but the difference between religion and our other faiths is that our other faiths are observable. I have faith that if I jump in the air that I will come back down immediately and I can observe this. I haven't been to Australia but I have faith that it will be there if I catch a flight because there is empirical evidence that it exists. Anyway, maybe that's narrow-minded but I think all any atheist asks for is evidence.
^
Likewise, I can have faith that said professor has a brain because empirical evidence would suggest as much. Just like I have faith that I have a liver, though I've never personally seen it. I just know what livers do and I see the waste from my body in the toilet and I can deduce a logical conclusion.
There were no writings left by Jesus of Nazareth, only writings about Jesus of Nazareth - writings which have been rewritten and lost and manipulated and taken out of cultural context to the point that they bear little resemblance to evidence. In contrast, we have most of George Washington's writings in tact and cross referenced to historical evidence. Your denying Washington's existence would be completely baseless - certainly not faith.
It's really an empty argument - this whole "I don't know Australia exists" bit that doesn't have any grounding in arguing for faith. All of these examples could be proven if one were so compelled, where as faith in the source of human consciousness cannot. All we can do is measure the effects of that consciousness and, through that, perhaps understand greater the power of the source (akin to measuring the shadows on the cave wall but never being able to turn to see the source of light itself).
meThis 'Atheist profesor' story is a very old and hoary one and making the Christian student who floors him Einstein was was neat trick, but it is quite apocryphal.
The professor is, of course, a total caricature and the student's arguments are nonsense. The story has been long discredited but theists still keep trotting it out in the hope of bamboozling some sucker into becoming a believer.
"This apocryphal tale of a young Albert Einstein proving the existence of God to his atheist professor first began circulating in 2004. One reason we know it isn't true is that the same story was already making the rounds five years earlier with no mention of Einstein in it whatsoever....
As a sensitive human being he took a profound interest in questions of morality. But none of this, to him, pointed in the direction of a supreme being.
"It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image," he explained when asked about the religious implications of relativity. "For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere."
To begin with, the claim that cold "doesn't exist" because in reality it is nothing more than "the absence of heat" is based on a semantical mistake. Cold and heat aren't absolutes. They're relative terms describing perceived variations in the kinetic energy (motion of atomic particles) within matter...
Where the argument ultimately founders is on the conclusion that evil doesn't exist because it's just a term we use to describe "the absence of God's presence in our hearts."
It simply doesn't follow. Up to that point, the case, such as it is, has been built on opposites — cold vs. heat, dark vs. light. What's the opposite of evil? Good. The conclusion therefore ought to be: evil doesn't exist because it's just a term we use to describe the absence of good.
You might argue that good is the presence of God in men's hearts, but in that case you'd be assuming what you're trying to prove: that God exists in the first place."
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-19-2009 at 06:22 AM..
Reason: mea culpa...misspelt Einstein..
You can test heat and light, but you can't test good or evil. Even if you could, it is a non sequitur to say that God is good. God has never been testable. And if you believe in the god of the bible (and you've read the bible), you know that God did some pretty evil things in the old testament.
Also, that story says that evolution has never been observed. WRONG.
And "taking the professor's brain on faith" is hardly faith, except in the sense that we take it on faith that the world actually exists around us and we aren't just dreaming. The professor lives, breathes, moves, talks, etc. It has been empirically proven that humans require brains to do these things, so it is logical to conclude that the professor must have a brain.
However, God, bigfoot, UFOs, etc. have not been empirically proven to exist, and are currently untestable, so believing in them requires real faith. You can't just lump all degrees of faith together and say it is just as rational to believe God exists as it is to believe our observable world exists.
"Also, that story says that evolution has never been observed. WRONG."
Quite apart from the evidence of evolution having occurred in the past, we see evolution occurring all around us both inside and outside of the laboratory. However, what the sort of people who write 'The Atheist professor..' stories mean by observing evolution is for a monkey to change into a human before our eyes. never mind that this is not what evolution suggests at all.
You can test heat and light, but you can't test good or evil. Even if you could, it is a non sequitur to say that God is good. God has never been testable. And if you believe in the god of the bible (and you've read the bible), you know that God did some pretty evil things in the old testament.
In a similar fashion to your point, Adolf Hitler truly believed he was doing good for the betterment of mankind by exterminating what he believed to be a lesser race and inferior humans (handicapped, mentally disabled, homosexuals). Not too different from the God of the Bible when you think about it.
The same argument he used is the one that many Christians use today when they say they love you but are just doing what's best for you and then condemn a sexual preference or any other act they deem immoral.
Humans always believe they are acting in the greater good - whether they are condemning the sexuality of another or the spirituality of another. So, the question of evil being the absence of God (or Good) becomes far less obvious than it might at first appear.
On another note - I find chain mail emails of this nature to be a strong part of the conservative Christian faith. They seem to circulate within circles of believers who never seem to question their premise. It's only when they get outside those circles that their fundamental fallacies are exposed.
This is, of course, the great value of higher education, because it exposes people different ways of thinking and teachings them how to think analytically - a trait sorely lacking in the circles that perpetuate these chain mails.
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