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Extraordinary Claims => Religion General Discussion => Christianity => Topic started by: Navynukeman on March 02, 2013, 05:27:25 PM

Title: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: Navynukeman on March 02, 2013, 05:27:25 PM
http://www.patrish.com/atheist.html (http://www.patrish.com/atheist.html)

So.. I was in a taxi today getting a ride back to base with this guy and his girlfriend... Then the guy starts reading this shit off of his phone. Of how this student "destroys" this professor...

I was afraid to start an argument because the cab driver was a damn Pentecostal who believed in healing the sick by "laying on hands"; and I didn't want him to get pissed off and try to change the price... cause he did give me a good deal...

But fuck! I wanted to say something so bad... He is making the assertion that god exists in order to prove that god exists... Then he goes to bash science saying how flawed it is and how scientists don't even understand electricity... SMH. Then he goes on saying how the absence of god is leading to more evil; as seen on the news...  :Hangman:

Quote"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," the Christian replies. "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! Tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

QuoteThe Christian looks around the room. "Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you. Is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."

"Is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No, sir, there isn't."

The professor's grin freezes. The room suddenly goes very cold.

The second Christian 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. Because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just..," [Silence fills the room] "...the absence of it." [More silence. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.] "Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"
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Post by: Thumpalumpacus on March 02, 2013, 06:08:39 PM
You know who to avoid the next time you're looking to share a cab.
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Post by: Valigarmander on March 02, 2013, 06:54:58 PM
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evil_is_the_absence_of_God (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evil_is_the_absence_of_God)

QuoteThe argument is nothing more than a play on words wrapped in an appealing analogy. The principal error is that defining cold as an absence of heat only means that cold does not exist only as a physical quantity - the sensation of cold as perceived by humans clearly does exist. Similarly, it is irrelevant whether evil exists as a positive or only as a lack of good - the perception of evil does exist.

Applying this argument to actual instances of evil results in really bizarre statements. If someone murders a man's wife, the apologists would tell him that his wife did not experience evil, she just experienced a temporary lack of God while the killer was stabbing her with a knife. However, the man still experiences suffering and his wife is dead, regardless of how the apologists describe this event. An omnibenevolent God would not absent himself/herself in ways that cause or allow suffering.

Furthermore, if some people can experience a "lack of God", then God is clearly not omnipresent.
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Post by: Thumpalumpacus on March 02, 2013, 07:27:02 PM
Clearly Good doesn't exist.  There is only the absence of Evil.

Therefore, there can be no such thing as a Good God.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: FrankDK on March 02, 2013, 08:14:01 PM
> 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

I realize that I'm picking nits in a completely false argument (the "Christian" in the story is often identified as Einstein), but scientists have recently produced a temperature below absolute zero.

In classical physics, there is no such thing as negative energy, so when all the energy is gone, you have absolute zero.  But in quantum mechanics, negative energy is possible, which results in a temperature below absolute zero.

But the whole dialog is ridiculous anyway.

Frank
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: Minimalist on March 02, 2013, 08:38:22 PM
The shithead probably thinks Noah loaded up an ark and you expect to have a rational conversation with him?
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Post by: kilodelta on March 02, 2013, 09:29:49 PM
A cheap trick on Mainstreet will "lay-on-hands" for five bucks. That's cheaper than tithe.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: FrankDK on March 02, 2013, 10:49:31 PM
> The shithead probably thinks Noah loaded up an ark and you expect to have a rational conversation with him?

That was Noah and his wife: Joan of Ark.  (Polls show that between 7 and 15% of Christians believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.)

Frank
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Post by: ratzu on March 03, 2013, 06:07:29 AM
God was supposedly around when he wiped out most of the worlds population by causing a flood.This would include lots of innocent children. Can't think of anything more evil than that.
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Post by: Surrogate on March 03, 2013, 07:23:06 AM
(//http://mmurchie.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/atheistnightmare.jpg)
Intrigued by this reasoning
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Post by: leo on March 03, 2013, 09:18:27 AM
Quote from: "ratzu"God was supposedly around when he wiped out most of the worlds population by causing a flood.This would include lots of innocent children. Can't think of anything more evil than that.
^^^ this
Title: Re:
Post by: Youssuf Ramadan on March 03, 2013, 11:29:52 AM
Quote from: "FrankDK"That was Noah and his wife: Joan of Ark.  (Polls show that between 7 and 15% of Christians believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.)

Good grief.....  :rollin:

Quote from: "ratzu"God was supposedly around when he wiped out most of the worlds population by causing a flood.This would include lots of innocent children. Can't think of anything more evil than that.

Yup.  =D>
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Post by: Plu on March 03, 2013, 11:37:35 AM
QuoteThen the guy starts reading this shit off of his phone.

Hilarious irony.
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Post by: DigitalBot on March 05, 2013, 03:46:21 AM
He is heretic. God is omnipresent! If God exists then there is no such thing as absence of God.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: WitchSabrina on March 05, 2013, 07:19:31 AM
Quote from: "FrankDK"> The shithead probably thinks Noah loaded up an ark and you expect to have a rational conversation with him?

That was Noah and his wife: Joan of Ark.  (Polls show that between 7 and 15% of Christians believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.)

Frank

No. Fucking. Way ???????????????

omg :shock:  :shock:  :shock:
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: BarkAtTheMoon on March 05, 2013, 09:34:32 AM
Quote from: "Navynukeman"
Quote"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," the Christian replies. "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! Tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

QuoteThe Christian looks around the room. "Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you. Is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."

"Is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No, sir, there isn't."

The professor's grin freezes. The room suddenly goes very cold.

The second Christian 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. Because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just..," [Silence fills the room] "...the absence of it." [More silence. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.] "Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"

Oh FFS, that old story? That's been floating around the internet for years and it's typical proselytizing bullshit to make evil science and higher education look bad. The original this is based on was attributed to Albert Einstein being the student. http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp (http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp)

It's little more than a semantics game. Cold and darkness do exist, they're simply colloquially defined relative to a standard norm. Scientifically, they may have no real meaning, but like some douchebag Christian would be using that to make a point.
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Post by: seanfish on March 05, 2013, 04:00:10 PM
There is also no such thing as ignorance, just the complete lack of scientific knowledge. Humans have attempted for centuries to reach absolute ignorance without success. The closest we've ever gotten was through the literal interpretation of the bible.
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Post by: Farroc on March 05, 2013, 04:22:10 PM
There's no such thing as nothing.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: aitm on March 05, 2013, 04:28:29 PM
I don't get to run into to many of those nuts but on the three or so times someone starts spouting science to back up the idea of god I usually start off with, "you're going to try to use science to proove god but I can't use science to destroy the babble? I don't think so, if your god knows science he knows damn well the moon is not a star, the sky is not water you cannot roll the sky up like a scroll and there is no damn dragon living in the center of the earth somewhere that can gather one third of the stars with his tail and fling them to earth. Wanna try something else?"
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Post by: Atheon on March 06, 2013, 03:09:00 AM
I can't stand these "Christian vs. Professor" stories, because they're smug, made-up bullshit designed to make academia look bad. They always feature some arrogant know-it-all professor who gets humiliated by some (unintentionally!) smarmy Christian student, and they're packed with fallacies.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: St Giordano Bruno on March 06, 2013, 05:02:22 AM
If I could ever attach the label "evil" to anything it would be  "ignorance" and "lies" two attributes the Christian religion is rife with.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: Brian37 on March 06, 2013, 07:25:43 AM
I fucking hate how theists have free reign to say whatever fucking naked assertion they want and we are expected to remain silent. At work on Sunday the kitchen radio is on and plays religious music, and I want to fucking scream "IF I SING A SONG ABOUT ALLAH DOES THAT MAKE ALLAH REAL?" But no, I have to keep my mouth shut out of fear of losing my job.

I'm not the one postulating an invisible friend. Seriously, this shit pisses me off, it is like getting angry at someone who tells you the earth is not flat. If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: BarkAtTheMoon on March 06, 2013, 09:59:19 AM
Quote from: "Brian37"I fucking hate how theists have free reign to say whatever fucking naked assertion they want and we are expected to remain silent. At work on Sunday the kitchen radio is on and plays religious music, and I want to fucking scream "IF I SING A SONG ABOUT ALLAH DOES THAT MAKE ALLAH REAL?" But no, I have to keep my mouth shut out of fear of losing my job.

Tell them you heard of a band called Lamb of God that sounds like a nice Christian group that you want to listen to.

[youtube:1le8nudi]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqdZpxkzNvc[/youtube:1le8nudi]
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Post by: Hakurei Reimu on March 06, 2013, 02:08:10 PM
I would have simply said, "Sir, I don't want to hear any obviously apocryphal stories about nameless professors arguing with nameless students, and being the customer, I'm always right. Let's talk about Top Gear UK, instead."

And yes, those stories are apocryphal, because any professor worth his salt would find the student's arguments childish and easy enough to counter. They bear the imprimatur of fuzzy Christian apologist lies, fit only for the gullible, not anyone with any actual grounding on the subject discussed.
Title: Re: "Evil is just the absence of god"
Post by: Minimalist on March 10, 2013, 12:31:44 AM
Quote from: "FrankDK"> The shithead probably thinks Noah loaded up an ark and you expect to have a rational conversation with him?

That was Noah and his wife: Joan of Ark.  (Polls show that between 7 and 15% of Christians believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.)

Frank


 =D>

Bravo.