Does God exist?

[CCGR]

"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, quite pleased with himself, 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. Every body 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 man's name --- Albert Einstein

 

[Dark Virtue]

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." --Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein: The Human Side
edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press

 

[CCGR]

Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

 

[Avesther]

Important part of your quote is that Einstien didn't believe in a Personal God as Christians do. But, he did believe in a God, a higher, non-personal power.


---edit---
And as CCGR mentioned above.

 

[Dark Virtue]

This is from Einstein himself, from the first page of his Autobiographical Notes (1949, pp. 3-5): "Thus I came--despite the fact I was the son of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents--to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived...Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude...which has never left me..."

Granted, Einstein stated he was religious and that he believed in God, but it was in his own specialized sense that he used these terms. A better understanding of how Einstein used the terms religion, God, atheism, and agnosticism, you can see that it is clear he was consistent in his beliefs.

Quote[/b] ]Einstein's "belief" in Spinoza's God is one of his most widely quoted statements. But quoted out of context, like so many of these statements, it is misleading at best. It all started when Boston's Cardinal O'Connel attacked Einstein and the General Theory of Relativity and warned the youth that the theory "cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism" and "befogged speculation, producing universal doubt about God and His creation"(Clark, 1971, 413-414). Einstein had already experienced heavier duty attacks against his theory in the form of anti-Semitic mass meetings in Germany, and he initially ignored the Cardinal's attack. Shortly thereafter though, on April 24, 1929, Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of New York cabled Einstein to ask: "Do you believe in God?"(Sommerfeld, 1949, 103). Einstein's return message is the famous statement: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings"( 103). The Rabbi, who was intent on defending Einstein against the Cardinal, interpreted Einstein's statement in his own way when writing: "Spinoza, who is called the God-intoxicated man, and who saw God manifest in all nature, certainly could not be called an atheist. Furthermore, Einstein points to a unity. Einstein's theory if carried out to its logical conclusion would bring to mankind a scientific formula for monotheism. He does away with all thought of dualism or pluralism. There can be no room for any aspect of polytheism. This latter thought may have caused the Cardinal to speak out. Let us call a spade a spade"(Clark, 1971, 414). Both the Rabbi and the Cardinal would have done well to note Einstein's remark, of 1921, to Archbishop Davidson in a similar context about science: "It makes no difference. It is purely abstract science"(413).

The American physicist Steven Weinberg (1992), in critiquing Einstein's "Spinoza's God" statement, noted: "But what possible difference does it make to anyone if we use the word 'God' in place of 'order' or 'harmony,' except perhaps to avoid the accusation of having no God?" Weinberg certainly has a valid point, but we should also forgive Einstein for being a product of his times, for his poetic sense, and for his cosmic religious view regarding such things as the order and harmony of the universe.

The long and short of it is that Einstein was an athiest. Ensign Guy H. Raner had written Einstein on several occasions requesting clarification on his stance. His reply was,

Quote[/b] ]"From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."

Quote[/b] ]Although not a favorite of physicists, Einstein, The Life and Times, by the professional biographer Ronald W. Clark (1971), contains one of the best summaries on Einstein's God: "However, Einstein's God was not the God of most men. When he wrote of religion, as he often did in middle and later life, he tended to...clothe with different names what to many ordinary mortals--and to most Jewsa--looked like a variant of simple agnosticism...This was belief enough. It grew early and rooted deep. Only later was it dignified by the title of cosmic religion, a phrase which gave plausible respectability to the views of a man who did not believe in a life after death and who felt that if virtue paid off in the earthly one, then this was the result of cause and effect rather than celestial reward. Einstein's God thus stood for an orderly system obeying rules which could be discovered by those who had the courage, the imagination, and the persistence to go on searching for them"(19).

 

[Gandhi]

Quote[/b] ]"Spinoza, who is called the God-intoxicated man, and who saw God manifest in all nature, certainly could not be called an atheist.

Wouldn't u call him pagan. Or am I just confused.
I always thought that he was athiest.
I think there are people who are trying to put words in to his mouth, or twisting his words to make him christians. Because wouldn't it be nice if one of the worlds best known scientists be christian. Or atleast not an athiest.

Quote[/b] ]The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. (Albert Einstein)

Quote[/b] ]The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously. (Albert Einstein, letter to Hoffman and Dukas, 1946)

Quote[/b] ]It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

Quote[/b] ]I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature. (Albert Einstein, The World as I See It)

Quote[/b] ]With pantheism, ... the deity is associated with the order of nature or the universe itself .... When modern scientists such as Einstein and Stephen Hawking mention 'God' in their writings, this is what they seem to mean: that God is Nature. (Victor J. Stenger, Has Science Found God? 2001)

Quote[/b] ]What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. (Albert Einstein)

Quote[/b] ]A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

Quote[/b] ]Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being. (Albert Einstein, 1936) Responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann

Quote[/b] ]A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. (Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930

Quote[/b] ]If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. (Albert Einstein)

 

[CCGR]

famous scientists that were Christian:

Robert Boyle*
George Washington Carver*
Christohper Columbus*
Kenneth H. Cooper - "Father of aerobics"
Michael Faraday*
Jim Irwin* - astronaut, Ark Hunter
Samuel Morse*
Isaac Newton* - inventor, scientist
Louis Pasteur*
Hugh Ross - physicist
Francis Schaeffer - theologian and thinker (1912-1984)
Carol Swain - political scientist, author of Black Faces, Black Interests and The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration (a convert to Evangelical Christianity)
Wright Brothers*

 

[Flashon]

I think that's an awesome story. touching and very well thought out. just amazes me.

 

[Dark Virtue]

Quote[/b] (Flash @ Aug. 18 2004,8:47)]I think that's an awesome story. touching and very well thought out. just amazes me.

Yes, it was a nice story, but is it true?

 

[Dark Virtue]

Quote[/b] (CCGR @ Aug. 18 2004,8:42)]famous scientists that were Christian:

Robert Boyle*
George Washington Carver*
Christohper Columbus*
Kenneth H. Cooper - "Father of aerobics"
Michael Faraday*
Jim Irwin* - astronaut, Ark Hunter
Samuel Morse*
Isaac Newton* - inventor, scientist
Louis Pasteur*
Hugh Ross - physicist
Francis Schaeffer - theologian and thinker (1912-1984)
Carol Swain - political scientist, author of Black Faces, Black Interests and The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration (a convert to Evangelical Christianity)
Wright Brothers*

You missed a ton of good ones

Nicholas Copernicus
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Gregor Mendel
Kelvin (William Thompson)
Max Planck

 

[Gandhi]

Here's some famous athiest since we're making lists. I love topics like this because I research and find out some cool things.

Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931).

Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-1939).

Herbert George "H.G." Wells, English author (1866-1946).

Alfred Adler, Austrian psychiatrist (1870-1937).

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathematician, and social critic (1872-1970).

Robert Frost, American poet. <--------- very cool guy

Irving Langmuir, American chemist, nobel prize winner 1932 (1881-1957).

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, English biologist and author (1887-1975).

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, British film director (1899-1980).

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, British born actor, director, and producer (1889-1977).

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, Scottish biochemist (1892-1964).

William James Sidis, American prodigy (1898-1944)<--cool

Ernest Hemingway, American author (1899-1961).

Walter "Walt" Disney, American cartoonist, showman, and film producer (1901-1966).

Linus Carl Pauling, American chemist (1901-1994).

George Orwell (1903-1950).<--- cool guy

Gene Kelly, American dancer, singer, actor, and director (1912-1996).<-- singing in the rain

Sir Peter Brian Medawar, Brazilian-born British immunologist and science writer, Nobel prize, 1960 (1915-1987).

Richard Feynman, American physicist (1918-1988).

Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek (1921-1991).

Charles Schultz, American cartoonist (1922-2000).

Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor (1769-1821).

Walt Whitman, American poet (1819-1892).

Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist (1825-1895)

My fav is gene roddenberry since I'm a Trekie.

But I think I'm going off topic. There are probobly alot more famous athiests but back then the church was very powerfull, and going against it would mean death.

Kepler, and Boyle were cool.

 

[Dark Virtue]

Uh, I think the point of the list was to show Christian SCIENTISTS.

 

[Drelin]

The Prof. is obviously defeated, but it's not like defeating a straw-man is much of a challenge.

As for the truth of the story itself; http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp.

 

[Jango]

Saying that a certain scientist believes in God proves nothing. It just shows they decided not to believe the widely popular ( Did Darwin even re-popularize Evolution yet? ) other theories.

 

[Dark Virtue]

Quote[/b] (Jango @ Aug. 19 2004,1:45)]Saying that a certain scientist believes in God proves nothing. It just shows they decided not to believe the widely popular ( Did Darwin even re-popularize Evolution yet? ) other theories.

Actually it means quite a lot.

Here you have a person whose career requires rationality and yet they believe in the most irrational thing possible, the existence of an unprovable thing, God.

 

[Drelin]

Quote[/b] ]Saying that a certain scientist believes in God proves nothing. It just shows they decided not to believe the widely popular ( Did Darwin even re-popularize Evolution yet? ) other theories.

Evolution and theism aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I'd venture that most 'evolutionists' have some sort of God-belief, and that most theists accept evolution.

 

[Jango]

Most thiests accept evolution? Yeah, heh, right.

 

[Avesther]

Quote[/b] ]
Here you have a person whose career requires rationality and yet they believe in the most irrational thing possible, the existence of an unprovable thing, God.

But then you would have to accept that evidence of Gods existance was indeed of God and not brought into existance by some random accident. Your a priori bias has an amazing amount of influence on what you accept as evidence as Gods existance.

In the end, the real question is, what evidence would you need that would proof to you without doubt that God does indeed exist.

 

[Dark Virtue]

Quote[/b] (Gods_Peon @ Aug. 20 2004,3:52)]

Quote[/b] ]
Here you have a person whose career requires rationality and yet they believe in the most irrational thing possible, the existence of an unprovable thing, God.

But then you would have to accept that evidence of Gods existance was indeed of God and not brought into existance by some random accident.  Your a priori bias has an amazing amount of influence on what you accept as evidence as Gods existance.

In the end, the real question is, what evidence would you need that would proof to you without doubt that God does indeed exist.

Now that's a damn good question and not an easy one to answer.

I can only answer that one myself, I would need to have a one on one talk with God and have a few questions answered.

Seeing as how that is not going to happen, I'm afraid I'll be stuck on the outside.

 

[Avesther]

I used to agree with the, I need to sit down, one on one with God.  I didn't even care what the answers were, just come down here and face me.  Until somebody asked me what makes me different then the Isrealites.

Of course, I went huh,

The Isrealites had the proof you are looking for.  God was with them during their escape from Egypt.  He lead them by a column of smoke in the day and during the night as a pillar of fire.  He sent them food every morning.  He descended on Mount Sanai and the Isrealites knew his presence and asked Moses to ask God not to do that again because they couldn't handle it.  They knew the awesome power of God and the awesome presence of God.

Yet, they doubted God (that is why they wondered the wilderness for 40 yers) and they rejected God over and over and over and over again.

So I ask you the same question, what makes you think you are any different then the Isrealites?