February 2011
“Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art.”
– David LaChapelle (via stevennaultsladyparts)
santalum asked: Thanks so much for comment in my guestbook :')
A Christian Professor of Philosophy was speaking...
Professor: You are an Atheist, aren’t you, son?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you don't believe in God?
Student: As much as I don't believe in Zeus or unicorns, sir.
Professor: Is God good?
Student: I don't think he exists. God being good is irrelevant.
Professor: My brother died of cancer. He prayed to be healed, but God in his infinite wisdom choose to accept him into heaven, rather than let him suffer. Isn't God good?
(Student was silent)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: If we accept your proposal that there is a God and if he is how you describe him, no I do not believe he is good.
Professor: If you do not love God, then you must love Satan. Is Satan good?
Student: Satan doesn't exist
Professor: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From the minds of scared little men who needed to get around the paradox of an all loving yet amoral and petty god.
Professor: Satan comes from sin. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Nothing is inherently, objectively evil. Things just are. Evil comes from the minds of men
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it?
Student: I don't think you're listening to me?
Professor: So who created evil? Satan did.
(Student didn’t answer)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immortality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student: I suppose so, sir.
Professor: So, who created them? Satan did. He rebelled against God's love, much like you do.
(Student had no answer)
Professor: 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.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your God.
Student: No, sir.
Professor: 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. That is why I do not believe in him
Professor: Yet he is there! The evidence lies all around you. Look at this planet. Look at this body. These are a masterpiece. If you found a painting on a beach would you assume it was created by chance?
Student: This world is not a masterpiece.
Professor: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, Science says God doesn’t exist. But has anyone in class ever seen this student's brain? Have they, felt it, touched or smelt it? .. No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable and Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain. But you can't. What do you say to that? We have faith in God's existence and that is all the proof we need.
Student: According to many others their faith is just as true. According to science, your faith is just as false.
Professor: Yes, Faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as objective Good?
Professor: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as objective Evil?
Professor: Yes.
Student: No, sir, there isn’t.
(The Lecture Theatre became very quiet with this turn of events)
Student: These are simply concepts of the human mind. If you crushed the universe into the finest powder and ran it through the finest sieve, you would not find a single atom of good, a molecule of evil. These things do not properly exist. We merely project them. Our brains are designed for pattern recognition. It is what makes us so good at surviving. It is what makes us so imaginative. If you look at a cloud, you might see a bunny, or a turtle, but no one made those clouds look like that. They are just random shapes. But our mind interprets those shapes. It gives them meaning, even in the absence of it. There is no such thing as evil or good. Your terms are irrelevant in proving god. There is obviously no objective morality.
(There was a pon-drop silence in the Lecture Theatre)
Student: Is there such a thing a dragons, sir?
Professor: No of course not.
Student: But how do you know? After all, dragons are magical creatures. They could make themselves intangible, invisible, undetectable by any means of human investigation. There could very well be a hundred dragons in this room and we would be none the wiser.
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is, you believe if science can not disprove something, it means that it is valid evidence of its existence. This logic is flawed.
Professor: Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. Do you believe that we evolved from a monkey
Student: No, I believe we are descended from the same common ancestors of, as you so elegantly put it, 'monkeys'.
Professor: You have no proof.
Student: What do you mean we don't have proof?
(The professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going)
Student: The process of evolution is constantly being observed and proved? The very basic principles of modern biology work because the theory of evolution is true. We have observed entire subspecies evolving and adapting. We have the fossil record and DNA evidence that it is true. Your refusal to accept these things is one of the most profoundly idiotic ideas I've ever heard. And we can very well explain thought and magnetism and electricity. These are not acts of magic. We know exactly how they work.
(The class was in uproar)
Student: So to talk about your previous point about the limitations of science and knowledge we must ask ourselves, does the professor indeed have a brain? Despite all evidence to the contrary.
(The class broke out into laughter)
Student: You say you can not see the brain so it must not exist, but if you were to crack open my head you would find that it is there. You would be able to see it and smell it and taste it and touch it. You could run scans on my brain while I think. You could find the electrochemical origin of every thought, every feeling, every memory I have. You could run tests. You could observe my actions and conclude that I must have some sort of nervous system. But sir, we have cracked open the universe. We have found through rigorous tests and observation that the Earth is indeed several billion years old. There are trees older than the Creationist age of the Earth. There are civilizations who made glue a thousand years before Adam and Eve were said to be created. The world is round and revolves around the sun. Plagues and disease are caused by microbes not demons. We have learned so much about the universe and gotten so far and the farther we get, the farther God has to slink away. At first we were using him to explain storms and volcanoes and death, but now we understand those things. The burden of proof does not lie on us. We make no claim to know everything about the universe. You do. You say you know who made it. You know his likes and dislikes. You know him on a personal level and believe he is constantly watching over you.
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable)
Professor: But.. but no.. you have faith. That's all you have. You have faith in all those things. That those things are real. That we descended from monkeys.
Student: No sir, I trust that the world is real. I believe that the sun is a giant ball of gas and that the complex elements I'm made up of came from a star and that I am descended from a long line of evolutionary success. And not because it says it in some dusty old book. Because we've tested it and stretched the limits of our knowledge and will always continue to do so. You see, faith is belief in the absence of evidence, in the absence of knowledge. You could very well be right. There could very well be a god, and he could be exactly like the Bible tells us he is, but there is just as good a chance that there is an invisible intangible dragon in this room. And it is just as relevant to our lives.
That student was Jesus of Nazareth.
This was a subversion of a common post I see floating around.
“Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of...”
– You Should Date An Illiterate Girl - Charles Warnke. (via howmyheartbehaves)
“I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it...”
– Catherine Breillat (via mermaidveins)
