Superhuman/Supernatural/Paranormal Rants (or Props) (Continued)

[Celadon's Penultimate]

wonder_drow wrote

I hope you don't take this picture offensive then.
But it seemed a funny addition to the conversation.

Why would I take it offensively? It's actually kinda cute.

And besides, Christianity doesn't dispute the existence of dinosaurs. The Bible mentions several times the existence of serpents, which back in those times, could refer to reptiles of any kind, be they snakes, lizards or (I would assume) dinosaurs).

[Zaleramancer]

Oh, no.

I'm agnostic.

That's the reason me and Wulf argued over religion.

[Zaleramancer]

That is an adorable dinosaur.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

 Indeed.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

THE FOLLOWING WAS TAKEN OFF OF FACEBOOK:

TAKE TIME TO READ. It's worth reading it. Trust me :)



Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is GOD good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student : Yes.

Professor: So who created evil ?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

(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. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, 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. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

P.S.

I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?

Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.

By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.

[Vespert]

I've read that before. It's actually a hoax, an urban legend. Still a good read though.

[WonderDrow]

Indeed, a good read.

That student reasoning has me thinking now.

Is "Evil" the absence of "Good"?
Or is "Good" the absence of "Evil"?
Would that mean that either "Evil" or "Good" don't exist?

[Vespert]

Well, to me, the "fictional" student's reasonning is flawed.

Cold is not the absence of heat. Heat is energy. Cold is a measurement, related to the concept of temperature (which is totally different from the concept of heat). Something is cold if its temperature is below a reference. And hot if it's above.

Similarly, light is energy. Darkness is when the quantity of light is below a reference, brightness being the opposite.

We can't compare a mesurable quantity and its measurement. Poverty is the absence of resources, therefore, there isn't any poverty in the world? No, poverty is when one's total amount of resources is below a reference, the poverty threshold. Drought is the absence of water, therefore, people can't die from dehydration? No, drought is when the amount of precipitation is below a limit.

As for the "fictional" professor, in real life, he would likely be a bad professor if he agrees that humans evolved from monkeys (Darwin theorized monkeys and humans have a common ancestor, the famous "missing link", not that some monkeys changed into humans one day) or that noone observed the process of evolution at work (scientists have to regularly change the compositions of vaccines or pesticides to fight against future generations of bacterias, viruses and pests because they will be more adapted to current treatments).

[Celadon's Penultimate]

If you say so.

I thought that cold was the absolute absence of heat from matter (likewise, darkness is the absolute absence of what we perceive as visible light from an area; dehydration, in biological organisms, results from the absence of sufficient water to survive; and poverty is absence of enough resources to fit one's basic needs, such as useable food, drink and shelter). By similar logic, evil would simply be the absence of good, not some distinct force of its own that is capable of countering goodness. Likewise, similarities in morphology do not prove a common ancestor.

But (so you don't get confused, and take this for an invitation to debate) those weren't the parts I was concerned with.

I just liked the part where it talked about quantifying the intangible.

Just because you can't see something (such as a thought or a wish or--more humorously--somebody's brain), doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can often still see the results of unseen forces and influences all around you.

I only posted the message because it blessed my heart ("made my day", for the non-Christians) and it made me think. I never meant to imply that anyone should take that as fact, nor did I mean to imply that I took it wholly as fact.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Good exists in relation to sentient beings, at least.

[Philote]

I feel you missed an important part off the end of that story.

Phi wrote

"Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in
fact, faith exists with life," the student
continues. "Now, sir, is there such a thing as
evil?"

Now uncertain, the professor responds, "Of course,
there is. We see it everyday. 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 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.

[Philote]

He wasn't comparing a measurable quantity and its measurement.

Phi wrote

"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not
something; it is the absence of something. You can have
low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light,
but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and
it's called darkness, isn't it? That's
the meaning we use to define the word."

"In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you
would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't
you?"

He is referring to actual darkness, no light, and not the quantity of light we have decided to call darkness.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

 I missed that? What do you mean?

[Philote]

It wasn't included in the version you posted.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

I thought I copied it there. I must have missed it when I copy-pasted it. I do remember reading that part.

[Vespert]

Shadowulf1 (Wulf) wrote

I thought that cold was the absolute absence of heat from matter

It's just an issue of definition.

Absence of heat is called absolute zero.
Cold, I just checked in a dictionary, as a noun (other than the illness ), it means "A condition of low temperature." So, cold characterizes temperatures which are considered low, i.e. below a certain limit. Temperature and heat are not the same. Heat is the quantity of thermal energy. Temperature is a measurement of thermal activity. If something has a lot of heat, it doesn't mean its temperature will be high.

Darkness, also from a dictionary, is "The partial or total absence of light". It's not the absolute absence. It's included in the definition, but it's not limited to it.

By the way, just for fun, I made up a thought experience. Imagine you're in a sealed room with the walls painted black. There aren't any windows or any ways for the outside light to penetrate the room. You have a red laser pointer. Switch it on and point it toward a wall in a way you can't see the tip of the pointer. We suppose the black walls absorb the light perfectly and that there's no dust or particulate to scatter the light. Now, you can't see the red light coming from the laser pointer at all, you can't see any visible light, but does that mean there's no light in the room? There definitely are photons coming out of the laser pointer.

Shadowulf1 (Wulf) wrote

Likewise, similarities in morphology do not prove a common ancestor.

That, I agree. The theory of evolution doesn't prove anything. It provides a possible explanation (that's why it's called a theory). I'm not of the ones who say the theory of evolution is true. It's called a theory for a good reason, and that's because the full scope of it hasn't been proved true and will never be. Though, I can't reject its possibility. Until a counterexample is given, I can't decide it's false either, and no tangible counterexample has been given yet. Absence of counterexamples doesn't make the theory true. An exhaustive demonstration would, but it's impossible to give.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Vespert wrote

Shadowulf1 (Wulf) wrote

I thought that cold was the absolute absence of heat from matter

It's just an issue of definition.

Yes, I suppose.

Vespert wrote

Absence of heat is called absolute zero.
Cold, I just checked in a dictionary, as a noun (other than the illness ), it means "A condition of low temperature." So, cold characterizes temperatures which are considered low, i.e. below a certain limit. Temperature and heat are not the same. Heat is the quantity of thermal energy. Temperature is a measurement of thermal activity. If something has a lot of heat, it doesn't mean its temperature will be high.

I was referring to absolute-zero-type conditions.

Vespert wrote

Darkness, also from a dictionary, is "The partial or total absence of light". It's not the absolute absence. It's included in the definition, but it's not limited to it.

I guess, if you use darkness as a measure of the absence of light ("It's very dark" = "There's not much light"). But I'm referring to utter darkness.

Vespert wrote

By the way, just for fun, I made up a thought experience. Imagine you're in a sealed room with the walls painted black. There aren't any windows or any ways for the outside light to penetrate the room. You have a red laser pointer. Switch it on and point it toward a wall in a way you can't see the tip of the pointer. We suppose the black walls absorb the light perfectly and that there's no dust or particulate to scatter the light. Now, you can't see the red light coming from the laser pointer at all, you can't see any visible light, but does that mean there's no light in the room? There definitely are photons coming out of the laser pointer.

You would see light on the wall, but not the beam through the air. And you wouldn't be able to see anything else in your room (even your own hands).

Vespert wrote

Shadowulf1 (Wulf) wrote

Likewise, similarities in morphology do not prove a common ancestor.

That, I agree. The theory of evolution doesn't prove anything. It provides a possible explanation (that's why it's called a theory). I'm not of the ones who say the theory of evolution is true. It's called a theory for a good reason, and that's because the full scope of it hasn't been proved true and will never be. Though, I can't reject its possibility. Until a counterexample is given, I can't decide it's false either, and no tangible counterexample has been given yet. Absence of counterexamples doesn't make the theory true. An exhaustive demonstration would, but it's impossible to give.

Well, likewise, there are no definite counterexamples for Christianity (or any other religion). At least not as far as science goes. It is a philosophical/moral topic, therefore, it must be handled on a philosophical/moral level. It can never be scientifically proven, because it is a matter of "faith vs. the absence of faith".

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Also, Ves, don't forget:

Shadowulf1 (Wulf) wrote

But (so you don't get confused, and take this for an invitation to debate) those weren't the parts I was concerned with.

I just liked the part where it talked about quantifying the intangible.

Just because you can't see something (such as a thought or a wish or--more humorously--somebody's brain), doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can often still see the results of unseen forces and influences all around you.

I only posted the message because it blessed my heart ("made my day", for the non-Christians) and it made me think. I never meant to imply that anyone should take that as fact, nor did I mean to imply that I took it wholly as fact.

[Zaleramancer]

Of course.

It's a strawman argument made to make the professor look like an idiot.

I've seen several of those. Including one in a youtube video.

The nice faithful student is portrayed as a calm pillar of belief, while the hateful non-believing professor is portrayed as a bigoted and hotheaded idiot.

Of course, I've also seen the reverse, where the atheist/agnostic is cool, rational and collected, but the religious person is a hot-headed person frothing at the mouth.

I hate these kind of things. They're stupid on both sides.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Does it matter? If the argument is valid, it doesn't matter if Barack Obama said it to Nelson Mandela, or Pastor TD Jakes said it to Oprah!