Is there a God? I certainly am not qualified to answer that question for anyone but myself however I recently have come accross a couple of articles by other notable authors on the subject that... well at least give the reader perhaps a different way of looking at the question. I appologize, up front for the length of this blog post. The bulk of this text is quoted text. I could have simply put a link to these excerpts but was afraid the reader might not bother to follow the link and would miss the whole point.
The second article was sent to me via e-mail by my mother. It is attributed to Albert Einstein. It may or not be factually his words but regardless an interesting point of view
Did God create everything that exists?
Does evil exist?
Did God create evil?
A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"
"God created everything?" The professor asked.
"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."
The student became quiet and did not answer the professor's
hypothetical definition. 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, "May 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 other 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 F) is the total absence of heat; and 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 everyday. It is in the daily examples 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.
The young man's name -- Albert Einstein
Personally I take exception to the postulation that "Evil is simply the absence of God". A more accurate definition, from my point of view at least, would be " Morally bad or wrong; wicked" It then becomes a question of what you base your morals on.
Regardless of the symantics the above article fundimentally states that evil or negative is simply the lack of good or positive. That is somthing I certainly could hang my hat on.
The first article, actually an essay, I ran accross on the subject was written by
Penn Jillette of the "Penn and Teller" fame. I first heard the essay on NPR's "This I Believe" series and have for weeks been contemplating a blog about this essay. Mom's e-mail provided the catalyst for me to do so. I copied the text of the essay (below) from the following web link http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
where this and many other thought provoking essays can be found.
Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 ยท I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire? So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
I am not ready to proclaim Mr. Jillette the "profit of the real truth". However he very elequently, hit the nail on the head for me, at least as the starting point of
my "faith"
I would not dispute the validity of one person's God over another's; one person's religion over another but really want folks to realize that truth can be found in many different places, not just in a book named "The Holy Bible" or "The Coran" or even perhaps "Horton Hears a Who", a significantly prophetic piece of literature if you ask me.
