A Christian Professor of Philosophy was speaking to his Class about how existence of God is quite evident and the fool says in his heart that there is no God. He asked one of his New Student to stand….

Professor : Do you Believe in God ?

Student : No, sir.

Professor : So, you are an Atheist ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Assume you are walking in a park and you happen to find a watch lying on the ground. Can you say that the watch had a creator? As something as complex and orderly as a watch could not have been created by itself? It would definitely require a more complex creator. Right?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor : Yet you see this amazing, beautiful, complex universe and think that it has no creator at all. Where do you think the universe came from? It happened all by accident? Why is there something instead of nothing?

(Student was silent)

Professor : Do you think something as complex and perfect as human eye just happened by accident ?

Student : Sir, it evolved over…… (Student was interrupted)

Professor : EVOLVED! EVOLUTION! Have you seen one organism changing to another?Have you observed evolution with your own eyes?

Student : No, Sir.

Professor: So evolution is not fact, its just faith. You believe in these bizarre stuffs like evolution yet you don’t believe in God, whose existence is quite evident. Do you think you know everything ?

Student : No, sir.

Professor : You know that your knowledge is incomplete yet you think you can know that an infinitely powerful or omnipotent being can not exist.

(Student was silent)

Professor : Can you prove that God doesn’t exist ?

Student : No, Sir.

Professor : You can’t prove God doesn’t exist and at the same time we have all these evidences for the existence of God, like the word of God: The Holy Bible. Yet you choose to not believe in God. It is rightly written in Psalm 14:1, “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”.

(Student was silent. The professor continued.)

Professor : You know what… You just hate God. Maybe because you had a bad past. And you lost faith in God. There is still time. Accept God and you’ll be saved. Even if you don’t think there is enough evidence ,just have faith in God as all this is a test and one day you’ll be judged.

(Entire lecture hall was silent. Student politely asked the professor)

Student : Sir, can we go back to the watch lying on the ground?

Professor : Absolutely, whats wrong with that?

Student : I can’t see whats right with that. First of all even if we assume that watch maker argument is valid (which it isn’t), it would just support a claim of the creator, not the claim of a Christian God. Anyways, the first problem with the argument is that you concluded that the universe will require more complex creator because universe itself is complex. So according to your own logic, the creator who is even more complex demands a creator even more so.

Professor : No, God was never created. He existed since the eternity.

Student : You just committed special pleading fallacy. You gave a logic that complexity requires a creator. And the main conclusion that you made (God) itself does not follow your own logic, and so you are assuming your main conclusion to be an exception to your own logic without any justification.

(Professor got confused)

Student : Yet there are many more problems with the argument. The argument is self contradicting. In the argument when person picks up the watch and assumes that it is complex and orderly, unlike natural stuffs surrounding it(soil and grass) which he did not pick up to draw his conclusion, he indirectly concludes that nature is not complicated and orderly. And then while making conclusion the person assumes that nature is complex and orderly so it requires a creator. Hence your argument is giving two incompatible and contradicting qualities to nature. The actual reason why person draws the conclusion why watch has a designer because he knows that watches are made by watchmaker, and there is no example of watch ever created without a creator. He could have not drawn the same conclusion by picking the soil nearby because we have zero example of soil being created by a creator.

Furthermore your argument makes false analogy fallacy. You conclude that since watch and universe have one feature in common (i.e. complexity) they will have another feature in common too (i.e. a conscious creator or designer). By your logic:

-Watch is complex

-Watch has a designer

-Universe is complex

-Therefore universe too has a designer

Using the same faulty logic we can conclude:

-Watch is complex

-Watch was invented in 15th century

-Universe is complex

-Therefore Universe was invented in 15th century

(Few students started chuckling. Professor realized how wrong he was.)

Student: Another problem with your logic, which assumes that complexity cannot come from something simple, is that it completely ignores evolution which is accepted as a fact in scientific community, according to which complex organs like human eye can evolve from simple organs like light sensitive cells over a long period of time with small changes over each generation. And no, human eye is not perfect. It has a blind spot. There are organisms in nature which does not have this fault, like octopus. There is this fault because evolution takes place over millions of year and it cannot go back to the drawing board to correct mistakes like this which will require changing the structure of the human eye. Many birds also have an additional translucent eyelid (which humans don’t) that allows them to look directly into the sun, at length, without damaging their retinas. Humans have very poor night vision and we can see only an infinitesimally small range of electromagnetic waves in the entire electromagnetic spectrum. That’s because organs evolve according to the requirement for survival.

And also we do not necessarily need to observe something directly to conclude that it happened. Otherwise any detective would never be able to conclude who committed the crime. But just like when there are tons of evidences like fingerprints, DNA record, motive etc a detective can conclude who committed the crime. Similarly because of tons of evidences like genetic similarity and fossil records we can conclude that evolution is a fact. And by the way we can directly observe small-scale evolution in organisms with short life cycles.

(Professor just cross checked all these facts on google and realized how ignorant he was towards science)

Student : And yes you were right that I don’t know everything but I don’t need to know everything to say that an omnipotent God is highly improbable.

Professor : How so?

Student : Do I need to know everything to say that a square circle does not exist?

Professor : No you just need to know the definitions of square and circle. A square circle is logically impossible !

Student : Exactly. Similarly I just need to know what omnipotence is to say that omnipotence is logically impossible.

Professor : How is omnipotence logically impossible?

Student : Omnipotent being is the one who can do anything and everything. Can god create a stone so heavy that he himself cannot lift it?

Professor : (In a hurry without thinking much) YES! Obviously. He is God. He can do anything.

Student : Then he just created a stone which he cannot lift. So there is something he cannot do (lifting that stone). So he is not omnipotent.

Professor : What if he lifts that stone?

Student : If he lifts that stone then he failed in the task of creating a stone so heavy that he himself cannot lift. Which still makes him NOT omnipotent. Omnipotence is logically impossible. Yet I’ll not claim to know that an omnipotent god does not exists. I am humble enough to have an open mind and will accept the existence of God when an indisputable evidence is provided in support of it. Till then I cannot accept the claim that God exists. Which is what atheism is. It just rejects theistic claims about existence of God because of lack of evidence. It is a lack of belief in existence of God. Atheism does not itself makes a claim that “God does not exists”. It just REJECTS the claim that “God exists”. For now when I am faced with difficult questions like “where did the universe come from? Why there is something instead of nothing ?” I will just say I don’t know which is humbling ,honest and true. And claiming to know the answers to these difficult questions is intellectual dishonesty, as it is quite evident that for now nobody knows answer to these questions.

(Now the professor was just waiting for the class to get over as he never had such a comeback from a student in his entire life. While the student felt a little playful. )

Student : Sir, do you Believe in Santa Claus ?

Professor : Absolutely Not !

Student : Can you prove that Santa Claus does not exist?

Professor : No

Student : You can’t prove Santa Claus doesn’t exist and at the same time we have all these evidences for the existence of Santa Claus, like the books: “The Santa Claus Book” and “The Polar Express”. Yet you choose to not believe in Santa Claus.

You know what… You just hate Santa Claus. Maybe because you never received gifts from Santa Claus and you lost faith in him. There is still time. Accept Santa Claus and you’ll Receive Gifts. Even if you don’t think there is enough evidence, just have faith in Santa Claus as all this is a test and one day you’ll receive amazing gifts.

(The entire class bursts into laughter)

Student : Psalm 14:1, “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”. If even the fool gets it, then what’s your problem?

(The professor smiled accepting his defeat and humbly replied)

Professor : I learned a lot today…. And I realized I have lot to learn.

Student : To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom. And the link between the objective truth of the universe and what we know about it is science (not faith). That is what leads to the development of mankind.

P.S.: That student was not Albert Einstein because I don’t need to commit appeal to authority fallacy to get my point across. If you enjoyed the conversation then do consider sharing it with your friends and family to encourage skepticism and rational thinking.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/scientific-atheists/christian-professor-vs-atheist-student/1599159520143042/