The university professor 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," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil."
The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that 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?"
The professor replied "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. Everybody 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. 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, but 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 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
(DISCLAIMER: I have no idea if this is for real, true, or if someone made it up. However, it's factuality doesn't have much to do with the point, does it?)
//
Today my friend and coworker Kevin said that he knows that we (the "staff" of Journey, where I work) all want to help "change lives."
But I'm not sure I do.
For me, to "change lives" means to develop, to bring about incremental growth, to help someone off drugs, or to stop drinking, or to be nicer to their wife, or to otherwise clean up their life. And while I recognize the obvious value and necessity of all of those things, his statement helped me realize that I am something else.
I am more about maximizing the potential of humanity. I instigate ideas, catalyze thought and action. I am a leadership firestarter, igniting flames of passion in others so they can go out and use their lives to change the world.
Maybe it's semantics, a small distinction. But for me, it was a light bulb.
//
A few more words of wisdom from our friend, the "other" J.D.:
"Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them -- if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful, reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry. I'm not trying to tell you that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with -- which, unfortunately, is rarely the case -- tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And -- most important -- nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker. Something else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it'll begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. What it'll fit and, maybe, what it won't. After a while, you'll have an idea what kind of thoughts your particular size mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that don't suit you, aren't becoming to you. You'll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly." - J.D. Salinger, The Catcher In The Rye (p. 246-247)//