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A 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 student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself, and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the faith in God is 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?"

"What kind of question is this? 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. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat. 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. We can study light, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wave lengths of each colour. 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 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 not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. 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 student's name -- Albert Einstein.

-- Story via Jacob Toomey via Michael Guevara

I don't know if it was indeed Einstein who said all of that, but it doesn't matter; you could scratch the last sentence, and it would still take my breath away. The concept of absence -- how is it that I never thought of it before?