I received the following by email and felt impressed to share it here.

-----beginning of email-----


Does Evil Exist? 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 principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."

The student became quiet and did not respond to 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. 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 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

A true story.

-----end of email-----

Any thoughts or comments on this?

It's not true.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

Disregarding Albert Einstein from the letter, what about the other claims made?

This is very interesting!

How does the person/s who posted the information on the Internet site know whether it is true or not?

How does anybody really know whether this is really true or not?

If possible, I would now like to see the source of both.

We talk about first hand information to prove or refute something, therefore, if possible, I would like to see first hand information to either prove or refute this story.

Copied from the Snopes FAQ:

Anyone with some familiarity with Einstein's work would know it wasn't true. Also even if one weren't familiar with it, just the way the email is phrased should be enough to make one suspicious. It's like the emails that speak of millions from Nigeria that they will send to your bank account because they've heard about your honesty.

So then, Tom, are you saying that somebody dreamed up this story, and it is total fiction?

It is a parable, lets treat it as such.

When I see "true story" at the bottom, I don't see it as a parable.

I think more logical explanation is that some event or story happened similar to what is reported, and someone thought Einstein might have said it, or, for some reason someone thought it sounded like something else Einstein said, or they got this quote mixed up with another one that Einstein actually did say.

I seriously doubt someone dreamed this up and on a whim, or for some other reason, decided to attribute it to Einstein. People remember things wrong all the time. (I resemble this remark)

Here is a page which lists quotes, many of which are remembered incorrectly or wrongly attributed: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/quotes.asp


Tom