The Muslim looks around the room.
"Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you."Is there such thing as heat?"
"Yes," the professor replies.
"There's heat."
"Is there such a thing as cold?"
"Yes, son, there's cold too."
"No, sir, there isn't."
The professor's grin freezes. The room suddenly goes very cold. The second Muslim continues.
"You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat,white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't have anything called 'cold'.We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold,otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458 - - You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold."
"Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy.Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."
Silence. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.
"Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"
"That's a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn't darkness?What are you getting at...?
"So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"
"Yes..."
"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, Darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you...give me a jar of darker darkness,professor?"
Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him.This will indeed be a good semester.
"Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?"
"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error...."
"The professor goes toxic. "Flawed...? How dare you...!"
"Sir, may I explain what I mean?"
The class is all ears.
"Explain... oh, explain..."
The professor makes an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he is affability itself.He waves his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.
"You are working on the premise of duality," the Muslim explains."That for example there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science cannot even explain a thought.It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fullyunderstood them. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it."
The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the desk of a neighbour who has been reading it.
"Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids this country hosts,professor. Is there such a thing as immorality?"
"Of course there is, now look..."
"Wrong again, sir. You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?"
The Muslim pauses.
"Isn't evil the absence of good?"asked the Muslim
To be continued............
0 coretan:
Post a Comment