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1The Atheist Professor Copypasta can refer to one of two different copypastas on the internet.
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3The original version, also known as the "UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein Copypasta", was a common chain email copypasta that originated in 1999. It told a story about a religious student and an atheist professor arguing about the existence of God and the Problem of Evil. The student wins the argument, and at the end it's revealed that the student was (supposedly) none other than UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein himself. It should be noted that Einstein himself [[BeamMeUpScotty never actually said this]] and the story is considered an {{Urban Legend|s}}.
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5The parody version was originally written on Website/FourChan in 2011, meant to make fun of the original one. It tells the story of a [[StrawCharacter Straw Liberal]] professor forcing his students to worship Creator/KarlMarx, before he is stopped by a Christian U.S. Marine who disproves the theory of evolution. This copypasta quickly became iconic for its over-the-top parody of cheesy apocryphal internet stories.
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7For more information, see [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/albert-einstein-copypasta Albert Einstein Copypasta]] on Website/KnowYourMeme and [[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Atheist_professor_myth Atheist professor myth]] on Rational Wiki.
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9[[folder:Full Text of the Original Version]]
10Does evil exist?
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12The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, he did!"
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14"God created everything? The professor asked.
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16"Yes sir", the student replied.
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18The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal 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 Christian faith was a myth.
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20Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"
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22"Of course", replied the professor.
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24The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"
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26"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.
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28The 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. Every body 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; 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."
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30The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"
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32The professor responded, "Of course it does."
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34The 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."
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36Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"
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38Now 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."
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40To 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."
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42The professor sat down.
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44The young man's name -- Albert Einstein.
45[[/folder]]
46[[folder:Full Text of the Parody Version]]
47A liberal Muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist.
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49"Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!"
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51At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the United States stood up and held up a rock.
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53"How old is this rock?"
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55The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied "4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian"
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57"Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real... then it should be an animal now"
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59The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Origin of the Species. He stormed out of the room crying those liberal crocodile tears. The same tears liberals cry for the "poor" (who today live in such luxury that most own refrigerators) when they jealously try to claw justly earned wealth from the deserving job creators. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, [=DeShawn Washington=], wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than a sophist liberal professor. He wished so much that he had a gun to shoot himself from embarrassment, but he himself had petitioned against them!
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61The students applauded and all registered Republican that day and accepted Jesus as their lord and savior. An eagle named "Small Government" flew into the room and perched atop the American Flag and shed a tear on the chalk. The pledge of allegiance was read several times, and God himself showed up and enacted a flat tax rate across the country.
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63The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and was tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity.
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65Semper Fi
66[[/folder]]
67
68----
69!!Tropes Relating to the Original Version
70* EvilIsSterile: The crux of the student's argument is that evil is not a real thing but just the absence of good.
71* GodIsEvil: The professor posits that if God's creations include evil, and if a person's works define who they are, then that means God is evil.
72* GodIsGood: The point of the student's argument is to prove that God is not evil.
73* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Albert Einstein was supposedly, according to this story, a philosopher of religion as a university student.
74* HistoricalPersonPunchline: The end of the story reveals that the student who argued that evil is the abscence of good rather than a tangible thing was (supposedly) Albert Einstein.
75* HollywoodAtheist: The professor tries to disprove Christianity to his students without any real reason given.
76* ReligionIsRight: More or less the point of the story.
77
78----
79!!Tropes Relating to the Parody Version
80* BiggerThanJesus: The professor describes Karl Marx as "greater than Jesus Christ!"
81* BuryYourGays: The homosexual professor dies of AIDS.
82* CommieNazis: How exactly the professor can be both a [[OxymoronicBeing ''Muslim'' and an ''atheist'']] [[note]]Islam requires belief in God[[/note]] is never explained.
83* {{Eagleland}}: The "America the Beautiful" version is {{Parodied|Trope}} when a US Marine wins an argument against a Karl Marx-worshipping professor. Afterwards, an eagle flies into the room and perches on the American flag while the Pledge of Allegiance is read several times.
84* EasyEvangelism: All of the other students convert to Christianity after hearing the US Marine's argument.
85* {{God}}: He shows up at the end to enact a flat tax rate over the country.
86* GravityIsOnlyATheory: The student 'refutes' evolution by claiming that if it were true, rocks would have all evolved into animals by now.
87* HollywoodAtheist: {{Exaggerated|Trope}} and {{Parodied|Trope}} with the professor. For starters he demands that his students worship Creator/KarlMarx as "the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known".
88* PatrioticFervor: {{Parodied|Trope}}. After the US Marine bests the professor, a bald eagle perches on a flag and the pledge of allegiance is read several times.
89* SemperFi: {{Parodied|Trope}}, as the US Marine the story is about refutes evolution in a classroom.
90* StrawCharacter: The professor, in case the line "A liberal Muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor..." doesn't give it away.
91* UltimateLifeform: According to the professor, Karl Marx was "the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known".

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