Actually Superstar Rajnikant was only retelling a story first told by another Tamil superstar of rhetoric, New Age Guru TT Rangarajan.
I heard Rajnikant’s rendition on YouTube proudly uploaded by a devout Christian who calls him/herself “Our Daddy Jesus” possibly in the hope that all doubts and reservations about the Bible and its version of the creator would finally be put to rest by this one parable.
The gist of the story goes like this:
A young scientist, travelling in a train, noticed that a person sitting across him was reading a book. Curious about the fellow passenger, he asked:
“What do you do?”
“I’m a scientist,” said the other man
“What is this you are reading?”
“Bible”.
The first scientist guffawed:
“Ennada, (what, man,) in this age of science you read Bible? Being a scientist, if you start believing in God, Bible and all such nonsense, what about the common man?”
He gave the latter a card and said, “Come and see me when you are free.”
The Bible-reader agreed.
When the station came, they both got down
“I have read about your achievements,” said the Bible-reader . Why don’t you read about my achievements?”
He handed the other man his card which read,
“Thomas Alva Edison”.
(Rajnikant pauses. Applause)
The shocked and embarrassed scientist apologized. “I’m sorry. Now you give me an appointment. I will come and see you.”
Next morning, he went to see Edison in his laboratory.
First thing he noticed in the lab was a huge replica of the Solar system in its full magnificence.
“My goodness,” said the atheist-scientist to Edison, “How did you manage to collect things to make such a big model of the universe? How long it took you to create it?”
“I did nothing,” answered Edison. “It happened by itself. In no time.”
“Come on, how can such a thing happen by itself? Please tell me.”
“Why can’t it happen by itself? You believe that this huge (real) universe happened by itself. If such a huge universe can happen by itself why can’t this model happen by itself?”
(Applause).
“If there is a creation, there is a creator. Without a creator there cannot be a creation. So God exists. And that truth is in the Bible.” Concluded Edison.
Rajnikant, too, concluded the story quoting Rangarajan that the huge model of the Solar System still stands in Edison’s laboratory in proof of the existence of the God of the Bible.
This is an abiding story, and preachers – Catholic, Reformist, Anglican, Pentecost, Latter Day Saints – went to town with it. As I understand, neither Rangarajan nor Rajnikant are Christians. That gave the story additional credibility.
There is a trifle problem with this exciting story. It is a crude lie. An unpardonable fiction and an affront to Edison’s logical, scientific mind.
Edison believed, and often said, that Bible was nonsense. His famous quotation that I love to quote (with ephasis on ALL) is:
ALL BIBLES ARE MANMADE.
By ALL, I am sure, he included Quran, Vedas, Gita and all such venerated fiction that inhibited man’s progress, destroyed peace among humans and justified slavery, apartheid, war, genocide and rape.
“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake…Religion is all bunk.”
On the other hand, he also wrote: “I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us – everything that exists – proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.”
That infinite intelligence, to him, was admittedly beyond him and nowhere within ALL BIBLES.
In essence, Thomas Alva Edison, the creator of light bulb, Phonograph (audio recorder), movie camera and the propounder of Edison Effect that gave birth to Electronics, was positive that the Creator described in the Bible was utter nonsense. He would scarcely persuade anyone to read the book.
No massive model of the Solar System is on display in Edison Laboratory
that still stands in Thomas Edison National Historical Park, in Essex Country, New Jersey.
‘Edison universe’, which perhaps inspired the story, is not a model, but an organization focused on nourishing the possibilities, opportunities and foundations of success to empower the imaginations and vision of tomorrow’s inventors and innovators”. It gives away awards aimed at inculcating scientific temperament and business acumen in youth.
The story proves a point. High tech new-age gurus are no different from old-age Babas who quote Sanskrit verses and expound lies.
______________
Links:
http://philosophiesofmen.blogspot.hk/2012/08/thomas-edison-not-atheist.html
http://www.edisonawards.com/edisonuniverse.php
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Vishumenon's Blog 
Hi, I kindly request you to do some research on it as Thomas sir firmly believed that there is creator but that where is duty ends, he does not have power to rule our life’s. SO the story said was true as it proved that there is creator but according to Thomas he can only create not rule our life’s. Religious point of view he did believe in creator but didn’t believe that he have power to change or rule our life.
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Thanks, Aaron, for writing.
In his interview dated October 2, 1910 Edison (“Thomas Sir”) said:”No Immortality of the Soul.. Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.”
On another occasion, Edison said : “All Bibles are man-made.” Such a man of science travelling in a train engrossed in the Bible and proving the existence of a Biblical God by putting up a model of the solar system to prove the point in his labortory is a ridiculous idea.
Edison was probably an agnostic in the early years of his life; he once said he did not rule out the possibility of there being an intelligence being behind creation, but not a God ho would sit in judgment of all that he created like an ordinary human judge. As he grew older and wiser, it is conceivable his agnosticism matured into atheism.
In January 1911 interview with Columbian magazine, Edison said: “I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. … Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?
Of all such theologies, Edison discounted the Bible and its jealous and judgmental god the most; hence the story is utterly untenable.
Stories such as this are created by ignorant preachers and lapped up as juicy anecdotes by just as ignorant public speakers.
Jump up ^
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Dear Aaron, So what are we arguing about? I had only laid bare the falsehood of the story that Edison eulogized the Bible. I his diary, he had written that “All Bibles are man-made.” By all Bibles, he meant all religious scriptures – be they of Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists. He did not believe in any religion, because relgions are founded on lies and selfish motives, but he did think that there must have been a creator behind the universe just as he was the creator behind incandescent lamps carbon microphones.
Thanks for reading my blogs and thinking over them. I love healthy debates and you are the kind that I love to chat with. I decline to answer the abusive ones and ot publish expletives while WordPress removes the more atrocious ones even before I get to see them.
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Mr. Menon,
I could read, you have been passionately involved with the very thought of Edison’s understanding of nature and God but above all I could sense u r being annoyed by the ignorant preachers (as u mentioned). Well I agree that it might have annoyed you that’s your personal choice and you are free to do so, But when you criticize or raise an unsettled questions on a Godly belief of a man you need to have true and convincing argument as your defense. You spoke about Bible and its jealous and judgemental God (adjectives you used, where as no where in history Edison used it) on an critical argumentative and judgemental tone being censurer, hence you becoming on of them. Bible is one of the book which contrary to your belief have inspired and changed many lives. There are world filled testimonies over generations irrespective of yours and Edison’s belief, Today I challenge you read Bible once at least if you truly want to understand what Edison or Mr. Aaron meant.
_*Witnesses of some who wanted to find fault with Bible:*_
1. _Bro.Bakht Singh – He burnt all the pages but kept the cover as it was beautiful. On one instance, he was attracted to the word “Holy” on Bible cover, read the Bible and became a Christian. He is the only Indian who got the testimony of establishing 10,000 churches across the world._
2. _Bro. Sadhu Sunder Singh – An Indian monk after getting the revelation and vision of Christ, became christian and preached throughout the world._
3. _Rev. R.R.K. Murthy – Very devout Brahmin became Christian by going through John’s Gospel. Even ready to leave the family for sake of Christ. After reading Bible, he said I read Bible to find faults. But it caught hold of my faults._
4. _Rev. Purushottam Chowdhury – Though belonged to Odisha, wrote more than 50% Telugu Christian hymns. One day, he found small torn page of Bible on road and got inspired to read the Bible and became Christian._
5. _One religious fanatic recruited a great Indian Scholar ( and ready to pay a salary even in crores) and offered him a job to find fault with Bible.( Names not revealed) That scholar has reported to fanatic as follows: “it is impossible for me to find any wrong in Bible. In fact, Bible has got hold of me by making me surrender (by bending me) to it._
6. *Very well known scholar, from France, was recruited by king OTTO to destroy Bible for huge sum of money. After thorough search, scholar told the king about Bible:*
I) _only divine book talking about one and only God and written by 40 prophets and disciples who never knew each other._
II) _first book ever printed by printing press._
III) _only divine book translated into most of world languages._
IV) _only divine book being sold most in the world_
V) _only divine book to get accurate and easy definition, understanding and foundational truth about God._
VI) _only divine book written about God, who loved and is loving the world. This God, who loves the world, is not seen in any other religious books except in Bible._
VII) _only divine book being accepted by 70% scientists._
VIII) _only divine book which gave information about universe well before scientists._
IX) _first book read and seen in the illumination of electric bulb invented by Thomas Alva Edison. Edison said ” Bible has lit me and I lit the world.”_
X) _No religious book has got so many preachers like that of Bible._
XI) _The word “holiness” is found in each and every page of the Bible whereas in other religious books, this word is not found even once in every 100 pages._
XII) _The most hated book is also Bible in spite of being most used book across the world._
_The only divine book which turned its very haters into preachers though the book is hated, burnt and torn._
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For all the Brothers and Singhs and Brahmins who embraced Christians, my congratulations. For all the Christians (thousands of them, if you look up the “God does not exist’ group page on facebook and twitter, my congratulations too. Neither of them prove anything.
It is not correct that 70% of scientists are Christians. “Christians” is a word that combine several mutually antagonistic parties on ideology as well as interpretation of the Bible as we know it; there are others like the Latter day Saints who have their own Bible. You might say that 70% of the scientists have Christian names on account of their birth in the scientifically advanced West- but most of them are atheists or agnostics in their beliefs and practice. In any case, it proves nothing. There is no science in Genesis which states that God wanted to prevent man from acquiring knowledge of good and evil and punished them for acquiring it. Genesis also tells us that God made night and day on the first day, but the sun and the moon on the fourth day. It also tells us that stars can fall on the ground; that the man who curses a tree for not giving him fruits when it is off-season is not a lunatic.In mideval Europe, surgeons would not wash their hands before a surgery because Jesus had said it was not necessary to wash hands or mouth – what comes out of the mouth was bad, not what goes into it. Biblical God did not know a place beyond Middle East – apart from Rome, because Romans had colonized their Country. The King who had come to redeem the Jews created a thousand generation of enemies of the Jews.
You’re right that the most published book in the world is the Bible – but not the most sold. I keep copies of the Bible I receive freely in hotels as a memento of my overseas stays. There are at least 22 of them, mostly supplied by Gideon. You’d rarely see a price tag on a Bible unless it is designed as a coffee-table piece. The most sold book is the combined volumes of Harry Potter, followed by Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. I’m sure Shakespeare contends for a place on the podium.
You are wrong that the first printed book is the Bible. The Chinese invented both block printing and lithographic printing centuries before the technology was brought to Europe. They didn’t invent these machines to watch them and have fun, but to print the sayings of Confucius and Buddha, and no doubt the orders of the Emperor. The Chinese also invented the paper. Bible was indeed the first book to be printed in Europe, and it was printed on vellum, made of animal skin. Paper came much later.
The only ‘divine’ book taught and preached without change and widely differing interpretatons is the Quran. Quran is the only book which can be recited from memory by the most number of people in the world. Edison is unlikely to have said that “Bible lit me and I lit the Bible” since he spoke and wrote disparagingly about it. This is one of the millions of lies, including the miracle of Mother Teresa, invented by Christians. I do not know what is holy about ‘holiness’ appearing on every page of the Bible, but the fact is I searched several pages of the copies of the Bible I have – both old and New- and very few pages indeed have the word holiness in them. However, gory details of animal sacrifice, killings of men women and children and babies in the womb, heinous punishments, wars, keeping virgins for yourself after killing all the other women and children – permission to ill-treat foreign slaves – you can find an element or two of each of these in almost every page of the Book. While the Old Testament invented torture and murder in this temporal world, Jesus invented even worse punishment for the silliest of crimes in the nether world called hell. He offered to redeem the killers, rapists, thieves and those who caused genocide if they went to him and recognized him as the redeemer. It is no wonder that Christians have the worst crime records in history. You are right on two points : Bible has created the maximum number of preachers, and it is also the most hated book in the world. All religions other than Buddhism and Jainism extol wars and tribal murders, but Bible takes the first prize.
Thank you for writing again.
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Dear Brother, whatever you say, whatever you think, whatever you post here to prove something and try to make people think CHRIST and BIBLE are useless, remember just below your name here you have Jesus Christ’s era following you. whatever you do, you cant deny this or be against it. Dont think yourself as wise. REPENT. Thank you
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Thank you for your comments. I love this debate with you.
Jesus Christ’s era, when did it begin? On December 25th, winter in the Middle East at midnight , when shepherds were grazing their sheep in the fields (Luke 2:8)?
Or was it January 01?
The world uses Gregorian calendar announced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1532, replacing Julian calendar.making a minor correction (0.002%) to Julian Calendar announced by Julius Caesar, who was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a ruler over Jerusalem, in 46 BC. The correction was made on the advice of astronomers. For a long time Protestants refused to toe this new modification, but eventually fell in because of the technical advantage in a regular cyclical calendar of 365 days for 3 years and making a correction on the fourth year. Like a Democratic government chose to name an airport as JohnF Kennedy airport, the Pope named it Anno Domini (Year of our Lord). The calendar his nothing whatever to do with Jesus Christ; Christ never proposed it, nor does it find mention in the Bible. European colonization spread this calendar through the world; the rest of the world found it convenient to use a common calendar for trade and diplomatic purposes which made it eventually universally acceptable. However Muslims use their own calendar for their religious and community usage; Hindus, one of the original designers of a calendar three thousand years before Christ (apart from Chinese) use the Saka calendar for divining birth days, weddings and other purposes relating to their community. There are at least fifty calendars in use today Buddhists have the most ancient calendar in current use.
I do not believe that even Christians (the few left in the world) remember Christ when they write down a date.
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I had a question to Mr. Rajini or whoever created the story when I first saw the video. ” Who created GOD?” You can’t say he has come by himself, as it was same for the universe. If you say Universe was created by GOD, then I will ask you who created GOD?
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This is not a very original question, dear Stranger, but one of the most frequently asked questions : If God made universe, who made God?”
St. Aquinas anwered this with, ïf you consider all those that were caused by a reason before it, you regress to a point where there is an occurrence that had no need for a cause. That occurrence is God.” Not a very satisfactory answer to your mind and mine, but the preachers gloat over it.
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To continue the discussion beyond the creator and creation, why someone or something has to be created? I dont believe that time is real. The concept of time is just created to simplify things. Just beacuse we cant understand some thing other than time and god, we can’t say it doesn’t exist…
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hope you read it dude, you are right to some extent.. there might be something that wouldnt be that you could understand….because whatever it is there is an answer because the proof is yourself…you exist…..there is surely an answer for existence.. for sure…. we might not get the answers… or the ability to understand things…. if you have the ability to understand somethings.. some surpass its called extra human intelligence.. it might be higher… be sure it can be made…. so sure that there is answer.. wait for god to answer may be… no wonder we might get it …..
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Keep waiting, my friend.
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if you exist surely there is an answer for your existence…you exist is the proof of your answer…..the answer is also surely meaningful not the big bang shit nonsense…
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Whatever that means.
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“Ï don’t believe time is real” is akin to saying “I don’t believe kilometers are real.” Kilometer is a unit devised by man to comprehend distance; Time is another unit devised to give sequential order to events. The concept of time comes into existence because of a need to organize events in the order of their occurrence. Distance, weight and temperature too are devised by man to make sense of their variations found in nature. Your belief or non-belief has no relevance to these man-made units of measurement..
To say whether god exists or not, you need to define god. Only religions define god. Hence when you say god (or God) does not exist, what you mean is that god as defined by a religion does or does not exist. For example, for Christians of any shade, God is the trinity of father, son and the holy ghost, no other god exists.You take away one, the concept of Trinity (God) crumbles since the three have no separate existence, For Muslims, Allah is the one and only god, none other exists. For the Jew, only Yahweh exists as God; all the other gods are false. Hindu has many concepts of God – ranging from a formless, emotionless god of no attributes through regularly incarnating Vishnu to Santhoshi Ma, invented by a film maker. To them, even a Muslim mendicant who was found under a tree in Shirdi village became God though he only mentioned Allah, not Shiva or Vishnu
If you take the sum total of all those religious arguments into account, none of them exists.
So before you say you believe or do not believe in god, define god. If the dark matter or Higgs Boson particle(euphemistically named god particle) is defined as god, there are reasons to believe that they both exist.
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