What is Albert Einstein Copypasta?

A fictional dialogue in which a religious student rebuts a professor arguing that God must be evil, then is revealed as a young Albert Einstein in the final line.

Where did Albert Einstein Copypasta come from?

Snopes traced the earliest recorded version to email chains circulating in 1999, with no confirmed author.

What does Albert Einstein Copypasta mean?

The story argues that evil is the absence of God, using cold (absence of heat) and darkness (absence of light) as parallels.

How do you use Albert Einstein Copypasta?

Follow the story's structure of a mundane setup and a twist reveal, closing with 'That young man was [famous person]'.

Is Albert Einstein Copypasta still popular?

Snopes first documented it in 1999 and has kept its debunking page live as the story kept circulating in variants for over two decades.

Albert Einstein Copypasta

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Published August 15, 2026

The Albert Einstein Copypasta is a fictional email-era story in which a religious student rebuts an atheist professor's argument that God must be evil, and is revealed in the last line to be a young Albert Einstein. Snopes traced early versions to 1999 chain emails and flagged the story as apocryphal, though it kept spreading through blogs, Facebook, and Reddit variants for two more decades.

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Overview

The Albert Einstein Copypasta is a fictional dialogue in which a bright religious student rebuts a professor's argument that God must be evil, and is revealed in the final line to be a young Albert Einstein1. The exchange runs through three parallels. The student argues that cold does not exist (only the absence of heat), that darkness does not exist (only the absence of light), and therefore that evil does not exist (only the absence of God) before the twist ending names him2.

Snopes classified the story as apocryphal, pointing out that Einstein's real writings on religion were closer to agnostic than to the pious apologist the text portrays1. The copypasta kept circulating anyway, and its 'That young man's name was Albert Einstein' punchline outgrew the debate itself.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Email chains / Facebook and Reddit (viral spread)

Date

1999

Snopes traced the earliest recorded version of the story to email chains passing around in 1999, with no confirmed author attached to it1. The text moved through forwarded inboxes for years before jumping to the open web in the mid-to-late 2000s, where it later attracted parody variants.

How It Spread

An early public web post landed on April 14, 2008, when the story went up on the yoga blog Sahaja Power under the title 'Evil Does Not Exist'2. A member of the Hyperacusis Network Forums reposted it in November 2009, and on April 14, 2012, Facebook user Cory Jones shared a variation that pulled in over 402,600 shares in the following three years; two days later, Redditor Waja_Wabit posted a screenshot to r/atheism where it hit 6,000+ upvotes and 690 comments3.

Parody versions soon overtook the sincere original. A 4chan riff from 2011 swapped Einstein for a 'liberal Muslim homosexual ACLU' professor teaching Karl Marx, Tumblr user Tossiblog reposted the parody that November for 3,600+ notes, and on October 21, 2013, Redditor i_forget_my_userids posted a /r/circlejerk joke revealing science communicator Carl Sagan to be Einstein. The absurdist form spiked on February 25, 2019, when an r/dankmemes post featuring Billie Eilish handing a young Elon Musk a roll of 'Air Conditioning Pair Coil' hit 73,400+ points, and Musk himself retweeted the image on May 16, 2019, drawing over 504,000 likes and 92,200 retweets3.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically opens with a mundane scene and short dialogue, includes a piece of insight or a gifted object, and closes with the twist line 'That young man was [famous person],' following the structure of the original Einstein story2. Common substitutes include Elon Musk and Carl Sagan, and the final reveal line is often quoted on its own in threads to mock hyperbolic tall tales3.