[realitycheck]

First of all (and there is only a "first of all", because I omitted the "secondly"), consider this:

Light and heat are both things that can be measured in exactness. Since they can be measured, they obviously have certain degrees at which they are non-existant and therefore at zero (even when you omit the artificial scale systems that humans have developed to make measurements easier to obtain). For light, zero is equivilant to complete darkness. For heat, zero is equal to zero degrees Kelvin. However, what is zero for good? Is it murder? Is it treachery?

The answer is that there is no zero for this. It cannot be measured. Evil cannot be the absence of good because evil and good are both matters of perception. They are ONLY opinions that are relative to the currently adapted standards of a certain society. For example, the absence of suffrage for women was considered a good thing by most Americans 200 years ago. In modern society, that past conception is considered to be not good or evil since it denies equality between the two sexes. As you can see, the definition of good changes with time, and it is a matter of perception.

Furthermore, I am almost certain that Einstein did not actually say this. He was a genius, and would never have claimed that evil is the absence of good (unless, of course, he did it when he was very young and not yet smart enough to realize that "good" is not an exact science).