More questions than answers

Two things pop to mind.

First, in Matthew 22:37 when asked about the greatest commandments, Jesus is recorded as saying, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ It seems that we delight in the first two but tend to gloss over the third. When the students were sharing in chapel today, I couldn’t help but think of this scripture and how it appears to be a requirement rather than a suggestion. I may be out of line but I rather suspect that He takes no delight in intellectual laziness. Having said that, I cannot lay the blame solely at the feet of today’s young (and older) generation. Sadly, since the mid-19th century when Christendom had no immediate response for the new scientific thinking of the day (Darwinism et al), we put our emphasis in faith based on personal experience rather than sound doctrine and intellectual rigour. So we have come about our ignorance of reasons for faith quite honestly. By the way, please understand that I am not opposed to experience and relationship (indeed it is at the top of my list of desires for myself and my students) but without an intelligent, thoughtful, serious challenge to the prevailing secularisms of the day, we have no right to the marketplace of ideas. These are our leaders of the future. What shall we do BUT equip them as best we can?

Second, Steven C. Meyer has said, “The heart cannot exult in what the mind rejects.” Personally, I know this to be true, once being a self-proclaimed atheist and hater of every mindless Christian. (In my late teens I was convinced of Darwinism and fully believed that to be a Christian one had to commit intellectual seppuku. Okay, so I know better now.) However, I believe that at some point every student, every Christian with a shred of intellectual integrity will be forced to come to grips with the tough questions leveled against Biblical teaching. And as time goes by, we should expect our detractors to become more vociferous in their complaints. Do I have enough understanding to be able to satisfy those issue in my own mind let alone answer?  

Interview with Steven C. Meyer:

Did Hitler Have It Right?

At the last minute this morning, I decided to show my grade 10 class a video which precipitated an engaging, prolonged discussion. The video featured a collage of on-the-street interviews focussing on the morality of the Holocaust, abortion and our own moral responsibilities before our nation and before God. Interspersed were informational clips about the Nazi genocide and our modern abortion history. The interviews were pointed and in the end forced each interviewee to at least rethink their positions on the morality of abortion. Personally, two things struck me forcefully. First, I was shocked at how few people knew who Adolf Hitler was. Second, how many of the interviewees admitted that they had never actually thought through their previous positions. I understand that most of what I teach will be forgotten prior to the end of the year (worst case scenario) or not long after graduation (more realistic). Not only that but, with emerging technology, it is becoming more important to be able to access knowledge than it is to possess it. If that were so…WHY bother teaching then? For me it is simple. I firmly believe that good decisions only can be arrived at if based on good information. So my perfect world is when my students learn to think critically of everything that is thrown at them - be it the media, their faith or even what they get from me.

To my shame, I have always kept history at arms length unless I could watch it on The History Channel. I just could not wrap my brain around names, places and dates. History seemed like a memory exercise with no tangible relevance. Just not my favourite subject - boy, was I wrong. Consequently, it is only recently that I have discovered that there is more than just a passing link between these issues. It is much more than, 'Gee, why don't we compare the Nazi Holocaust with abortion?' I had not realized that the 1920’s American Eugenics movement (and that of other countries as well), Hitler’s Aryan Society and the Final Solution were historically related through the influence of Darwin’s The Descent of Man. The same worldview that devalues human life survives today in the guise of Planned Parenthood with its visible fruit being abortion.

Really, IF Darwin was right, then we are merely an evolving species and that anyone that is NOT white is at a lower evolutionary level... AND Hitler did get it right. He actually should have eliminated all polluters of the genetic pool. Modern evolutionist really do not like to talk about this, but the logic is inescapable: Darwin's end-game. However, if humans are more than mere animals (which I propose) then Hitler was wrong (and so is Darwin)!

I feel a rant coming on…more later…maybe.
More on eugenics in America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

Here’s the vid:

Some first thoughts to get the ball rolling

“Numero pondere et mensura Deus omnia condidit” - Sir Isaac Newton 

 (God created everything by number, weight and measure.) 


Psalm 8
³ When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,    which you have set in place,⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,    human beings that you care for them?



Funny how life is sometimes as we start down one road and find our heart on another. During my university days I considered myself more of a biology-guy than anything else; after all - my degree was in the life sciences. I especially fell in love with cell biology, microbiology and genetics. Although I still get giddy when thinking about those disciplines, once I started teaching I felt drawn to the physical sciences of chemistry and physics, especially as they relate to cosmology.  Consequently, I see the fingerprint of the Divine everywhere! Not only that, but God has allowed me the privilege to be surrounded by incredible young people and together to look into the face of the Divine as we 'consider' His works. God is great!