God vs. Science

Check out this story I came across, I hope it encourages you today!

Let me explain the problem science has with religion.’ The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.
‘You’re a Christian, aren’t you, son?’
‘Yes sir,’ the student says.
‘So you believe in God?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Is God good?’
‘Sure! God’s good.’
‘Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?’
‘Yes’
‘Are you good or evil?’
‘The Bible says I’m evil.’
The professor grins knowingly. ‘Aha! The Bible!’ He considers for a moment. ‘Here’s one for you. Let’s say there’s a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?’
‘Yes sir, I would.’
‘So you’re good…!’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘But why not say that? You’d help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn’t.’
The student does not answer, so the professor continues. ‘He doesn’t, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?’
The student remains silent.
‘No, you can’t, can you?’ the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.
‘Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?’
Er … yes,’ the student says.
‘Is Satan good?’
The student doesn’t hesitate on this one. ‘No.’
‘Then where does Satan come from?’
The student falters. ‘From God’
‘That’s right. God made Satan, didn’t he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Evil’s everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything, correct?’
‘Yes’
‘So who created evil?’ The professor continued, ‘If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.’
Again, the student has no answer. ‘Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?’
The student squirms on his feet. ‘Yes.’
‘So who created them?’
The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. ‘Who created them?’ There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. ‘Tell me,’ he continues onto another student. ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?’
The student’s voice betrays him and cracks. ‘Yes, professor, I do.’
The old man stops pacing. ‘Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?’
‘No sir. I’ve never seen Him.’
‘Then tell us if you’ve ever heard your Jesus?’
‘No, sir, I have not.’
‘Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?’
‘No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t.’
‘Yet you still believe in him?’
‘Yes’
‘According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?’
‘Nothing,’ the student replies. ‘I only have my faith.’
‘Yes, faith,’ the professor repeats. ‘And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.’
The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. ‘Professor, is there such thing as heat?’
‘ yes.
‘And is there such a thing as cold?’
‘Yes, son, there’s cold too.’
‘No sir, there isn’t.’
The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. ‘You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don’t have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees.’
‘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 (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.’
Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.
‘What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?’
‘Yes,’ the professor replies without hesitation. ‘What is night if it isn’t darkness?’
‘You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? That’s the meaning we use to define the word.’
‘In reality, darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?’
The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. ‘So what point are you making, young man?’
‘Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.’
The professor’s face cannot hide his surprise this time. ‘Fl awed? Can you explain how?’
‘You are working on the premise of duality,’ the student explains. ‘You argue that there is life and then there’s death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can’t even explain a thought.’
‘It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.’
‘Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?’
‘If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.’
‘Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?’
The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.
‘Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?’
The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.
‘To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.’
The student looks around the room. ‘Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor’s brain?’ The class breaks out into laughter.
‘Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s brain, felt the professor’s brain, touched or smelt the professor’s brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.’
‘So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lecture s, sir?’
Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.
Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. ‘I guess you’ll have to take them on faith.’
‘Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,’ the student continues. ‘Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?’
Now uncertain, the professor responds, ‘Of course, there is. We see it everyday 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.’
To 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 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.’

The professor sat down.
If you read it all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, mail to your friends and family with the title ‘God vs Science’

PS: the student was Albert Einstein

Are you Dangerous?

Today I was thinking, "I wonder if Satan is fearful of me?" Now we could dive into a deep theological discussion but lets just think about it simply for a second. "Am I dangerous to Satan?" You see, I am a guy and those of you who know guys know that they like fighting, battles, and doing dangerous things for the most part. So obviously as I was thinking about this I really started to get excited. I want to be dangerous or a threat to the enemy's plans. I want to wake up each morning empowered by the Holy Spirit of God and take on the world. I am not talking about doing these monumental things that "the world" would say is great but I want to be dangerous in the little things. For instance, when I walk into the coffee shop in the morning I want to make sad people smile. I want to bring back the joy that Satan has robbed many people of. Imagine people have a joy meter that goes from -10 to +10. When you encounter someone do they shift to the negative or move toward the positive? Everyone we encounter is affected by what we say or how we act. How does that make you feel? That you have the opportunity to take someone from a -10 day to a +10 day. Are you asking God for opportunities to be dangerous to the enemy? Are you looking for ways to encourage one another? Do you want to be dangerous? I know I do, I want to cause as much damage to the enemy and share the abundance of love that Jesus Christ has shown me by his shed blood on the cross. So I want to encourage you to live dangerously today!

But, Jesus...

I have been reading and thinking about Mark 6 recently. There is a lot in that chapter but what interests me is when the disciples present a problem to Jesus. The disciples are trying to get the crowds to leave and they come to Jesus and tell him to send them away so they can go to town to get some food. Well Jesus responds by saying, "You give them something to eat." Can you picture this scene? BUT JESUS! You want us to go buy the food? That would be 8 months wages! BUT JESUS, don't you understand how much work this will take? BUT JESUS, what you are asking us to do is impossible. I wonder if Jesus was thinking, BUT DISCIPLES, don't you trust me? BUT DISCIPLES, don't you believe I am big enough to provide?

Many times God calls us to do things. Sometimes they are little things and other times they are bigger. How many times do we say BUT JESUS and start coming up with excuses of why we can't do something for God. The great thing about God is that he is constantly giving us opportunities to trust him. Everyday we have an opportunity to test our faith. I want to encourage you to step out in faith and let God amaze you today!

Alaska - Summary

Well, we have finally arrived home. Our trip to Alaska was truly an adventure. When we left our prayer was that God would use us while we were there and bring things together for the mission's trip this summer. God opened doors for us to share with high school students at different schools, encourage families, pastors, and communities by sharing the word of God, ministering to broken people through providing food and praying with them, and he grew our faith as well.

Our trip home was a long adventure. Don can sleep on planes and I can't. I went about 40 hours without sleeping and I still experiencing jet lag as I have trouble going to bed before 1am and I usually have to get up around 6:00am. I will just have to start getting some afternoon naps in.

I figured I will give you some of the basic details for next summer. We will be having meetings at Countryside Chapel in the near future for those wanting to get involved. The trip we be from August 7th -14th or 15th. There may be an option for some to stay longer but we still need to work out those details. As of right now we don't have a limit on how many people can go and depending on plane tickets the cost per person looks to be around $1,000 to $1,200. There will be a lot of work projects to do at Dennis and Celesta's church including painting, trim work, landscaping, chopping down trees, drywall, and much more. They also need help with their food ministry and we might be able to put on a VBS at their church. Marlin is also interested in putting on a youth outreach event in the Sutton area. These are a few of the details and please let me know if you want to be kept in the loop as we plan for next summer and get the team together.

Alaska - Day 10

Every Thursday morning Dennis has breakfast with some local pastors and missionaries in the community. Some of the them minister in Anchorage and others to the native Alaskan villages. Don and I were able to come along and it was very informative to hear about the ministry to the native villagers. The guys educated us on the native culture, history, and the most effective ways to minister to them. I was overwhelmed with how much ministry there is to the villages. Alaska is so big (like 3 or 4 times bigger than Texas) with tons of native villages that you have to fly to get there. It was an eye opening experience and also encouraging to hear what these guys are doing to reach the native Alaskan villagers.

After doing some office work and preparing for ministry next week most of the day about 20 high school and college kids came over for our "Jesus Night." We spent about 2-3 hours wrestling with questions they had, challenging them to live boldly for Christ, and then spent some time singing songs and worshipping. We met a lot of awesome kids today and I hope that God does some amazing things with them. I am going to try to catch up on some sleep tonight because tomorrow night it is time to fly back to Ohio.

Alaska - Day 9

Our Alaskan adventure is beginning to wind down. We will fly back to Ohio late Friday night and dive right into a jam packed fall full of ministry. We had to wake up and hit the road by 5am this morning. It was a really dark 2 and half hour drive to Cook Inlet Academy in Soldotna. We arrived a little early and joined the staff and administration for devotions and prayer. Mary (the principal) gave us a tour of the school and gave us some insight to the student body. Don and I had a great time sharing with the students and encouraging them to passionately live out their faith in Jesus. Afterwards we grabbed some coffee with Pastor Larry, his wife, and his daughter-in-law. It was a good time of brainstorming and recapping the trip with each other. We had a long drive back to Anchorage so Don and I made a lot of phone calls to catch up with people, work on ministry for next week, and raise support.

We got back to the Richardsons in time for dinner. They cooked up some Salmon and Moose Burgers. To our surprise Don actually tasted part of a moose burger and he survived! He actually said it wasn't that bad. After dinner a few of Seth and Sarah's friends came over and we spent hours having Theological discussions. There were some pretty intense times with Dennis and Don going back and forth but it was great conversation. Tomorrow we will go with Dennis to breakfast with a few local pastors and then tomorrow night we will have a Jesus night at their house. I guess they made an announcement at the high school so we might have a lot of kids over at Dennis and Celesta's house for pizza and Jesus time.

Alaska - Day 8

We awoke early today to coffee and devotions with Dennis and Celesta. Then we ventured out for the long day of ministry ahead. We arrived to Mountain View Baptist Church around 8:30 to prepare for the food shelf that runs the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month. We saw how organized and structured the program is. It takes many volunteers and food donations to run each week as it serves 40-50 local families. Don and I were able to serve by helping people carry their food to their cars or to their homes. There also were a few opportunities to pray with people. It was a reminder to us both about how blessed we are to have food in our cupboards. Many of the people that came through were very thankful for the food. Once the food shelf was finished and cleaned up we drove to the Alaska Food Bank to stock up. Their food supply had run really low and when we showed up at the Food Bank it was like Christmas. The Alaska Food Bank is a place where retailers, wholesalers, etc. donate food and then non-profit organizations can come pick up food for $0.18 per pound. Dennis said they were lucky to get a couple hundred pounds of food lately but today we got 1700lbs of food. We packed a Ford Explorer and Dennis's car full of food. Then we spent most of the afternoon unloading and storing all the food we got.

Dennis squeezed in a quick tour of the church and shared many needs for the church that we can help with next summer. There is much need there and I am excited for how countryside Chapel can serve next summer.

After a quick rest and coffee break we had to get ready for Kids for Christ club which starts at 5:30. We had a meal then went upstairs to sing some songs. There was about 30-40 kids there from Kindergarten through 6th grade. Don taught them a song and then I was able to share with them about Jesus for about 15 minutes.

It felt good to finally get back to the house and relax. Some friends of Dennis and Celesta came over and we just spent some time hanging out and eating ice cream. Hopefully we can get a few hours of sleep tonight because we have to get up at 5:00am tomorrow.

Alaska - Day 7

Today was one of those rainy nasty days where you want to just sit around and drink coffee. After Marlin was done with his morning bus route that he sometimes drives we spent time fellowshipping together. It was a great morning to talk about life, God, ministry, and sports. Around noon Aaron (youth pastor at Glacier View) came down to the house. He took Don and I down the road to Victory Bible Camp. This camp is absolutely beautiful and I wish we could have seen it on a sunny day. The camp serves around 700-800 youth each summer.

After our tour of Victory Bible Camp we packed our stuff up and loaded it into the car. We decided to head back to Anchorage today because the weather wasn't looking too good and there could possibly be snow overnight. Before we left Marlin & Sharon took us out to eat at the Long Rifle Lodge. I enjoyed a Glacier Burger (it was good!) while actually looking at a Glacier out the window. The view was pretty amazing along with all the stuffed bears and other animals inside the lodge. After dinner we said our goodbyes and prayed with Marlin & Sharon.

We made the hour and a half drive through rain and clouds back to Anchorage. We we arrived we found Dennis and his moose hunting buddies butchering the moose in the garage. It took some convincing but Don eventually came out to take a look. After the initial shock of seeing the inner parts of a moose Don finally became curious and inquisitive of the butchering process and began to take pictures. I believe he has taken over 350 pictures so far this trip. I will try to post some pictures in Day 8. Don is still not convinced to try moose meat but hopefully before we fly back he will try it. We have a really busy day tomorrow so some rest is needed. Check back for Day 8 to hear about the food bank and kids club.

Alaska - Day 6

Thought for the day: "Do you see people where they are or where they could be?"

Don and I were privileged to get to share at GlacierView Bible Church this morning. The church has a congregation around 150 people and tends to fluctuate from summer to winter. Since many in the area travel much to work and make a living in Alaska consistency is one of the biggest struggles for the congregation. Marlin has been the pastor for 23 years. They have moved into in the building above in the picture in 2001. Don preached and we were able to share about Off The Wall and stress the importance of discipleship. We also spent time after the service talking with a lot of the young people at the church. Many of them serve at Victory Bible Camp. We also spent some time with the director of Victory Bible Camp and the possibility of speaking and serving there next summer with the Mission's Trip.

We met a man named Dwayne at church who trains missionary pilots to go into the interior of Alaska and into Russia. He offered to take us on a scenic flight in the afternoon but due to bad weather we were unable to go so we spent the afternoon talking about ministry in Alaska.

GlacierView recently planted a church in a nearby town called Chickaloon which holds its services on Sunday evenings at 6pm. We made the 30 minute drive that evening and I was able to share. We packed about 40 people in a small little community center building. It was great to meet and talk with the people and hear their stories. Marlin also mentioned that they have discussed planting another church in a town called Sutton. It might be something we may be able to help with next summer. It was a busy day but God is good and I met some awesome people and saw the huge ministry need here in GlacierView Alaska.

Alaska - Day 5

"Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God." - RC Sproul

I thought I have seen God's majesty on this trip but today blew me away. We grabbed Dennis & Celesta's son Seth and headed up to Glacierview where Marlin Beachy lives. As we drove deeper into the mountains Don kept leaning out the passenger window to take pictures. It was about a 3 hour drive with all the stops we made.

Once we arrived at the Beachy's house they gave us a tour of the area. Then they decided to show us the Glacier and some other scenery. Marlin and Sharon (his wife) took us up to some of their land to see the view. We had to climb a small mountain to get there. This is when Don stated, "Black people are not meant to climb mountains, they are made to play basketball." The view was incredible.

After a excursion we made it back to the house and enjoyed some Alaskan Salmon. We spent the evening discussing the Glacierview area and the ministry there. We also were able to brainstorm some ideas for ministry next summer. Tommorow we will be sharing Off The Wall Ministry at Glacierview Bible Church and Don will be preaching. Tommorow evening we will head to a church plant of Glacierview and I will be preaching.