In Boston
With Jolene. Pictures to follow.
Meh . . .
meh . . .
So My Aunt’s Cancer Is Gone
Uhm yeah. No medications. No radiation. No surgery. Nothing. Refused it. Said she would pray instead.
Doctors said, ‘get treatment!’
She said, ‘I got Jesus.’
Cancer is gone. All scans, which previously said it was serious like crazy, plan not being around much longer, sorry, that’s how it is, and after months of this, nothing. No cancer.
She says that the doctors are “baffled.”
There is a medical conference in a couple of days and they will be presenting her case before a building full of medical professionals. She says she can’t wait to see what they come up with as an explanation when all the other specialists she has been working with have come up with nothing. Should prove interesting.
Did I mention she’s a nurse? A medical professional herself?
We’re currently talking (Read:arguing) about ‘miracles’ in my philosophy class. Looking at Augustine, Anslem, Aquinas, Ockham and Descartes. God’s role in the world, if any; fate/free will; ontological arguments, finding the most rational answer after a skeptical search for epistemological truth; Revealed and Natural Theology: fun stuff esp. since most believe that I am either an atheist, or a theist who gave up on ‘religion.’
I think I will read her letter to the class tomorrow morning.
+1 God
Divine Love: So Unsatisfying
One of my students just called me in tears. Freaking out about the recent shootings here in CO churches and mission centers. She is connected to the shooter, who was raised Christian himself.
She’s been struggling with her faith, largely from being in my philosophy class (good job MEH), and this was a straw on the camel’s back. She’s almost broken.
“Why would God allow this? An all-loving, all-powerful God?” The basic question of theodicy again: the problem of evil.
The best I can give her: the free-will defense, which I “just so happened” (Read: God) to have been reading about again recently. I was able to phrase and wrap it in the nature of God this time: Love.
- God is love.
- God wanted to give creature the ability to love, which requires giving us freedom.
- Freedom also means we can create unlove (evil), etc.
You can see where this leads.
It’s a timeless argument, and I fully believe it, but as many an atheist has said over the centuries, “no theodicy should be posited which can not be said in the presence of burning children, or their watching parents.” i.e. Philosophy, no matter how true, doesn’t heal the hurting heart.
Does theology?
For that is what this is. “Words about God.” God IS love.
There are so many other concepts we didn’t discuss:
- Is God hurt by our unloving actions?
- Is creaturely freedom really worth all the evil in the world?
- Where does Jesus fit in?
- Where does the church fit in?
It goes on . . .
Regardless, the ‘truth’ seems so insufficient, so limited. Not comforting.
WTF?
Christmas Time Is Here . . .
http://greyparty.net/misc-musicing/christmas-time-is-here/
For a limited time only.
For example: Silent Night