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Blood Substitute Saves Lives, Reduces Blood Waste
Fri Apr 5, 5:23 PM ET
By Charnicia E. Huggins
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An experimental blood substitute that was successfully used as an alternative to blood transfusion in a 44-year-old Jehovah's Witness may help eliminate excessive waste of unused blood in our nation's supply, a Colorado researcher suggests.
 
The product, PolyHeme, uses hemoglobin--the molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to tissues throughout the body--from outdated human red blood cells. The cells are stripped of their protective membrane, which would normally elicit an immune response to foreign proteins, or foreign blood types. After undergoing various other modifications, the naked hemoglobin can then be transfused into any individual--regardless of his or her blood type--and even into animals, Dr. Ernest E. Moore of Denver Health Medical Center told Reuters Health.

Furthermore, although PolyHeme reportedly lasts in the body for only 72 hours, it may provide a temporary fix for critically injured patients who do not have immediate access to stored blood.

"(PolyHeme) may be one of the most significant advances since the discovery (news - web sites) of blood types," Moore said. Moore's research with PolyHeme is funded by the product's manufacturer, the Illinois-based Northfield Laboratories Inc.

The US Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) (FDA) needs to investigate the product to determine whether or not it may be used by doctors. In November 2001, the FDA told Northfield Laboratories that it needed additional information on PolyHeme before accepting its application for filing.

Because it looks promising, however, the FDA allows its "compassionate use," such as in the present case involving the Jehovah's Witness, Moore said.

Jehovah's Witnesses' religious beliefs require them to refuse blood transfusions, along with any other medical treatments that involve the administration of blood or blood products. However, these beliefs are specific to transfusions of whole blood or one of its four main components--red cells, white cells, platelets, or plasma--and do not take into account transfusions of smaller components of blood, such as that used in PolyHeme.

"Although not accepting blood transfusions, each Witness makes a personal decision about what bloodless alternative he or she will accept," J. R. Brown, director of the Jehovah's Witnesses' national office of public information, told Reuters Health.
For full story, click here

Here's a question posed by a student to God:
Dear God,
Why didn't you save the school children in Littleton, Colorado?
Sincerely,
Concerned Student

Dear Concerned Student,
I am not allowed in schools.
Sincerely,
God
....Now read below for how this has unfolded in an incredibly short period of time:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let's see, I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools.
And we said, OK...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school, the Bible that says "thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself."
And we said, OK...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.
And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about so we won't spank them anymore...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave.
And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued.
And we accepted their reasoning...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents.
And we said, that's a grand idea...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the
fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them
at school.
And we said, that's another great idea..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Public office is not about character debates.
And we said, it doesn't matter what anybody, including the President, does in private, or the way he has conducted himself in his past, as long as we have jobs and the economy is good...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body.
And we said, we have no problem with that...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then stepped further still by making them available on the Internet.
And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex... And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...
And we said, it's just entertainment and it has no adverse effect and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Undoubtedly, if we thought about it long and hard enough, we could figure it out. I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lutherans sorry for silence on Nazis

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - Finland's dominant Lutheran Church on
Thursday apologized for decades of silence about the Holocaust,
pledging to do more to raise awareness of the Nazi extermination
campaign against the Jews. "The church admits it was silent over the
Holocaust and apologizes to the Jewish community," bishops and other
church leaders said during a synod. The synod, held at the seat of
the Lutheran archbishop in Turku, 100 miles west of Helsinki, came
days after a memorial was unveiled for the only eight Jews extradited
by Finland to Germany - its wartime ally - in 1942 and later sent to
the Auschwitz concentration camp. Finland's Evanglical Lutheran
Church, which has about 85% of the population as members, has not
suppressed information about the Nazi massacres of some 6 million
Jews but acknowledged it has not done enough to promote awareness.

Did you know....
1) Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the entire bible?
2) Psalm 117, before Psalm 118 is the shortest chapter in the bible?
3) Psalm 119, after Psalm 118 is the longest chapter in the bible?
4) The Bible has 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and 594 chapters after Psalm 118?
5) If you add up all the chapters except Psalm 118, you get a total of 1188 chapters.
6) 1188 or Psalm 118 verse 8 is the middle verse of the entire bible?

Should the central verse then not have an important message?
"Better to take refuge in Jehovah than to put confidence in man." - Psalm 118:8 Byington

Episcopalian minister leaves with 150 members to avoid ties with homosexuals
Denver
"We want to return to the roots of the faith that the Episcopal Church
once held," said the Rev. Gerry Schnackenberg. The 23-year priest has
left St.Philip and St. James Episcopal Church and taken with him 150
members, or two-thirds, of the congregation.

Schnackenberg, 52, and his flock have joined the Anglican Mission in
America, a growing traditionalist movement of 20 churches, including
four in Colorado. They object to the Episcopal Church's increasing
acceptance of sexual unions outside marriage, including homosexuality,
and tolerance of bishops such as Jack Spong of Newark, who has publicly
announced he no longer believes in a personal God.

Entire article found here:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/1006chur4.shtml

International meetings debate religions' validity
High Point Enterprise, Saturday, September 16, 2000 http://www.hpe.com

   CNN founder Ted Turner was an odd choice as honorary chairman of the "peace summit" on interfaith tolerance, which drew 1000 leaders from many religions to the United Nations in late August.
   Turner told the throng that folks in the Southern church where he grew up "thought that nobody was going to heaven except them" and maybe 99 percent of humanity was going to hell.
   The U.N. meeting included few conservative Christians, and many participants contended that the religious freedom enshrined in the U.N.'s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights should not extend to convert-seeking.
   As if responding to such talk, a Sept. 5 Vatican decree against religious relativism declared that followers of others religions "are in a gravely deficient situation" compared with those in the church with "the fulness of the means of salvation."
  The summer's other religious summit meeting was totally different, however: Billy Graham's conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for 10,700 evangelical Protestants from 207 lands. Among leaders of this international movement there's no apology for soul-winning based on Christianity's exclusive claims.
  An "Amsterdam Declaration," which summarized the meeting, said "there may well be traces of truth, beauty and goodness in many non-Christian belief systems" but they are not "roads to salvation."

 Ex-Swaggart employee pleads guilty

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A former fund-raiser for Jimmy Swaggart
Ministries admitted spending $769,000 of the ministry's money on
women around the country last year. John J. Clouser, 34, who earned
$30,000 as the ministry's director of development and planned giving,
pleaded guilty Friday in state court to money laundering and bank
fraud. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a 20-year cap on Clouser's
prison time when state District Judge Bonnie Jackson sentences him in
September. His expenditures included World Series tickets, moving
expenses and rent for one woman, and a sport utility vehicle for
another, said prosecutor Mark Pethke. Clouser already has been
sentenced in federal court to 57 months in prison and ordered to
repay Swaggart Ministries $841,563 including interest, after pleading
guilty to one count of money laundering, assistant U.S. Attorney Ian
Hipwell said. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2567969498-286A

NEW YORK (AP)

- Some 850 clergy and other religious workers have endorsed a declaration on morality that
calls upon all faiths to bless same-sex couple and allow gay and lesbian ministers
 see  http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndstue02.htm

              Religion is delivered to doorstep by video
              By Victoria Combe, Religion Correspondent
                    ONE thousand churches of all denominations have agreed
                    to start door-to-door evangelism this year in a style similar
                    to that used by Jehovah's Witnesses.

                    To mark the Millennium, the churches are offering people a
                    free 80-minute video of the life of Jesus, as told in St
                    Luke's Gospel. Already 230,000 videos have been
                    distributed to homes as part of the project run by the
                    evangelical organisation, Agape. Denominations taking
                    part, which include Roman Catholic, Church of England,
                    Baptist and Methodist churches, pay Agape £1 for a copy
                    of the video which they then give to parishioners.

                    George Hyder, of the London City Mission, who has
                    distributed the video to tenants of blocks of council flats by
                    Tower Bridge Road in Bermondsey, south-east London,
                    will return in a week's time to ask them seven questions
                    about their thoughts on the film and whether it stirred their
                    interest to know more about Jesus.

                    Seventy per cent of the residents who were at home
                    accepted the video or a magazine. Unlike other
                    evangelistic projects, the video campaign has been seized
                    on by more reticent and conservative churches where
                    worshippers are happier to offer a free gift than hold forth
                    about the Bible.

Limerick

There was a young man who said: 'God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad.'
             Reply:
'Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd
I am always about in the Quad;
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by Yours faithfully, GOD.'
-Ronald Knox 1888-1957

DEFINITION OF RELIGIOUS TERMS:

FATALISM-------------------Things happen.
OPTIMIST--------------------Everything happens for the best.
PESSIMISM -------------Things happen in spite of all your best efforts.
ATHEISM--------------------Things happen for no apparent reason.
AGNOSTICISM-------------No one can prove anything happens.
CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST-Nothing is happening; it's just God dreaming.
HINDUISM------------------It has all happened before; it will happen again
ISLAM-------------------------Things happen because it's written.
JUDAISM--------------------Why do things always happen to us?
CATHOLICISM-------------If things happen, you deserve it.
TAOISM-----------------------Good things happen if you go with the flow.
CONFUCIANISM----------Things like that always happen to someone like you.
BUDDHISM-----------------Mood makes things happen.
ZEN---------------------------- What is the sound of a thing happening if no one is there?
HARI KRISHNA-----------Things happen, things happen, things happen
SHINTOISM----------------If the emperor says lets have a happening, things happen.
PROTESTANISM----------All roads lead to the same happening.
T.V. EVANGELISTS------Send the ten thousand dollars and watch what happens.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES-Let us in and we'll tell you why things happen.

New Revised God-Less Version

Right from the pages of the Readers Digest Version and the neutered feminist Bible we now have a doctor from Denmark who has made a rewritten version of the Old Testament without any reference to God. Dr. Svend Lings says God and faith "are things of the past that can only chain us". He sees that many people are unhappy. "We are living in a Jewish-Christian culture," says Lings, "thus the Jewish-Christian culture must be responsible for our lack of happiness". So, to fix this problem, Lings has taken out any reference to God in the Hebrew Scriptures. InBible Without God, Genesis 3:12 says,"Adam thought to himself:'The Woman by my side gave me fruit, and then I ate.'"
That`s kind of like filming "Titanic" without a ship.(Excerpts from "AWAKE" magazine.)

Esperanto Bible

The ENI Bulletin of Geneva, Switzerland says that part of the bible were translated into 30 additional languages last year, including Esperanto. The entire Bible is now available in 363 languages, and parts of the Bible available in 2197 languages.
Stephen Hawking's Essay-Origin of the Universe

    "We showed that if General Relativity was correct, any
reasonable model of the universe must start with a singularity. This would mean that
science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning, but
that it could not predict how the universe should begin: for that one would
have to appeal to God."
     Hawking goes on to describe an alternative theory for the origin of the
universe in which he says the universe creates itself out of "nothing", but then
says that the universe was actually created out of "gravitational energy". Here is
Hawking's description:
     "Jonathan Halliwell and I, have made such an approximate calculation. We treated the universe as a perfectly smooth and uniform background, on which there were small perturbations of density. In real time, the universe would appear to begin its expansion at a
minimum radius. At first, the expansion would be what is called
inflationary. That is, the universe would double in size every tiny fraction of a
second, just as prices double every year in certain countries.
    This inflation was a good thing, in that it produced a
universe that was smooth and uniform on a large scale, and was expanding at
just the critical rate to avoid recollapse. The inflation was also a good
thing in that it produced all the contents of the universe, quite literally
out of nothing.
     When the universe was a single point, like the North Pole,
it contained nothing. Yet there are now at least 10 to the 80 particles
in the part of the universe that we can observe. Where did all these particles
come from? The answer is, that Relativity and quantum mechanics, allow
matter to be created out of energy, in the form of particle anti particle
pairs. So, where did the energy come from, to create the matter? The answer
is, that it was borrowed, from the gravitational energy of the universe."
For more on this article click here.

 Jesus photos protested in Sweden. STOCKHOLM (AP)

A crowd protesting the
opening of a photo exhibition depicting Jesus Christ in the company of homo-
sexuals threw rocks at the photographer when she stepped outside the museum
Sunday. The exhibition, titled "Ecce Homo," has provoked occasional protests
since first being shown in Stockholm last summer. It opened Sunday at the
city museum in Norrkoeping. Several hundred demonstrators gathered outside
the museum and some hurled stones at photographer Elisabeth Ohlson when she
stepped outside to photograph the crowd.

By Stephen Huba/Scripps Howard News Service

Americans Believe in Biblical Creation

 Americans have much stronger belief in the Bible's creation story than do Europeans, Canadians and citizens of other industrialized nations, according to a University of Cincinnati public opinion researcher.
 In one of the first studies of its kind, UC political science professor George Bishop compared the beliefs of Americans on human origins with those in other advanced countries.
 Bishop found that the belief in creationism is much higher in America than elsewhere.
 "Nearly a third of college graduates in recent Gallup polls still believe in the biblical account of creation," Bishop said. "This is somewhat of a theoretical riddle."
 Bishop's cross-national study was published last fall in The Public Perspective, a journal of the Roper Center. Bishop first presented his findings at the annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
 Citing Gallup and other public opinion polls since the early 1980s, Bishop said about 45 percent of Americans believe that God created man "pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."
 Another 40 percent believe that man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life but that God guided this process -what Bishop calls "theistic evolution."
 And 10 percent of Americans hold the Darwinist evolution position that man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life but that God had no part in the process.
 Bishop said the results are explained, in part, by a longstanding, shared "religious worldview" in America and a national willingness to take the Bible literally.
 Bishop said he was "astounded" by the findings.
 By comparison, only 7 percent of those surveyed in Great Britain said they take the biblical creation account of Genesis 1 literally, he said. Respondents in Germany, Norway, Russia and the Netherlands all ranked significantly lower than the United States in biblical literalism.
 "The scientific worldview has thus far failed to complete Darwin's revolution in the land of 'One Nation Under God,' " Bishop wrote in a summary of his findings.
 In the surveys Bishop examined, groups most likely to accept the biblical account of human origins were women, older Americans, the less well-educated, Southerners, African Americans and fundamentalist Protestants.
 The American tendency to believe in biblical creationism also means America has ranked low on international surveys that measure scientific literacy, he said.
 "We don't stack up very well as a nation," Bishop said. "Religious belief tends to be inversely correlated with what most scientists would say is simple fact."
 Bishop said he is not implying that religious people are uneducated; simply that they don't accept the "fact" of evolution.
 The study bothers Jim Eichenberger, author of a new video course on human origins and curriculum development editor for Cincinnati-based Standard Publishing.
 Eichenberger called Bishop's assumptions "arrogant."
 "It's not ignorant to question a purely naturalistic system of origins," Eichenberger said. "This is a good question that thinking people need to ask: How did we get here and why does it matter?"
 Just as important as a belief in God as creator is how that belief influences behavior, Eichenberger said.
 "Is it just lip service," he said, "or does it mean something?"
 Ken Ham, executive director and founder of Answers in Genesis, said Bishop's findings show that creation science organizations such as his are getting the word out.
 "I believe that when people are taught science correctly, they see that evolution is just a belief and not scientific fact," Ham said.
 Another explanation for the majority belief in creationism, Bishop said, may be that it creates a "spiral of silence," a climate where people with agnostic or atheistic beliefs are reluctant to state their views.
 In one survey of 17 developed nations, Americans were the most likely to accept the Bible as "the actual word of God ... to be taken literally, word for word," and the least likely to call the Bible "an ancient book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man."
 The countries most like the United States in religious beliefs are Ireland and Northern Ireland, Bishop said.
 Survey data indicate that there is a substantial split between scientists and the general public on beliefs about human evolution, Bishop said.
 Only 5 percent of American natural and physical scientists believe in the biblical creationist view, according to one survey. Fifty-five percent endorse the Darwinist position, and 40 percent accept theistic evolution.
 The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology identifies yet another position, that of "progressive creationism." Adherents accept the six-day account of creation in Genesis 1 but do not insist on literal 24-hour days.
JW's in Islamic Countries
The Jehovah's Witnesses are becoming a global religious force. Only 19% of Witnesses
now live in the United States. They have become prominent in the former Soviet Union and in the Islamic world, where they
meet in secret "cells," according to the Journal of
Contemporary Religion. The Witnesses have become less inclined to make prophesies, since
failed predictions have hurt their growth in the past, according to the Journal. Maintaining strict standards and filtering out
less-committed members is likely to facilitate expansion, as is the practice of assigning important roles to young people as
part-time missionaries, giving the sect a better chance of retaining their children. The publication predicted the Witnesses will
grow at about 4% a year.
Evolution vs. Creation, Round 2
3:00 a.m. 11.Jun.99.PDT
In a resurgence of the controversy surrounding the infamous 1925 Scopes
"Monkey Trial," the Kansas school system has become a battleground for
religious conservatives intent on turning back the clock on evolutionary
science.
The battle pits educators who support the teaching of evolution in the
classroom against those who say evolution confuses children and undermines
biblical teachings. "It's a real mud fight," said Kansas State Board of
Education chairwoman Linda Holloway. "After 150 years of the evolution
debate, it still hasn't been settled."
The trouble in Kansas began in May as a 27-member science committee neared
the end of a year-long process of writing new curriculum standards that
included evolution as a unifying concept linking all scientific disciplines.
A group called the Creation Science Association for Mid-America <
http://www.arky.org/csa/index.htm> challenged the committee and came up with
an alternate set of standards that sidestep evolution. The 10-member Kansas
Board of Education <http://www.ksbe.state.ks.us/commiss/bdaddr.html>
deadlocked in a vote on the matter in May, then chose not to vote on it at
its 8 to 9 June meeting after being besieged with opposing views. Another
vote was scheduled for the July meeting, though Holloway believed a decision
will not be made until August.
To be sure, arguments over evolution are not new. The most famous occurred
in 1925 when Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes went to trial over the
teacher's knowing infringement of a law banning the teaching of evolution.
Thirty years later, the trial inspired the play Inherit the Wind.
In this modern version of the old debate, Kansas is not alone. In February,
the Nebraska attorney general complained that new science standards being
written for children promoted evolution as fact rather than theory and could
contradict religious beliefs.
Education officials in Nebraska are expected to vote on the new standards on
Friday. Similar debates have arisen recently in other states, including
Michigan, Arizona, and New Mexico.
While evolution opponents are not demanding students be taught a biblical,
or creationist theory, they do call for evolution to be eliminated from
curriculums, or at least be treated as highly speculative.
"There has been in the last decade or two a very significant increase in the
number of skeptics who question evolution on purely scientific grounds,"
said Bill Hoesch, spokesman for the Institute for Creation Research in
Santee, California. "It's becoming inescapable."
Hoesch cited the work of Michael Behe, a professor at Lehigh University in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution.
The scientific community, however, views evolution theory as key to many
applied sciences, including medical research.
Calling the Kansas anti-evolution proposal "just awful," Eugenie Scott,
director of the National Center for Science Education in Berkeley,
California, said evolution is a key concept that students must understand to
advance educations in biology, medicine, and many other fields.
"Evolution is an overarching concept that explains why things are like they
are," Scott said.
The Kansas science committee refused to work with opponents to draft a
mutually acceptable set of standards. The controversy raised the ire of
Kansas Governor Bill Graves, who said the debate was distracting the board
of education from other matters.
Copyright <http://www.wired.com/news/reuters.html>© 1999 Reuters Limited.
CATHOLICS GOING FROM DOOR TO DOOR
New York Daily News Tuesday, June 01, 1999
Catholic Missionaries Bring Faith Door-to-Door
By VIRGINIA BREEN
Daily News Staff Writer
Those clean-cut young missionaries out knocking on Manhattan doors this week
aren't Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. They're Roman Catholics. More than
100 proselytizers from the U.S. and Latin America are taking to the streets this
week to invite lapsed Catholics back to the fold - and maybe gain a few converts.
 "The Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses are a great model of this kind of
thing, but we're not copying them, really, so much as the first Apostles," said
Paul Bernetsky, 38, executive director of Youth for the Third Millennium, the
Baltimore-based Catholic group spearheading the drive.
 "They're not going to be arguing with anyone or using fear tactics," Bernetsky
said, "just preaching their simple love of Christ."
 Bernetsky's group sprang into action during 1993's World Youth Day in Denver,
after Pope John Paul urged young Catholics, "Go out into the streets and into
public places, like the first Apostles who preached Christ."
 The group has done missionary work in Manhattan for the last two years, but
this week's drive is the first on a large scale.
 The missionaries, men and women in their early 20s, are visiting apartments,
handing out pamphlets and looking to engage harried New Yorkers in spiritual
discussions.
 They wear simple wooden crucifixes around their necks and T-shirts
emblazoned with the Gospel message "Be Not Afraid."
 At a Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday, Cardinal O'Connor blessed the
missionaries and urged the packed congregation to pray for them.
 "We attend workshops on how to approach people," said Joseph Pascale, 19, of
Neptune, N.J., who has devoted a year to full-time missionary work. "We do it in
the true missionary spirit, which is to be joyful even if you don't see immediate
results. But I've been fortunate to see things happen, like getting people back to
church."
The Problem With Science

"Let me explain the problem science has with Jesus Christ." 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."

"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.  "Ahh!  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 them?  "Would you
try?"

"Yes sir, I would."

"So you're good...!"

"I wouldn't say that."

"Why not say that?  You would help a sick and maimed person if you
could...in fact most of us would if we could...  God doesn't."

[No answer.]

"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?"

[No answer]

The elderly man is sympathetic.  "No, you can't, can you?"  He takes a
sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.
In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones.  "Let's start
again, young fella."
"Is God good?"

"Er...  Yes."

"Is Satan good?"

"No."

"Where does Satan come from?"  The student falters.

"From...  God..."

"That's right.  God made Satan, didn't he?"  The elderly man runs his
bony fingers through his thinning hair and turns to the smirking, student
audience. "I think we're going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies
and gentlemen."  He turns back to the Christian. "Tell me, son.  Is there
evil in this world?"

"Yes, sir."

"Evil's everywhere, isn't it?  Did God make everything?"

"Yes."

"Who created evil?

[No answer]

"Is there sickness in this world?  Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness.  All the
terrible things - do they exist in this world?"
The student squirms on his feet.  "Yes."

"Who created them?  "

[No answer]

The professor suddenly shouts at his student.  "WHO CREATED THEM? TELL
ME, PLEASE!"  The professor closes in for the kill and climbs into the
Christian's face.  In a still small voice:  "God created all evil, didn't
He, son?"

[No answer]

The student tries to hold the steady, experienced gaze and fails.
Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace the front of the classroom like
an aging panther.  The class is mesmerized. "Tell me," he continues, "How
is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?"
The professor swishes his arms around to encompass the  wickedness of the
world.  "All the hatred, the brutality,all the pain, all the torture, all
the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is
all over the world, isn't it,young man?"

[No answer]

"Don't you see it all over the place?  Huh?"

Pause.

"Don't you?"  The professor leans into the student's face again and
whispers, "Is God good?"

[No answer]

"Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks.  "Yes, professor.  I do." The
old man shakes his head sadly.  "Science says you have five senses you
use to identify and observe the world around you.  Have you?"

"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 . .
. in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?"

[No answer]

"Answer me, please."

"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."

"You're AFRAID...  you haven't?"

"No, sir."

"Yet you still believe in him?"

"...yes..."

"That takes FAITH!"  The professor smiles sagely at the underling.
"According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol,
science says your God doesn't exist.  What do you say to that, son? Where
is your God now?"

[The student doesn't answer]

"Sit down, please."

The Christian sits...Defeated. Another Christian raises his hand.

"Professor, may I address the class?"

The professor turns and smiles.  "Ah, another Christian in the vanguard!
Come, come, young man.  Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering."

The Christian looks around the room.  "Some interesting points you are
making, sir.  Now I've got a question for you.  Is there such thing as
heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies.  "There's heat."

"Is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No, sir, there isn't."

The professor's grin freezes.  The room suddenly goes very cold. The
second Christian continues.  "You can have lots of heat, even more heat,
super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't
have  anything called 'cold'.  We can hit 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 458 -  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.  A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.

"Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"

"That's a dumb question, son.  What is night if it isn't darkness? What
are you getting at...?"  (the professor starting to be impatient)

"So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"

"Yes..."

"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 and give me a jar of it.  Can you...give me a jar of
darker darkness, professor?"
Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him.
This will indeed be a good semester.
"Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?"

"Yes, professor.  My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to
start with and so your conclusion must be in error...."

The professor goes toxic.  "Flawed...?  How dare you...!""

"Sir, may I explain what I mean?"

The class is all ears.

"Explain...  oh, explain..."  The professor makes an admirable effort to
regain control.  Suddenly he is affability itself.  He waves his hand to
silence the class, for the student to continue. "You are working on the
premise of duality," the Christian explains. "That for example 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 cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism
but has never seen, much less fully understood them.  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, merely
the absence of it." The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the
desk of a neighbour who has been reading it.  "Here is one of the most
disgusting tabloids this country hosts, professor.  Is there such a thing
as immorality?"

"Of course there is, now look..."

"Wrong again, sir.  You see, immorality is merely the absence of
morality. Is there such thing as injustice?  No.  Injustice is the
absence of justice.    Is there such a thing as evil?"  The Christian
pauses. Isn't evil the absence of good?" The professor's face has turned
an alarming color.  He is so angry he is temporarily speechless. The
Christian continues.  "If there is evil in the world, professor, and we
all agree there is, then God, if he exists, must be accomplishing a work
through the agency of evil.  What is that work, God is accomplishing? The
Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will,  of our own free
will, choose good over evil."

The professor bridles.  "As a philosophical scientist, I don't vie this
matter as having anything to do with any choice; as a realist, I
absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological
factor as being part of the world equation because God is not
observable."

"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world
is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," the Christian
replies.  "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week!
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 makes a sucking sound with his teeth and gives his student
a silent, stony stare.

"Professor.  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
priest?"

"I'll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical
discussion. Now, have you quite finished?"  the professor hisses.

"So you don't accept God's moral code to do what is righteous?"

"I believe in what is - that's science!"

"Ahh!  SCIENCE!"  the student's face splits into a grin.  "Sir, you
rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. Science
too is a premise which is flawed..."

"SCIENCE IS FLAWED..?"  the professor splutters.

The class is in uproar. The Christian remains standing until the
commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to
the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?" The
professor wisely keeps silent. The Christian looks around the room.  "Is
there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The
class breaks out in laughter. The Christian points towards his elderly,
crumbling tutor.  "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. The Christian shakes his head sadly.  "It
appears no-one here has had any
sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever.  Well, according
to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science, I
DECLARE that the professor has no brain." The class is in chaos. The
Christian sits...  Because that is what a chair is for.
  

Heinz Schmitz