So this has been circulating facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150730485329578&set=p.10150730485329578&type=1
If the link doesn’t work for what ever reason, here’s a repost below. If you think it’s tl;dr, skip to the bottom for my analysis!
Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, 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. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness 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 its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is 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?
Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : 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 not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? 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, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
P.S.
I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?
Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.
By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.
The picture is from “A Serious Man”, a movie about a American Jewish professor who goes through a life crisis and questions his faith. The use of this image and the anecdote of Einstein (also a Jew) in correlation with the question of faith is kind of, wouldn’t you say, ironic?
12MAR12
The first day of beach outreach.
Morning session
We learned how to use our first evangelism tool: listening. For some, its easy to listening, for others its easy to talk and talk and talk. For some, its easy to ask questions, for others its easy to get distracted. Personally, I don’t talk and talk and talk, but I sometimes have difficulty listening and get distracted. But Roger Hershey (the Cru staffer who trained us for most of the “Why To’s” and some of the “How To’s”) break it down Barney style and gave us a list of open ended questions that probe and get under the surface real fast.
Beach Outreach
We went to Seascape Beach, a couple miles west of the Edgewater Resort. I was paired up with JT and Jonathan and at the get go found someone to engage. Brandon and Eddie—and eventually their friend Jonathan— are from New Jersey and are studying at a Christian college. Back in high school they had experience with Cru and had a positive one. They were really open and engaged. Jonathan Le took over most of the conversation, but since I was still inexperienced, and JT too probably, I was OK with that. Overall, the interaction was positive and was a real morale booster.
We then went on to find other people to talk to and got rejected (politely, for the most part) four times but found these two guys, Josh and Oas, chilling outside the party they were at. They were obliviously drunk and maybe high, but that made it easier to get them to open out. Josh sneaked off early in the conversation, but we had a engaged conversation with Oas.
He grew up Muslim but wasn’t completely practice at the time. His reasoning was that he wanted to enjoy life now and then become a devote Muslim after college. Sad, no? Who’s to say you can’t enjoy life without partying? I digress. We continued on, and Oas had a universal worldview on religion, that there’s no difference between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jonathan, and JT and I to some extent, gently guided the conversation to see if Oas can figure the major difference. Long story short, JT asked him about the Christian view of Jesus as wholly divine and wholly human and if that contrasted with the Islamic view. Oas did in the end agree on that major difference.
Between those two conversations, we got rejected a total of four times, and got approached by fellow Big Breakers three times. Those encounters with our fellow brothers and sisters were funny and awkward at the same time.
Evening Session
Matt Mikalatos taught from John 9 where Jesus heals a blind man. When the Pharisee dog the man on who healed him, they are in disbelieve. They disregard Jesus as evil and a sinner because He healed on the Sabbath. The Pharisee continue to question the man, the witness, can only testify about what happened. The Pharisee continually dog him, unbelieving in what happened. The man still can only testify what happened. The Pharisee go on to condone Jesus as a sinner, but the man rebukes them that God would not listen to a sinful man therefore Jesus is from God. The Pharisee respond by throwing him out of the Temple.
The point that Matt was getting at was to be a good witness. A good witness testifies to what God has done in his or her life. A bad witness will keep silent. But through the Gospels, every single time Jesus heals someone that person goes to his or her friends and testifies the healing that came to them. Go and do likewise.
As many of you know, I went on a missions trip with Texas Epic to Panama City Beach. Big Break 2012 is Cru’s three week long missions conference during spring break. The week Texas Epic went, over 1200 students from 90 different colleges attended. Since the entire thing was a week long, I’ll be breaking this down into several posts.
The breakdown for each day was a morning session when we were trained on how to use different evangelism tools. Then we had beach outreach in the afternoons in various sites along the coast. And ended the day with an evening session with Matt Mikalatos as the speaker.
10MAR12
Texas Epic and Cru meet in the Triangle at 0430 to load up and be on the road by 0500. We drove through the south parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, finally reaching Panama City Beach (or PCB) after a 16+ hour drive and got our room keys:
1801: Angus, Brandon, Boss, JT, Loren, Tommy, and myself
1509: Ivan, John Arnold, Josh Rhodes, Justin Yeh, and Ryan
1510: James, Jonathan, John Rong, Justin Nguyen, Peter, Sean, and Tae
1408: Esther, Eva, ,Jill, Joanne, and Michelle
1412: Adrienne, Allison, Cathy, Deb, and Ti
I’ll be referring to room numbers, so use this handy guide to know who is where!
11MAR12
The official first day of Big Break! Texas Epic started the day with brunch in Villas condo 1801. We went over the breakdown of today and the rest of the week. I made the suggestion that each room make dinner one night: so one night each room cooks for 30 people then relaxes for the rest of the nights— which worked out great and an excellent incubator for fellowship. Each room sent two people to go grocery shopping to buy food for the rest of the week— breakfast and lunch were on each rooms’ own.
The rest of us relaxed the rest of the afternoon, checking out the beach for the first time. The sand was a beautiful white and the water a clear blue.
Jealous?
The lovely women of 1412 made a delicious chili.
Afterwards, we went to the first evening session of the week. We were introduced our great emcees Shelby and Andrew (aka Bullet) of Something on the Wing. These guys are hilarious! They sang the Panama City Beach song, which they promised would get stuck in our heads. They were right. They introduced the speaker for the evening sessions, Matt Mikalatos— author of “My Imaginary Jesus” and “Night of the Living Dead Christian”.
The first talk was about the tiers of water in Jewish culture:
Matt then sent us on a prayer walk along the beach to pray in pairs for the week. John Rong and I paired up, and Texas Epic had campus time in 1412 to share confessions, fears, temptations, thoughts, among other things. Compassion was the main theme of our campus time. Compassion for the people we will be talking to, to not look down on them, to see them as people no different from us.
