A Truly Loving Sacrifice

Thank you, Eddy.
Here's a story that touches my heart:

After a few of the usual Sunday evening hymns, the church's pastor slowly stood up, walked over to the pulpit and before he gave his sermon for the evening, he briefly introduced a guest minister who was in the service that evening. In the introduction,the pastor told the congregation that the guest minister was one of his dearest childhood friends and that he wanted him to have a few moments to greet the church and share whatever he felt would be appropriate for the service.

With that, an elderly man stepped up to the pulpit and began to speak.

"A father, his son, and a friend of his son were sailing off the Pacific coast," he began, "when a fast approaching storm blocked any attempt to get back to the shore. The waves were so high that even though the father was an experienced sailor, he could not keep the boat upright and the three men were swept into the Ocean as the boat capsized."

The old man hesitated for a moment, making eye contact with two teenagers who were, for the first time since the service began, looking somewhat interested in his story.

The aged minister continued with his story.

"Grabbing a rescue line, the father had to make the most excruciating decision of his life: to which boy would he throw the other end of the life line. He only had seconds to make the decision. The father knew the son was a Christian and he also knew that his son's friend was not. The agony of his decision could not be matched by the torrent of waves.As he yelled out, "I love you, son!" he threw out the life line to his son's friend. By the time the father had pulled the son's friend back to the capsized boat, his son had disappeared beneath the raging swells into the black of night. His body was never recovered."

By this time, the two teenagers were sitting up straight in the pew, anxiously waiting for the next words to come out of the old minister's mouth.

"The father," he continued, "knew his son would step into eternity with Jesus and he could not bear the thought of his son's friend stepping into an eternity without Jesus... therefore he sacrificed his son to save the son's friend."

"How great is the love of God that he should do the same for us. Our heavenly father sacrificed his only begotten son that we could be saved. I urge you to accept his offer to rescue you and take a hold of the life line he is throwing out to you in this service."

With that, the old man turned and sat back down in his chair as silence filled the room.

The pastor again walked slowly to the pulpit and delivered a brief sermon with an invitation at the end. However, no one responded to the appeal.

Within minutes after the service ended, the two teenagers were at the old man's side.

"That was a nice story," politely stated one of them, "but I don't think it was very realistic for a father to give up his only son's life in hopes that the other boy would become a Christian."

"Well, you've got a point there." the old man replied, glancing down at his worn Bible. A big smile broadened his narrow face. He once again looked up at the boys and said, "It sure isn't very realistic, is it? But, I'm standing here today to tell you that story gives me glimpse of what it must have been like for God to give up his son for me... I was that father and your pastor is my son's friend."

God vs. Science

Many thanks, Ijau for this one on faith...

An Interesting Conversation -

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new students to stand and.....

Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.

Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.

Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.

Prof: 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 is silent.

Prof: You can't answer, can you?
Let's start again, young fellow. Is God good?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.

Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From...God...

Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.

Prof: So who created evil?
Student does not answer.

Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student: Yes, sir.

Prof: So, who created them?
Student has no answer.

Prof: 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.

Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No, sir.

Prof: 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.

Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.

Prof: 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.

Prof: Yes Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Now the student said can I ask something to you Professor.

Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.

Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.

Student: No sir. There isn't.

(The lecture theatre becomes 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 is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: 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 were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: 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?

Prof: 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 shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is 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 is in uproar.)

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?

(The class breaks 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 is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student: That is it sir... The link between man & god is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive. .

Part 1: Outer Space Intelligent Life

Is there intelligent life out there?

As an avid reader of comics, articles and novels that touch on this topic with their resounding affirmation, I have decided to share in my blog today and in the days ahead, some arguments by several great 20th century writers who also firmly believe there is intelligent life in Outer Space.

I've seen some pretty unusual phenomena myself in the past making me cast doubts on the singularity of our existence on Earth.

My theory and it's possible some others' as well, is that the strange or mysterious sightings that we make is the evidence that time-travel is presently on-going but a universal law forbids the tampering of our economic and socio-political history.

I have decided to start with the late famous brilliant best-seller author of Chariots of the Gods, Erich Von Danken's argument.

Is it conceivable that we world citizens of the twentieth century are not the only living beings of our kind in the cosmos? Because there is no homunculus from another star on display in a museum for us to visit, the answer 'Our earth is the only star with human beings' still seems to be legitimate and convincing. But the forest of question marks grows as soon as we make a careful study of the fact resulting from the latest discoveries and research work.

On a clear night the naked eye can see about 4,500 stars, so the astronomers say. The telescope of even a small observatory makes nearly two million stars visible and a modern reflecting telescope brings the light from thousands of millions more to the viewer-specks of light in the Milky Way. But in the colossal dimensions of the cosmos our Stellar System is only a tiny part of an incomparably larger Stellar System-of a cluster of Milky Ways, one might say, containing some twenty galaxies within a radius of 1 1/2
million light years (1 light year= the distance travelled by light in a year, i.e. 186,000 x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 miles). And even this vast number of stars is small in comparison with the many thousands of spiral Nebulae disclosed by the electronic telescope. Disclosed up to the present day, I should emphasise, for research of this kind is only just beginning.

The astronomer Harlow Shapley estimates that there are some 10(20) stars within the range of our telescopes. When Shapley associates a planetary system with only one in a thousand stars, we may assume that it is a very cautious estimate. If we continue to speculate on the basis of this estimate and suspect the necessary conditions for life on only one star in a thousand, still calculation still gives a figure of 10(14). Shapley asks: how many stars in this 'astronomical' figure have an atmosphere suitable for life? One in a thousand? That would still leave the incredible figure of 10 11 stars with the prerequisites for life. Even if we assume that every one thousandth planet out of this figure has produced life, there are still 100 million planets on which we can speculate life exists. This calculation is based on telescopes using the techniques available today but we must not forget that these are constantly being improved.


TO BE CONTINUED...