I am about to embark on a new and scary adventure for me. I have been teaching Ethics and Philosophy for over two years at our local community college. I have really enjoyed Ethics for it seems to be right up my alley. But Philosophy scares me.
The history and concepts of Philosophy are vast. My boss said he has a hard time finding people willing to teach Philosophy and so I told him I would find a way to love teaching it. So here is the adventure for this fall semester. I am scraping the big books, sticking with a simple book that seemed to work last spring. I am using movies as story illustrations to get us thinking about philosophical things like: is there a God, how was the world created and what is the meaning of life. I am thinking about asking the students to blog or journal about there thoughts and trying to answer these bigger than life questions.
So why did I bring this thought about teaching Philosophy to our church blog? Well, I have been thinking about what I would put in my personal philosophy blog would be: what is my life verse [what scripture do I not only have memorized, but how and why does it help me live my life], how do I put into thoughts and words my belief in God, why do I believe in creationism and so forth. One of the things that I am trying to add to my class outline is critical thinking. I need to better understand my beliefs so I can explain them to others. It is not so much an argument, but just being able to tell my story. I think it will help me be a better witness to my faith and to my christian life.
So what is your favorite song and why? Does it honor God? Who is God to you? Creator? or Some higher being? Do you worship God? Can you worship some less known higher being? Do you honor that being or is it some obscure point of interest that just sits at the back of your mind once in awhile? Is there eternal life? What is it like? How do you get there? Do nice people go to heaven if there is a heaven? What about not so nice people? Do dogs go to heaven? Are people who claim to be agnostic really atheists? What’s the difference? And so much more……
So what is my life verse? Revelation 3.16 [Mark's version] If you’re not radical, you’re spit! Jesus doesn’t want us sitting on the fence with our faith. He can handle – hot on fire for God and he can handle those who could care less for God – but those who claim to be hot, but do nothing and act as if they are cold; Jesus will spit out of his mouth.
It’s not being radical for radical’s sense, but being radical for God and living out everyday in every way one can.
So what do you believe? Why? What are you doing about it? If you were on trial for your belief, would you be witness enough to prove it?
