once again i prove my lack of good judgment. seems too familiar.

i don't know why i do some things, they just happen that way. not that i think it was wrong. sometimes their is no pleasure in doing good things.

it is strange the way my life unfolds like prophecy. the nature of what i do and what i believe, and where they meet. it is not very often that life surprises me, mostly i want to say that i knew it would happen the way it did. maybe that is wrong. maybe my faith is not the childlike faith that i desire to have. i don't mean the good things, though. i would very much like to regard all good things in the same as i regard miracles. yet i don't really know what to think of as miracles. i am grateful for many people and blessings in my life.

tonight at my professor's house we had a philosophy department dinner party. it wasn't really much of a party though, but that's alright considering that my philosophy professor was hosting it. naturally we all sat around and drank beer and talked philosophy and the meaning of life. i enjoyed talking to my teachers in such a relaxed setting, it was very eye opening. we touched on the subject of miracles and so i formally asked for the definition of a miracle. my prof said that a miracle was an event or thing that contradicted/defied/violated the laws of nature. at first, this is easy enough to accept. i cannot be sure....let's see. We(mankind) have created sciences and appointed committees and teams to investigate certain matters. We have given names to things that we can see or experience- Natural phenomenon. and i mean by that, anything in "nature" really- the sun, stars, moon, wind, all life, all material. so at first the things that fascinate us we might call "phenomenon"- right? let's just speak about the wind here.

we take one thing like the wind and we try to "understand" it. we cannot see the wind, where it comes from, or where it is going. this seems pretty fascinating to me. i know of the concept wind and have felt it before and seen it's effects. i know that it is something God has created.

now, other people, scientists(meteorologists, specifically) have taken it upon themselves to "explain" the wind. what does this mean? well, i hear now that meteorologists are attempting to discover where the wind comes from. the first thing that comes to mind is the scripture where jesus compares the holy spirit to the wind, and says 'we do not know where it comes from or where it is going' like i mentioned just before. yet still these men are so intent on understanding the origin of winds and how it "works". My main point really, is that all we can do as mankind in regards to understanding anything is to observe and make notes. Give it a name. Describe it with finite words. Try to wrap our minds around something. That's it! And, contrary to what many people might think, it is the same in regards to God.

We can only know what we have been given. This should be basic to anyone past the age of 5. However, most will stumble when they elevate themselves above this point. Sigmund Freud describes himself as a 'godless medical man' a 'materialist' and of course, an 'atheist'. So he seems to be aware of his position, no? No. He refuses to acknowledge that his abilities to investigate matters are limited by what he is aware of, what he has 'been given'. God has never expected anyone to know or believe apart from what we can see with our own two eyes. This is also why the faithless and wicked will be judged more harshly now that Jesus has graced this earth with forgiveness and power. Jesus did walk this earth, and there is plenty of evidence all over secular history for anyone to see if they are so inclined to seek it. No follower of Christ just "believes". The idea of "blind faith" as most understand it, is really quite ridiculous. We can only believe in what we know, and there are few people this day in age who are not aware of a man named Jesus Christ that performed miracles and was crucified in first century Rome.

So really, men who claim to believe only what they can see, smell, hear, touch, and taste and yet reject the notion of faith, are utter fools. Jesus himself says "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." John 14:11

so this is my apologetic for the day. i hope someone benefits from reading this.

michael