death and transfiguration

I'm writing today to ponder the loss of one's parents. A friend of mine who says he is an atheist, has lost his father. He is dealing with many things, and I would surmise most importantly, the notion or thought that he will never see his father again, following his line of thinking.

That's a terrible thought when I consider my mom being dead for twenty-four years now and my dad being gone twenty years. It would be even worse to visit their grave and think I would never see them again. I am thankful for the faith that gives me hope that I will see them. My mother will not be in a wheelchair. My friend's father will be able to breathe comfortably and restored to new life, I believe, because I believe he was a Christian. My father will be his old robust self, renewed to life eternal in a new body, ready to worship our Lord.

If there is no hope, we are of all men most miserable. Thanks be to God for that hope. I lift up my friend's family, and especially my friend without Christ, in this their hour of need.

expelled...or not.

Today my quandry is how to deal with my atheistic friends. We're trying to go as a group to see Expelled, the new film by Ben Stein. I thought it would be a good field trip since it deals with freedom of speech, ID, evolution, and the like.

When I mentioned this on Tuesday night's meeting (Occam's Coffeehouse meets at the Atlanta Bread company in Germantown at 6 pm), I was met with a most surprising reaction. A few said they'd go but pay for another movie and sneak in, and a few said they don't need to go at all. My wife had been to a discussion of Lucy with our wife's founder Janet and we've had numerous other examples of listening to an Atheist's point of view about relative topics so I was surprised. The movie was immediately termed "propaganda" and a negative disussion ensued. I actually got pretty worked up at the hypocrisy being sent out by the "atheist" side and had to leave the meeting. I apologized later in person and via email.

I also tried to make my point of how we've been to lectures by evolution-leaning scientists, watched Richard Dawkins videos, read God is not Great as a book choice, and basically been open to trying to listen at least to a point of view that was contradictory to my own.

I was surprised as to the negative emails I got and arguments that came from this. I thought we could go to this movie and enjoy it and go somewhere afterwards and discuss-maybe even argue about it.

I guess not...

More later...