I had my first class last night. While I wish I was sitting on the banks of this lake reading my books . . . wow . . . now there's an idea!
My first class was with the acting director of our local center. He has his Phd. and has credits a MILE long. I am humbled by this man. His wife had a surgery a few months ago that went wrong somehow. He is staying home much of the time helping her back to health. It's not known for sure if she will ever be all the way back. He is really interested in each of the students. It's not about what information he gets out. It's more about what the students find that they need with the information he gives out. He's teaching Computer Information Systems. While I knew most of what he was saying about the computer program he was working with, I learned something completely diffferent from him. He gave a much simplier format for learning to write mission, purpose and vision statements. I will still have to think about those, but honestly, he made it as clear as I've ever heard it!
Tonight is Biology. I think this will be a more complicated sort of class. I guess we'll just wait and see. I have heard nothing but great reviews about the professor. He's been teaching at the university for many years. What a neat blessing to get to have him too! I better go check my threaded discussions to see if anyone has commented on my odd view of stem cell research.
4 comments:
and what are your thoughts on stem cell research???
I always wanted to go to CCU. I think it's cool that you get to go!
sounds like you are going to have a great time in the college.
I'm not sure how much I can cram in here, but let's see.
My faith tradition says that God is all-knowing (one attribute among His many). If I really believe that, then I must believe that He is not wringing His hands at the discoveries of humans. He knows it all anyway. When stems cells-immature or mature-are found in various parts of the body, I am confident that He knew it all along. Benevolent people want to help their fellowman. We want to be the source of help for others. We long for the brilliance of researchers to be able to find that elusive cure.
Probably the greatest factor that God must deal with in all of this is man’s greed. Not only will man discover ways to use stem cells in seemingly controversial ways, but he will find ways to capitalize on those ways as well. Power can corrupt powerfully!
I think that consumers are more prudent than ever. They are thinking about the “what ifs”. When you consider the possibility of blood getting mixed up or contaminated in the operating room, it seems wise to plan ahead. Would saving placentas or umbilical cords not be the same sort of thing? What about if Uncle Harry might have something “harvestable” for another family member? What if there were Christian stem cells banks? Is this part of the Acts Church helping meet one another’s needs? Would this be part of having all things in common? (OK, that's a pretty far stretch, but maybe not.)
Again, the “fly in the ointment” here is the greed of mankind. I think that’s where many people find a challenge. Would we create stem cell harvest “departments” in hospitals for the medical market? It brings thoughts of scavengers in the operating room or ER seeing what is “usable” and “saleable”. Truth be known, desperate people do desperate things if left unchecked.
Those lines of desperateness might be more evaluated in terms of mercy and justice. In a perfect world, we would lay our lives down for each other. But we still have to deal with who decides what is greed, what is mercy and what is justice. Again, I'm thankful for our all-knowing God who can speak individually to us to bring our consciences into play in these decisions.
I am almost completely ignorant of the stem cell controversies (I know there are some but I haven't educated myself about what they are). What you wrote makes it all sound so complicated! Yikes! I wonder if this is just an American thing. (PLease don't clobber me for saying that!)
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