The Great Debate


Atheism vs. Theism is back in the news. This is probably prompted by the recent books "God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "Letters to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris.

Christianity today has a series of articles here. It is a conversation between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. I have heard of Hitchens before - he's kinda cranky - a libertarian who would be good as Bill Maher's best friend. I have never heard of Wilson before but he seems to do a good job of responding to Hitchens.

The second entry of "the great debate" was last night on Nightline. Child actor Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains is now an evangelist, with a guy named Roy Comfort. They debated the founders of the blasphemy challenge. This is a challenge for atheists to publicly deny the existence of the Holy Spirit - spurred on by the Bible's admonition that whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be saved.

The atheists looked like Wiccans, and descended into mockery fairly quickly in the debate. I don't think anyone won the debate last night, but I was glad it was on tv.

School's going well - It's actually not that difficult, but does require careful listening and completing the work. It's nice being so close to home - I can come home at lunch eat something and wrestle around with Adam.

I became a volunteer at the Roundhouse today - should be fun.

I thought I had my regular interns meeting tonight, out in Surrey. I jumped on the skytrain - 3 stops down there was a fire or something on the tracks - we all had to get down and I was smelling the most foul smoke smell I had ever smelled. - it reminded me of when I was in heavy polluted traffic in Mumbai.

As I got off on the platform, I checked my voice-mail and I was reminded that there was NO INTERNS meeting tonight. So I crossed the tracks and headed home.

What is it with me and the skytrain? Dead bodies, fires....

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think there are a few of us pastor types who have to fill in the blanks as ESL teachers.

After I graduated from Regent I applied at quite a few schools, took a while for one to bite (even thought I taught in Japan and had the degrees and the certificate.) But I've been there 3 years and it's been pretty good.

Anyway, if you ever have any questions about the business or decent schools to apply to, I'd be happy to share what I know.

Say hello to your lovely family!

cheers, joèl amzil
2:04 PM
Anonymous said…
I have to underline Joel's offer - if you are going to teach overseas you need to have someone on the inside to give you good info about the school you are going to and the organization you are going with. The experiences I had with Chinese, Japanese and South Korean universities were very positive and I believe it was because I knew people in the area that gave the thumbs up to the schools and a warning of what to watch for.

Promises can change drastically from one side of the ocean to the other so it is best to have somebody on the inside (if possible).

Migwec
Jeff

PS see you next week Santosh!!
3:42 PM
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