MIRACLES...

One day in my philosophy class, while we were discussing whether or not God exists, one argument came up suggesting that our existence was too well designed to have just naturally occurred we had to have been engineered by someone. The example that was given was that if you have a machine with hundreds of knobs and it will only work if all the knobs are lined up exactly right, it isn't going to function just because all the knobs just naturally landed in the right place, someone has to set them. Life as we know it could be nonexistent if any number of things were just slightly different. Like the amount of oxygen in the air or the strength of gravity. Therefore the argument states that in order for us to exist, God, our creator, must also exist. 

This may be a stretch, but it made me start thinking about miracles. This is a story a friend of mine told me about a miracle he experienced.  

"It all started when I was about 5 or 6. I had always been a bit of a sickly kid, so when I started having headaches it wasn’t too big of a deal. My parents were immediately concerned about how intense the headaches were though. I remember them being so intense that I couldn’t think. All I could do was cry myself to sleep every other night while my mom rubbed my temples. After several weeks of this, my parents became very worried and made an appointment for me to get checked out at the Loma Linda Medical Center. 
The day that we went to Loma Linda, I was afflicted with a really bad headache. As my mom and I were waiting in the waiting room in between the various tests they did on my head, I slept on my mom’s lap. Sleep was the only way I knew to escape the pain, so I did as much of that as possible. They performed every head scan and test known to man and then they sent us home to wait for the results. A week or so later, they called us back. My parents went in to meet with the doctor and discovered that I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Upon returning home they told me nothing. They tried not to worry me, but even though I didn’t know what the doctor had said, I wasn’t fooled by my parents’ attempts to keep me calm. After that day I knew everything was different and that something was seriously wrong. It was that night that I started praying my own prayers to the Lord to heal me. 
Along with these, I had the prayers of my home church, and several other churches that we had family and friends in. This included my great uncle Jack, who had basically prayed me into existence because of my parents’ inability to have children. We had to make another appointment to have more tests and scans done. During the down time, all we could do was pray and try and enjoy life. One night, I had a really bad headache, so my parents put me to bed really early. My mom tells me that the next morning I woke up late (which was normal when I had headaches) and walked into the kitchen, groggy as usual. She asked me how I slept because of the migraine and I responded, “I slept well, the man kept me safe and took the pain away.” She must have freaked out hearing her eldest son talk about a strange man in his bedroom. She immediately asked her seemingly crazy son what he meant. I went on to describe a “Big” man in white robes who was sitting on the edge of my bed. My mom asked me if I was scared and I asked “Why would I be scared mommy? He was sent there to help me.” 
A while after this, we went back to Loma Linda to have the follow up tests done. Unlike the last time, I hadn’t had a major headache in several days, and I felt fine during the tests. Some time after that, my parents were called back in again for the results of the new tests. The doctor first asked them if they were religious at all, and my parents said that they went to church and had a lot of people praying for me. The doctor said that the brain tumor had vanished and that he had no other explaination except that I had been miraculously healed."

There are stories of miracles in every culture all over the world. Are they universal because they are real? Or are they our way of explaining the unexplainable? Would you call them superstitions or miracles?

yoga & self-actualization

Two instances this week made me ponder religion. 

On tuesday night i went with my friend to a yoga class. I had never done it before and quite frankly it was significantly more difficult than i anticipated. I assumed it would not be very strenuous and that it might be rather boring as well. I must admit I was wrong, and although it was not a religious experience for me, it was very spiritual. I felt relaxed and invigorated. I found that my worries and troubles seemed to melt away and i was able to focus my mind on my body and the movement in that moment. I also felt like i was pushing my limits, in a good way. I can see the appeal and how one might search for enlightenment through yoga. 

Today in my psychology class we brought up Maslow's theory of hierarchy of needs. Which is based on the idea that people are inherently good but sometimes have to make choices that are not always right, based on their needs. He also believes there is an order of needs because some are more important than others. According to Maslow, you fulfill physiological needs first, followed by safety needs, belonging and love needs, esteem needs, and finally self-actualization needs. What i found extremely interesting is that people who were considered to have reached the stage of self-actualization, like Gandhi and Mother Teresa, would actually forgo some of their safety or physiological needs in order to fulfill their self-actualization. This idea of reaching a place where they are willing to make personal sacrifice in order to realize their true self really reminded me of enlightenment. 

who gets to decide....

One day last semester while on my way to lunch I saw a man holding one of the strangest signs I had ever seen. He was surrounded by a huge crowd of people and was preaching about who he believed was going to hell. His long list included people who were Jewish, Atheist, Hindu, Pagan, Agnostic, Satanist, Mormon, Buddhist and Jehovah witness. As well as those who fall under the categories of cross dressers, gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, “girly men”, “mouthy women”, murderers, child molesters, abusive spouses, and sinners. There must be about twenty more that I can’t remember. His presence sprouted a lot of controversy although many of the upper classman say that he comes every year. The Women’s center made t-shirts that said “I am a mouthy woman”. One student was so offended he went and put on a dress so he could be a cross dresser.  A lot of people became so enraged there was a lot of shouting and argument. I feel like more than anything it made a lot of people act like hypocrites, both him and those that refuted his claims.

How can he be so specific about it and make such a blanket statement that clearly encompasses the majority of the human population? How can he make such general statements as “mouthy women” and “girly men”? How do you quantify that? And if you say sinners are going to hell wouldn’t he himself be included? Does this viewpoint make sense? It seems so cut and dry to me.