MY BLOG POSTS
Cheating is for Losers
AI has come upon educators like a tsunami. Students now have the ability to type in a prompt and get a fully completed essay, report, or answer to a math problem.
It’s not that cheating hasn’t existed before now, but it’s just so easy these days.
I think it’s an amazing opportunity…for those who are willing to resist the temptation to let a computer think for them.
In a few years, this first AI generation will be entering the workforce. Those who depended on AI generators to complete their work will have brains that effectively function on the same level as a 5th grader (no offense, 5th graders!). Those, however, who actually made a priority of their education, who read the books, slugged through math equations, completed the science projects — they will be positioned to take over for CEO’s and world leaders. They will be miles above the majority. Their minds will actually be college-educated!
From a Christian worldview, we know that God commands us to do everything to the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31). We also know that we are made in the image of God, with complex, amazing brains that God has gifted us to use to help care for this world and its citizens.
So, Christian student, RESIST the urge to take the easy way out. You don’t need a computer program to write that paper. You can do it! EARN your education, exercise your beautiful brain, and then go out into the world and do amazing things for God’s glory!
Can Something Come from Nothing?
I was watching a show last night where the main characters were trying to prove the evolutionary theory of abiogenesis – the idea that life can come from non-life: something can come from nothing.
It’s a crucial question for the evolutionists – their entire theory rests on this origin story: At one point in history, there was nothing. Then, somehow, there was something. From there, the something became matter, which became organisms, which became life, and so on.
The difficulty for these scientists is that there is no way to begin with nothing. Even in a “vacuum”, matter exists.
In contrast, those who hold to a Christian worldview can rest in the logic of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God is eternal. There was a time when He existed and nothing else did. And then, there was a period in history when He decided to create the universe. In one moment, something came from nothing because God spoke that something into existence.
Those, like my husband, who are experts in creation science, can demonstrate myriad aspects of this universe that point to a Creator. Think of the intricacies of the cell, the vastness of the universe, the exactitude of gravity. To believe these all occurred randomly is illogical. Like the old analogy, it’s like putting the pieces of a watch in a bag, shaking them up, and expecting them to come out fully formed. You can repeat that experiment millions of times and all you’ll get is pieces of a watch. A watchmaker is needed to take those pieces and make them into a working whole.
Christians are often accused of being simpletons, of using our faith as a “crutch”. We must stand against those accusations. It take more faith to believe something came from nothing than to believe a Divine Creator is behind the universe as we know it.
If you want to know more about this topic, check out Answers in Genesis.
I’m Back!
I haven’t written in several months. Honestly, blogs are going the way of the dinosaur, so the demand for blog posts are pretty low. Probably about as much need for those as there are for new books out in the world.
I realized, though, that I miss writing here. I miss writing in general. And even if no one reads this but me, I’m going to go back to my 1-2x/week posts. Because I want to.
Join me if you’d like. Share, subscribe, comment. Or don’t.
Email me, if you enjoy that medium – I still do! – and let me know if there are any particular topics you’d like me to tackle.
If you’re reading this….thanks! It means a lot 🙂
More soon…
Krista
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
America in the 1920s experienced massive changes at a rapid pace: Between the Great War and the Spanish Flu, millions of people died suddenly. There were battles against alcohol, which resulted in Prohibition on one side and rampant black market speakeasies on the other. Women were able to vote, they were joining the work force, cutting their hair, shortening their skirts. The change in fashion from 1915 to 1925 was unlike anything we’ve seen before or since.
And right in the middle of all the action was F Scott Fitzgerald. He and his wife Zelda were described as the “prince and princess” of the Jazz Age. Their exploits around New York City were stuff of legends. They drank and partied and lived it up…until they didn’t. Sadly, both died very broken and fairly young.
Although The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 – the height of the Jazz Age and of the Fitzgerald’s fame – it reflects what was broken about this era.
Jay Gatsby was a legend himself. In fact, in the novel, the reader has to wait three chapters (almost 1/3 of the book) before meeting him. He is discussed, rumors fly about him, his parties are described in detail. But he is a mystery. The narrator, and Gatsby’s next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, discovers Gatsby is more than any of the rumors, “better than all the others put together”.
But Gatsby has a fatal flaw – love for the shallow Daisy Buchanan. He fell for her when he was a young soldier stationed in Louisville and built his entire grand empire with her in mind: If he could just make enough money, become “great”, she would be his. And it worked…for a while. But this is a tragedy. And, without giving away too much of the ending, his dreams do not come true.
This novel asks the question, Is the American Dream really possible? And the answer, according to Fitzgerald, is a resounding “no”. We can’t get anything we want, not even if we work really hard. And no one ever “has it all.” Everyone lives behind a facade.
Looking at this work from a biblical worldview, we can see the longing people have – to be “important”, to be loved, to have value. These desires aren’t wrong. I believe they are God-given! But they can only be realized through a relationship with Christ. In Him, we have immense value, we are deeply and eternally loved. To seek those things apart from Christ is futile. Fitzgerald saw the futility but, sadly, he didn’t see that there is hope, that salvation from meaningless life is available.