Before I Begin,

Allow me to introduce myself and this blog.

My name is Erica, and I am an eternal student, and a student of the world. I am also a college student, but that is somewhat irrelevant to the definition. What I mean by "eternal student" is that I intend never to stop learning. I will hopefully graduate college in a little over a year and a half, but that will by no means be the end of my education, whether or not I go on to graduate school or culinary school or what-have-you. My degree will be little more than my excuse to go out and learn more on my own, my own way. Every failure and every success has the chance to be a learning opportunity if you let it teach you. This is also what I mean by "student of the world." I am not merely a student of books, or classes, or teachers, or Wikipedia (although I am a student of all of these as well). I am a student of experiences, travels, sights, sounds, conversations, people, creations, and everything on either end and in between. 

I once went to my father at the end of a day, complaining that the day had been wasted, it was useless, and I wished it hadn't happened. In response, he asked me what I had learned that day, just to name something, any one thing. When I did, he quipped, "See? Your day wasn't wasted. You learned something." Before I could even begin to argue, he added, "If you can learn one thing every day for the rest of your life, you'll be doing pretty well. You'll be doing better than a lot of other people, anyway."


You could say I've taken that conversation up as my standard. After that, I set my phone's greeting message (you know, what it says when you turn it on?) to ask me what I'd learned that day. My dad might ask me what I'd learned when we spoke in the evening or afternoon, and I would always come up with something. On the rare occasion that I couldn't come up with anything, I'd go off and endeavor to learn something. This is the way I live my life, and I wholly believe that I am a better and more well-rounded person because of it.

One of my favorite quotes is one you will probably recognize as something Thomas Edison once said: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." It's disputed whether he ever actually said it or not, a point which is completely irrelevant to the universal truth of the quote. Anything can be a learning experience if you approach it that way.

Now, a confession: I plan to continue writing this blog, and certainly have plenty of things planned out to say on it besides the reason for which I created it specifically, but I have admittedly created it as a class requirement.

I am in the BIC program in the Honors College of Baylor University. This program requires a class called "Biblical Heritage," BIC3358.02. I am taking the course with Drs. Novokovic and Whitlark. This course requires that I read a book centered on some aspect of ethics and religion. It must either be written from a Christian perspective, or I must read it through a Christian lens. I will be required to respond to it in at least 8 sections over the course of 8 weeks or more.

I have chosen to read "Is There a God?" by Richard Swinburne. From what I can tell before having really read it, Swinburne is a theist but not a Christian. I believe in full disclosure, so I will say that I personally am a pagan, mostly Wiccan with some Asatru influences, and far more spiritual than religious. 

The book is laid out in 7 chapters and an Epilogue, so it has already been very neatly split up for me. I plan to respond to each chapter in three parts:

1. a summary, in which I will briefly recap what Swinburne has said in the chapter and attempt to make sense of it;
2. a response through a Christian lens, or my best attempt at it (I really will give it my most honest attempt, although I have no clue how I'm going to go about this);
3. and a response from my personal point of view, which may or may not have anything to do with my own religion/spirituality, but I'm not making any promises.

If this sounds like a plan to you, then I'm glad we're in agreement. If not, feel free not to stick around for the ride. I'll be here either way, because I'm graded on it. Afterwards, I'll probably still be here either way, because I am the kind of person who has things to say.

Wishing you all the best,

Erica