Evil on Christmas

An acquaintance was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. In spite of aggressive treatments, she was steadily declining, but still able to get around and live life somewhat. Saturday was her son’s birthday and they had a party for him, but she was kind of out of it. Her husband gave her morphine for the first time ever that night. In the morning she was worse, so they took her to the hospital. After examining her, the doctors gave her 2-24 hours. She died that afternoon, Christmas day.

Another family that many of my friends know had a 17 year old son with a congenital heart problem and several close calls and near death experiences, which he shared on YouTube one week before Christmas. He also died Christmas day.

Christmas night, I watched the news with my folks to see three homes destroyed by fire, several robberies of some of the few businesses open on Christmas, and various shootings. And on it went.

And on it goes. Day after day.

Muddle Choice Test

Someone once said something to the effect that “For the believer in Christ, this world is the most of Hell they’ll ever see. For the unbeliever, this world is the most of Heaven they will ever see.”

That sounds like a pretty easy T/F question, A or B. Simple. However, to us educators, test making is an art. A ‘well-designed’ multiple choice question will have a variety of plausible answers. If you make this common mistake, you will get “A,” this other mistake will be “C,” and so on, such that only the student who really understands the material will pick the right answer. Neither guessing nor partial understanding will help. Students tend to hate this kind of question because they feel like they are being tricked, when really the instructor wants to see how well you really understand the material. On the occasion when I’ve done this technique and had the time, I would set up the key so that these partial answers would receive partial credit, and the closer you got to the right answer, the more points received. However, few take the time to go to this extra step because it does take a LOT more effort, and I only did either occasionally.

Some people perceive this is how God has stacked the deck against them.