Expand the discussion to broader issues, such as whether or not torture is ever justified. Support the students in uncovering and honing their values in this area. Also support the students in the pragmatics of this issue: namely, that whether we believe torture is justifiable or not, it is practiced throughout the world in a variety of contexts, and dealing with its after-affects will sometimes be part of our work as professional helpers

Here is the ready-to-answer question of Christian theology

January 27: Rigby, Speaking of God (chapter three on Incarnation)

Question: Drawing on Rigby's observations on pp. 86-90 (on Chalcedon), what difference does Jesus being fully divine and fully human make to how you live your everyday life as a person of faith? If you don't identify as Christian, how do you think the identify of Jesus should influence Christian choices?

      In her book Living by Fiction, Annie Dillard points out, along these lines, that most of what we have to say to one another is about "artifacts"-that is, specific things that have already been made by human beings that can be created, managed, examined, known, and mastered. 86  Dillard seems to include, in her understanding of artifacts, not only physical objects we make and use, or make and admire. She includes, also, the systems we develop that frame what is beyond our scope-perhaps the periodic table, the color wheel, or, even, a birdwatchers' guide. What is lacking in our world and our lives is not intriguing discussions of artifacts. What is lacking, she says, are those who are courageous enough to say something immediate about existence itself. "Who will interpret the raw universe?" she asks. "We have a shortage of metaphysicians." 87   This is a problem, Dillard thinks, because "if we confine our interpretive investigations to strictly bounded aspects of culture ... we miss learning what we most want to know."88