Week 1: Introduction and Explanation

In 2002, A school board in Kansas decided that intelligent design should be taught in their schools. As a reaction to this ruling, a "concerned citizen" wrote a letter to the school board in which he argued that saying a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world was just as valid as asserting intelligent design. The school board’s proposal was eventually struck down. Since then, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has since become a farcical icon for the non-theist community. They have expanded the original idea in “pastafarianism” - a mock religion that objects to the faults they find with religion.

I agree that both God and the FSM are empirically unfalsifiable. However, there should be good reasons to believe something if one is to believe it. There is no good reason to believe in the FSM, unless you just want to be silly and assert things you don’t genuinely hold to be true. I argue that there are good reasons to believe in God, and my point in this series is to explain some of those reasons to you.

My name is Maria Gast, and I’m a freshman here at Purdue. Over the years I’ve been exposed to varying views on Christian apologetics (defense of the Christian faith). At the church I grew up in, I never voiced any questions about God. I was taught that they were bad thoughts planted by the devil that needed to be pushed away. The church my family moved to later on was much different. They encouraged questions and gave reasons to back belief - reasons that are sound. Since I consider the question of God’s existence and nature to be the most important topic of human existence, now that I’m here at Purdue I’m working with my church on campus to bring my knowledge to you. What I have to say should be applicable to anyone of any background - whether you’re a theist, non-theist, or undecided. I welcome all of your questions, and I will do my best to answer them. If I don’t have an answer, I will find one and get back to you. I will do my best to teach and listen to your points with as little bias as possible, and I ask you to do the same.

Here are the lessons I intend to give:

• Cosmological Argument
• Teleological Argument
• Axiological Argument
• Presuppositional Apologetics (still up in the air)
• Miscellaneous minor defenses
• Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
• Is the Bible reliable and coherent?
• Why does God allow evil and send people to hell?
• Why should we believe that souls (and other immaterial entities) exist?
• Question and Answer

I will post each lesson on here as soon as I have time to take the outline and turn it into a more readable form.