Another FAN-TABULOUS class today! Boy, you are all making me smarter and smarter by the minute. The more we chat, the stronger my FAITH gets! Today, we learned that God actually gave us that gift of faith when He made us. He stuck it within our souls, but only WE can open up the gift and decide to use it or not. We also learned that God doesn't control us or program us like a computer to force us to be good or force us to believe. We have to choose it ourselves. This answers why God "allows" bad things to happen in this world. They don't happen because He allows them, but because mankind was given free will (another gift!) and chooses how to react to situations.

I know that if I were God, and if I chose to control my people and FORCE them to believe and worship me, it wouldn't be very rewarding to have even created my people since their actions are not genuinely coming from the heart, but merely out of control!

 But, boy, how meaningful it must be when His children come to Him on their own! That's what he wants! He created us to KNOW Him! That's it!

Faith enables us to do three things:

1. To believe in God (Duh, without faith, we can't believe in Him).
2. To accept all he has revealed to us (even the things He's revealed that we truly can't understand. Instead of breaking our brains trying to figure out these divine concepts, we accept these truths with faith).
3. To respond with God's love to others. You cannot have this awesome gift from God and then treat people (including yourself)  like dirt.

Lastly, faith is not just something we say when we believe in God. It extends beyond that. Faith is a way of life. The way we have relationships involves faith, the way we serve others involves faith, and the way act when even no one is watching involves faith. It's not a switch you can turn on or off.

I have FAITH that you will all do amazingly on tomorrow's test!

Homework: Study your text, your notes, and the worksheets. Complete the Chapter One Assessment worksheet handed out today.

Between Friday and today, we discussed how God reveals himself to us through divine revelation in several ways. Divine revelation is the way God makes himself known to us. I used the joke about the man who kept thinking God was on His way to save him during the storm. He rejected several helpers, telling them, "Thanks, but God will save me!" After he died, he asked God why He didn't save him. God told him, "Hello! I did attempt to save you! I sent you the newscaster to warn you, your neighbors on the raft to get you, AND the Coast Guard in the helicoptor to rescue you."

Sometimes we are so consumed, that we don't realize God is reaching out to us in these ways:
     1. Through nature and creation
     2. Through others (Jesus included)
     3. Through self-knowledge and the Bible

Homework: Based on the activity on page 15, create a timeline of at least 7-10 events between birth and today in which you believe God revealed Himself to you using the 3 ways above. These events can be based on something someone else experienced. For example, even though my brother needed an emergency surgery, I still felt God was revealing Himself during this moment in my life through my brother. Your timeline should be no larger than a sheet of computer paper. Each event needs a title, a colored picture or scene, and a one sentence reason how God revealed Himself in that moment.

This is due on Wednesday. Neatness and professionalism is part of your grade. STUDY for Wednesday's test!!

This post comes late since the Weebly site was down on Thursday, but  we discussed how God remains a mystery to us. Faith can answer many questions that science can't, but we must also remember that we cannot answer everything about God. We have to remember that he is and always will be a mystery. A mystery is defined as something that cannot be understood or explained. Remember, just because He is a mystery doesn't mean He doesn't exist! All sorts of things are mysteries, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen.


As requested: The Atheist Quote/ Joke. Enjoy!

Wow, class was wonderful today! You got your quizzes back (great job!) and we began presenting our awesome projects! So far, so good!

Does anyone understand this cartoon?

Homework- Don't forget to answer the discussion question by midnight tomorrow. Have a great night!

Today in class, we completed our group posters representing each of the five proofs. Great job!!! We also took our quiz on the five proofs.

Homework- Watch the videos below to further understand the five proofs. They sound boring at the beginning, but they are super short and totally cool! They are only on Motion, Causation, and Contingency (Possibility).

Select a proof video and discuss an element about it that helped you to understand the proof just a bit more! Due Wednesday at midnight.

God rocks!

Alright! We finally finished our second lesson! We had some GREAT discussions and new ways of understand God's existence. Thank you for enlightening me! I love learning from my students, too!

Today we completed all five proofs of God's existence. We learned:

Proof 3- Motion- The world is full of motion (tides, planet's  orbit, etc.) Obviously, nothing can just move by itself! Therefore, there must be a Mover.... God needed to exist in order for anything to move at all!

Proof 4- Possibility- Ahhhh, the hard one to understand. Let's make it simple: Every thing that exists in this world has contingent existence, meaning it either could or could not have existed prior to it actually coming into existence (are you still with me, people?).  Without God (who has necessary contingency- meaning it is necessary for Him to exist before other things are created) NOTHING could exist! There is no way to explain how anything was here, unless something was already in existence prior to it. 

Proof 5- Forms or Degrees of Goodness- God is the highest degree of perfection, truth, morality, beauty, and goodness of all things and qualities. How do we know how to rate things as evil or good; right or wrong; true or false? There must be a standard by which we measure all these things. Therefore, there has to be an ULTIMATE right, truth, beauty, etc. Without having a perfect God, we would not know the difference among all these elements. God is that measuring tool.

Today's classwork involved heavy notes and discussion. I introduced your poster project. I have uploaded it here for your downloading enjoyment in case you lost your copy. See the download link below. If you are going to be absent on Friday or Monday, please do this assignment on your own on computer paper. Your group needs you BOTH days!

We will present each one.

HW- Study for Monday's quiz on the five proofs. Know definitions, titles, and examples of each. Breathe, it'll be easy to grasp. It's 10 questions.

During today's awesome class, we discussed the many ways we feel God is present in our lives (by taking the questionnaire on page 13). This conversation kicked off our first chapter for the year- Our God The Source of All Life. Some of you sense God's presence through nature, through family and friends, or simply by being in Church. We also learned that science and the belief in God can co-exist! Science answers how, when, and why things came to be, but when science can't answer all our questions (which it can't), we know to turn to our faith to answer the rest.

Homework: After discussing Pascal's quote about God, create a long quote of your own that compares Him to a thing we all use in our everyday lives. For example, you can draw a bottle of glue and creatively writing your quote within it, you state: "God is like Elmer's glue- He holds everything together strongly and safely". You may cut out your shape. Neatness in your drawing and writing counts! You know how picky I am! Please color. You cannot use the glue or a gluestick as your example.

***Note- Do not respond to this blog unless you have a question. This is physical homework.