UW La Crosse “Does God Exist?” debate tomorrow, Tues Nov 16th

Questions such as “Does God exist?,” “How was the universe created?” and “Where did we come from?” are fundamental to human existence, yet it’s not common to find venues for open dialogue about them, said Hank Zumach, president of the La Crosse Area Freethought Society.

Zumach’s group, along with University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Secular Student Society and Christian Faculty/Staff group, are sponsoring a debate on the UW-L campus to make that possible.

A debate on the topic, “Does God Exist?” will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Cartwright Center.

August Berkshire, president of Minnesota Atheists, will debate with Gannon Murphy, editor of American Theological Inquiry in Minneapolis.

Berkshire said he plans to ask some fundamental questions about God such as, “If you believe God created humans from dirt, how did it happen? What mechanism does God use to accomplish things?”

Murphy said the question of God’s existence involved making a transition from the empirical to the theoretical. The debate is not about the details of the universe and what we see every day but how we fit them together — for instance how God touches our lives and our soul, he said.

Although there is no such thing as indisputable proof for the existence in God, Murphy said, there are good reasons to believe in God. Among them, God gives a reason for the incredible world that came from nothing and the great diversity of the things we see. God explains our yearning for meaning, where we come from and infuses our lives with meaning, purpose and direction, he said.

Berkshire said belief in God creates some conceptual problems such as the problem of scale. If a God needed only one star and one planet, why do we have billions of galaxies in the visible universe, he asked.

“It is incredible overkill if we are the ultimate purpose of creation,” he said.

Murphy said Berkshire is claiming to know the mind of God by saying that.

The two say, despite their different takes on the existence of God, they’ve debated before, are friends and live only five miles from one another in Minneapolis.

“It will be a friendly debate but thought provoking,” said Berkshire.

The purpose is not to convert people to one side or the other, Murphy said.

“The goal to me is to open up a conceptual space for reflection,” he said.

 LCTrib

I've heard from fellow Catholics that these debates are okay but not great.  Because nobody talks about philosophy,  it ends up being less than satisfactory from either side.  How can an atheist deny God exists when he doesn't even know if he himself exists!  The Chesterton Society in La Crosse has thought about hosting debates, hopefully something with a little more meat.  Maybe someday I'll be a beat reporter and get to go cover all of this stuff. 

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