The Veritas Forum this past Tuesday at the IU Auditorium was quite an intriguing and interesting event. The question it posed to audiences was “Is faith in God reasonable?”
However, I believe the entire discussion was largely lacking in accessibility to a common audience.
Though, indeed, it is necessary to get down to the finer points of philosophy to discuss whether religion is compatible with science, as well as a multitude of other topics, if the goal of the forum was to encourage discussion, it did not succeed.
There’s a simple reason why it did not. Namely, the audience. In order to understand the importance of the points the discussants were making, the audience would have to have a basic background in philosophy.
This is especially true in order to define the standards by which to judge the validity of certain belief systems. And I don’t mean to suggest people should have a background in philosophy.
I wouldn’t wish philosophy upon anyone who wants to remain relatively sane. But this hampered the audience’s ability to gain anything of practical value from the ?discussion.
From what I gathered of the several complaints I heard while walking out of the IU Auditorium, people wanted to experience a wider-ranging discussion, rather than one focusing on the ?minutiae.
Of course, the minutiae are important because that is where real arguments do their work, but this would have been a better discussion between two friends in large leather armchairs rather than in front of an undergraduate audience looking for something to talk about.
Or, perhaps that’s simplifying it some. Perhaps the audience was looking for a reason why they should believe what they believe. Namely, what are the merits of believing in religion and the merits of not believing in religion?
In a sense, perhaps the audience wanted to amass more evidence for why their points of view are right because the religious wing will claim that belief is rooted in faith.
Faith is a largely amorphous concept, and there is no real way to prove it. You just have to have it.
Similarly, the nonreligious wing will claim that faith is ridiculous because there is no empirical evidence supporting it. It’s entirely subjective.
These are the usual arguments, and people wanted fuel for that, not to get down to the nitty-gritty assumptions on which their beliefs are based.
The Veritas Forum was great for what it was, but it shouldn’t claim to inspire discussion or, more specifically, productive ?conversation.
It was inaccessible for what it claimed to do and, based on what I heard when leaving, many others agree.
allenjo@indiana.edu
