The Veritas Forum will return to Cal Poly next week; event organizers said the event will inspire discussion around issues like truth, life and religion.
The annual event has been at Cal Poly since 2007. The Veritas Forum, which gets its name from the Latin word for truth, brings in educated speakers from all walks of life to pose their theories and questions to students to be scrutinized and examined.
Aerospace junior and Veritas Forum club president Josh Ceccarelli said that Veritas has earned an honest reputation when it comes to life’s deepest questions.
“Students from any worldview and any kind of background in general can just come and have discussions on what it means to live a true life and gives them the chance to pursue some of that knowledge,” he said. “There are so many difficult questions out there and (at Veritas Forum) those questions can be discussed in a safe, intelligent environment.”
Discussion topics will range from an art exhibit to an origin of life debate, and will also include a documentary on modern-day slavery.
After each event, audience members will have the opportunity to learn more in a 45-minute question-and-answer period. Ceccarelli said this would ensure fair discussion.
Monday will feature an art exhibit titled “Exploring Truth through Art” in which art will be submitted by current or former Cal Poly students
Tuesday will feature a presentation by Kelly Monroe Kullberg titled “Finding God beyond Harvard.” Kullberg is the founder and director of project development of The Veritas Forum, which she first organized as a graduate student at Harvard in 1992, according to the Veritas Web site. She also co-authored the best-selling “Finding God at Harvard: Spiritual Journeys of Christian Thinkers.”
A creationist, assisted evolutionist and atheistic evolutionist will debate the origin of life Wednesday.
“In the past, when we’ve had a creationism versus evolution debate, I haven’t really liked them because I think there is more of a spectrum of what people believe. I think it’s important to talk about that spectrum in a discussion,” said Chelsea Morrell, biomedical engineering senior and Veritas Forum vice president. “Instead of there is a God or there is no God and maybe he is (involved) in parts of evolution or not at all.”
All three speakers are professors at different universities; the forum’s organizers wanted to feature people of similar scientific backgrounds and intellectual levels.
A documentary titled “Call and Response” will be shown in Chumash Auditorium at 8:45 p.m. on Thursday. The documentary aims to inform that “there are more slaves today than ever in human history” according to the Veritas Web site. The documentary spans from India to Cambodia portraying modern-day slavery like child brothels and slave brick kilns.
“A lot of people will say this shouldn’t be happening, but then it’s like what do we do about it?” Ceccarelli said.
The last presentation of the week is a speech is titled “Why Does a Good God Allow Suffering?” that will be given by Greg Jesson, Ph.D.
Computer engineering senior and Cal Poly Brights club president Nichola Utschig said that students will probably want to debate the topic all night.
“It’s a lot of fun, and that’s always a good debating topic, and I expect the questions to run long past (the allotted) time on that topic,” he added. “It’s a novel question that’s been going on for centuries.”
All events are open to the public. At the documentary showing, priority will be given to students.
Although the event promises to draw strong opinions, organizers said it will be a positive learning experience for all.
“It’s not something where different religions are going to be pushed or different ideas are going to be proven right or wrong but just a place where dialogue can be had,” Ceccarelli said.
I didn’t get across an important idea in our interview. Opinions and debates are excellent for policy, but good evidence puts limits on our options. Evolution and the origin of life isn’t debated – the evidence is presented and the best models are tentatively drawn up, with predictions made on possible future evidence to search for.
Using evidence and a skeptical method of inquiry has served as the best source of knowledge for the past several hundred years.
Chelsea mentions a spectrum of belief in the process of life on Earth – creationist to evolutionist. This is no more of a spectrum than homeopathy to modern, peer-reviewed medicine. Are they comparable?
Veritas is, with few exceptions, not a balanced discussion. Christianity is the central answer to every topic. Paul Copan, in his 2009 lecture here, had non-religious questioners affirm they wouldn’t rape and kill little boys before he would answer their questions on ethics. http://veritas.org/media/talks/680
Veritas is like having the circus come to town. It is an fun, sideshow exercise of rational thought. The question to hold in your heart is “How gullible might I be?”
“It’s not something where different religions are going to be pushed or different ideas are going to be proven right or wrong but just a place where dialogue can be had,” Ceccarelli said.
That is completely false. The entire Veritas forum is basically led by Campus Crusade (now SLO Crusade). I have only seen speakers from Christian backgrounds listed on their scheduling until this year. Anyone who attends this event will see clearly that it is not an unbiased ‘truth’ forum, but an event that (at least in the past) gets thousands of dollars of ASI money to host pro-Christian “truth” speakers. While the ability to talk with other students in an open environment is present, this article does not present the actual agenda of Veritas.
Directly from http://veritas.org/about/:
“What is a Veritas Forum?
Veritas Forums are university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life.
The forums are created by local university students, professors, and ministers while shaped and guided by the headquarter Veritas team.”
It is also not surprising then that Zack, the author of this piece, is a Christian. That shouldn’t be surprising in general as the majority of Americans identify as Christian, but it makes me wonder if his own religious background didn’t bias the fact that this article never mentions that it is a Christian truth campaign that uses sneaky advertising tactics to draw unknowing students in.
Okay, on to the positives:
Sometimes you can see very popular Christian apologetics, like Alvin Plantinga and Paul Copan. So that is nice if you are interested in that area or have read their work.
All the author of this article had to say was that Veritas is an exclusively Christian organization to insure against claims of Christianist bias. Journalists should not withhold relevant information, otherwise they’re indistinguishable from being shills for whatever movement they agree with.
So I must say, from the point of view of another journalism student, this is a vastly biased article. This is a newspaper (and website) which is representative of our school. It just so happens that Cal Poly is a state school, as we all know. It also just so happens that in our country we have a law which serves to separate church and state. This means freedom FROM any particular religion. It is therefor arguably unconstitutional for our paper to run a story which so blatantly supports a religious event and to present it as a news story. The article completely fails to note that this is a Christian event being hosted by a Christian group espousing Christian values. This is a very narrow, very one-sided view of the universe and of the world. The thing that bothers me most here is that the author took the time to interview a member of our community for an opposing viewpoint, and then turned around and completely misrepresented him. Lantz chose a specific quotation and presented it in such a context that he was effectively able to present precisely the opposite of the intended message.
It just isn’t good journalism.
It’s routinely shocking how easy it is to spot a journalist student by the copious holes in their arguments. Austin’s a glowing example.
Rather than relying on the factually inaccurate interpretations by Austin, it’s helpful to consider the actual wording of the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Notice that Austin’s word choice “from” is entirely absent, though he heavily bases his argument on this nonexistent word. Austin’s argument that people can expect to be protected “from” religion has unfortunately wide currency, so wide that most people probably have stopped bothering to think about whether it makes any sense. That’s the problem with popular reasoning. But does anyone truly believe the law was constructed so as to create a perfectly sterile environment in which people are never, ever exposed to any religious influences of any kind while on state property? Imagine the absurdity! The unenforceability! I, for one, would like to be shielded from people who wear a certain color of shirt I find distasteful while on state property. Unfortunately, my ludicrous wish hasn’t been fulfilled, and it shouldn’t be unless I become supreme tyrant.
Better to interpret the law as it has been by jurists for centuries. The State is not allowed to interfere with the exercise of religion nor is it allowed to establish a religion. If Austin is arguing that Cal Poly is establishing Christianity by this event, that is one thing. But if he is simply bickering about being exposed to religion while on state property, well that’s as silly and pointless an argument as whining about the presence of smelly people or awkward people.
Austin, it’s called society. So long as it’s peaceable and doesn’t infringe on your personal rights, you’re pretty much expected to deal with society courteously, just as you’re expected to deal with all other sorts of classes of people with whom you might not feel an immediate kinship.
Was the article a bit uneven? – Sure Have there been other articles in the mustangdaily that were also bias? – Yep.
Did Austin just get smacked by Bastiat? – Most definitely
I don’t believe in Santa Claus but does that mean people should be prevented from singing carols and saying, “ho ho ho…Merrrry Christmas” on public land? – No.
Austin, your argument is weak and a sure sign of a freshman….maybe sophomore. You’re mind will keep developing though.
Now hold on. I never argued for a religion free, sterile environment. I know that’s unrealistic.
But it IS inappropriate (and as I said before, arguably unconstitutional) for a state establishment to ENDORSE any one religious view. I would say that the misrepresentation of the event qualifies as endorsement. Veritas is objectively a Christian event extolling Christian values. Point out where the article explains the one-sidedness of the event. It does not. It portrays Veritas as a forum for open, objective discussion. It is, in reality, an opportunity to preach.
To discuss the event as simply a place for the discovery of truth implies the school’s (or at least the paper’s) agreement with the values of Veritas. For a state school to declare fundamentalist Christian values as truth is absolutely inexcusable.
And just to explain, my inclusion of "from" into my explanation of the law is not a silly choice. It also does not mean that I think people should be shielded from religion. What it means is that all citizens should be protected from religion. The subjective values of some should not change the objective realty of all. State actions should be free of religious motivations. And I am well aware that there are many people who use their religious background as the bedrock of their view and understanding of the world. However, as these views are necessarily subjective ones, it is utterly unfair for them to have a very real influence on people who hold differing beliefs.
It might very well be an opportunity to preach. However, I don’t see a problem here, because the same opportunity is extended to, and used by all student groups. Other religious and non-religious groups put on speeches and events all the time. Just look at Hitel or the Cal Poly Brights. It is better for the University to answer the Veritas Forum’s one sided presentations in the marketplace of ideas than to try to stop them from speaking.
I have two major problems with Veritas.
1st: The club group gets matching funds from the university, which amounts to a state payout of funds endorsing a particular brand of conservative Christianity and even biblical literalism. This is arguably unconstitutional. However, I am sure the university will not act on this, as any resulting guidelines would inevitably result in a combination of bad press and litigation.
2nd: The club group’s characterization of its role as “a search for Truth.” The whole forum is a Christian proselytization tool, where attendees guided down a series of questions specifically designed to lead to the desired conclusion, and in certain cases, other groups are ridiculed and slandered. As someone who lived in the Milwaukee WI area during the early 90s, I was particularly insulted when speaker Paul Copan asserted that my philosophical opinions were the motivations behind serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Not to mention that I share the sickening man’s first name.
Veritas is a parody of honest inquiry.