Does God Exist

Last Sunday, I attended a ‘debate’ between a Western philosopher and Christian minister entitled “Does God Exist? A Debate” held at the Salt Lake Downtown Library.

I was amazed at the attendance. The turnout for a Sunday afternoon event in Downtown SLC was rather impressive. There were die-hard atheist. There were christians. there were Mormons (mind you I am not trying to separate members of Church of Latter Day Saints from Christians but here in SL we do see a separation of the members so I mention them separately).

the Debate was a “debate.” I am not sure that this is my choice of dialogue to work through a matter. My problem with the set up is likely a personal one. I attended in order to listen to and understand the alternative points of View to better understand each side’s View. Unfortunately, I think that the set up of a debate is arranged for each side to compete to Win. This does not allow each side to best explain their View. It is set up to best try to win.

Despite the flaws in the arrangement (at least from my perspective). I did enjoy and learn from the presentation.

Towards the end of the debate, there was an opportunity to ask questions from the audience. Mind you, most of the members of the audience who asked questions were more interested in telling the panel their opinion. Their questions were mostly secondary to expounding their opinion.

The second to the last question was probably the best question. “ Which one of you is likely to give in to the others side in the end?”

The Christian minister “ I cannot ever stop my faith. I pray that my friend on the other side comes to know God.” There is no changing him here.

The philosopher “I know that reason is on my side. I will never believe and think that my colleague will someday realize that his belief is not true.” Again, there is not breaking here, as well.

I think that this summarized the entire debate. Either one believes or one does not believe.

So I asked the last question of the afternoon. My question had two parts.

“Let us assume that God does not exist. Is there anything wrong about a community or society constructing such a God for the purpose of providing guidance to it members.”

Part two, “Let us assume that God does exist. Is there anything wrong with someone living a moral and ethical life without believing and worshiping him?”

First the philosopher answered saying that he found nothing inherently bad about creating a God for a good cause. In fact, in his opinion, that is exactly what societies’ throughout the world have in fact done. He did not respond to the second part of the question.

The Christian minister responded saying that making up a God would be very dangerous because they would be living a lie. As far as not believing in God where God exists, it is one one of the God’s primary demands that we worship and honor him. This would be a big problem.

My View: If God exists, he or she does not need my worship. Being all powerful and all knowing, God would not ‘need’ anything from me. If God does does not exist, then creating God for the purpose of providing a tool for people to live their lives would not seem to be inherently bad. It is only when different beliefs conflict and fight as to who is right that the problems would surface.