David Suzuki & The God Debate

On Monday, I shamefacedly left an important Blog Squad meeting in order to get to the David Suzuki talk on time. Who knew that it would already be full by the time I got there? My friend and I gazed forlornly at the unfriendly building that refused to have more of us, and then decided to join the sweeping crowds of students who persisted in going in anyway. We all managed to squish inside the Wesbrook hall, mostly by sitting on the stairs. No doubt it was a fire hazard, but it was worth it.

Now, I only went to the David Suzuki talk because Stephen Lewis mentioned him with great respect, and I like Stephen Lewis. And David Suzuki seems to be famous. I didn’t really know who Stephen Lewis was before I went to the SLC either — I always feel like I’ve heard his name before that but don’t remember how — but he’s famous, and other people are excited about him, so curiosity gets the best of me and I go to listen to famous people.

David Suzuki talked about the internment of Japanese-Canadians during WWII, about the role of genetics and civil rights, and his views on the role of science and universities. It was interesting, and nowhere near as bad or as pretentious as I had feared it might be (having been warned by Genevieve beforehand). It was really quite good and I enjoyed it. (Though not as much as Stephen Lewis.)

Yesterday, the debate, “Does God Exist?”, was also overflowing by the time I could spare myself to go. I managed to get into a room with a screen where I ate my last-minute chicken sandwich dinner from Hubbards in peace.

The debate itself was alright. There were a couple of new points I hadn’t heard of on the theistic side, and I thought the theologian made a good showing. He argued most of his points very well. When talking about other religions, however, he wasn’t so strong. For example, he said the Qu’ran was filled with mostly wild inaccuracies and mythological exaggerations, or something like that (without ever providing any evidence to support the point). This triggered a collective “ohhh” of disapproval in my room; it didn’t seem right for someone who demands respect for his religion to speak in a less than respectful manner of another religion, even if he doesn’t agree with it.

To my disappointment, the atheist — who doesn’t seem to know if he’s an agnostic or an atheist, or if he does, didn’t bother coming up with a valid argument as to why we should not be arguing over terminology and instead settled for evading the attack — didn’t do nearly as well. He tried to use humour, but humour doesn’t sustain weak arguments. He never once presented a concrete argument for why God doesn’t exist, only that the arguments for God’s existence are too weak. But I could easily conclude that I don’t know and that God may or may not exist. He seemed to be taking a leap of faith in believing that God’s non-existence is the more reasonable option. There were some theistic points he could have jumped on and attacked more thoroughly — like the claim that historians (using rhetoric that implies the general community) agree that the Bible is a historically accurate document, far more so than the Qu’ran. I wish they’d got a better atheist to argue; it would have been a fairer debate.