Over at Talking Philosophy, a post by Jeff Mason has generated a few interesting comments. The post itself is interesting (hence the comments, I suppose), but one comment (by Tom, a self-professed religious believer) is perhaps particularly interesting. Here’s an extract from the comment, followed by some general comments in response:
religion, particularly belief in a deity, is an incredibly useful concept the human mind uses to funnel its understanding of many issues into language which is not only powerfully symbolic, but also compact and economical. Finally, religion tightens the concept of duty due to the psychological implications (a la Pascal Boyer) of a personal god in relation to our intuitive psychology of each other. Continue reading »
Today’s edition of Varsity, the student newspaper at UCT, carries an article (see end of post for a scan of the article) reporting on the debate that was meant to occur last week. Contrary to my fears, it’s a balanced and sensible account of what happened in the lead-up to the non-event. There are, however, a few details from the article worth commenting on.
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From Pastor Michael, in response to my blog posts (I think).
Hi, To All
I would like to address this letter To Jacques,
and have some of you to be as witness so that Jacques may not Twist my words again as it is a custom to you atheists.
Jacques, you wrote in your blocks about the reasons of your pulling out. in all you have said, i recognized that the organization had some problems and i told you which i find so small problem as long as our speakers were comfortable with that which proves to me i was right because we finally made it to the end as i told you we will be able to have the debate because i trusted my abilities to do so.
Jacques, your thinking worries me; the facts you presented in your block were tricky and Dishonest.
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Well, he says it’s an open letter. As sent to Varsity (on April 18th, although I only received it an hour ago). His covering letter reads:
Hi, My Dear Sister Zerene
Here are some more infos about the debates:
-the date is wednesday the 29th April at the Jameson Hall from 6:30 to 8pm
-on their sides, their speakers are: Dr. Tauriq Moosa and Jacques Rousseau.
-on the Christian’s side there is Bishop Clinton L. Battieste and possibly Errol Naidoo
and the chairperson of the events is given to the SRC Though Amanda who is the first Chair and the second chair is to be chosen soon because He or She must be an Independant person which the SRC still has to find.
the Topic is: ” IS BLASPHEMY FREEDOM OF SPEECH ”
Please, can i ask you two things to do for me?
1. to announce the International Christian Conference that will follow the next day after the debate with our Guest speaker Bishop Dr. Clinton Battieste
2. secondly, i am attaching a letter that is very important to publish because the need might be there to know why have gone this way of deciding to debate with those who undermines us and pushes us away because we chose Jesus as our and our life and Truth.
be blessed and hope to hear from you again any time.
Michael
Pastor
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As readers will know, a debate was meant to take place tonight, at UCT’s Jameson Hall. I have now withdrawn from this event, as has my co-speaker, Tauriq Moosa. I fear that those we were scheduled to debate with may try to exploit this to their political advantage, and therefore feel that it’s important to place on record the sequence of events leading to my withdrawal, as well as the reasoning behind it. First, though, apologies to any of you who looked forward to attending, and especially to those who did not receive timeous notification of the cancellation via my Twitter or Facebook messages.
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