It all comes back to faith

I would like to thank Adam Keith and Alex Woody for their eagerness to discuss religion. I would, however, like to make some comments regarding their responses to Chad Rhoades article. In Mr. Woody’s letter, he states that religion is ‘the bad guy’ because it allows extremists to come into positions of power. Unfortunately, when abused, this is often the case. However, institutions and belief systems like government, atheism and science, when abused, have in the past allowed extremists to come to power and perpetrate violence. Does this mean that government, atheism and science are the cause of these problems and are therefore the bad guys? Of course not. When abused, any institution or belief system becomes ‘the bad guy.’

In Mr. Adam Keith’s letter, he says that science cultivates a peaceful, understanding society. This is true, and the truth is that religion does the same, when it is not abused. He also states that faith is ‘an excuse for ignoring the necessity of proof.’ ‘ What Keith is saying is that if someone believes in something without proof, it is faith. And faith,

according to Keith, is a false system of belief. My question to him is: can you prove there is no God? If one cannot prove that there is no God, then does it not take faith to be an atheist as well? These are important discussions to have in an open forum; I am glad that these questions are being raised, and would like to challenge everyone to examine their own beliefs critically.

Nicholas Sailer

freshman, industrial design

The burden of proof falls on believers

Alexander Majeska suggests that I have been lied to in the past about religion and he is right. I was once a Christian myself and the beliefs pushed onto me lacked evidence and support. As to my previous argument, I completely retract it and replace it by the following: the fact of the matter is that I do lack both knowledge and proof about the non-existence of a god and all I can do is speculate at the truth. However, any religious person also lacks knowledge and proof (reliable and verifiable proof) about the existence of a god, but they go beyond speculation and instead assume its existence. It is important for any religious person to realize that in a debate with a non-believer it is your job to show the existence of a god, not to ask the non-believer why he doesn’t believe – the burden of proof lies on the one making the claim. Now truth, being independent of human opinion, should be the goal of human understanding. When I claim that religion teaches false truths, I instead mean that religion may teach truth, but the support of its claim with real evidence is limited and should not be accepted without more proof. I end with this: Chad Rhoades claims that ‘to say everything in the world can be explained rationally is obtuse,’ however, it is equally obtuse to say that anything in the world can be explained irrationally (without lack of evidence) – we simply cannot conclude anything from the unknown.

Adam Keith

senior, physics

The snow was no excuse for Transportation problems

I fully understand we had snow – and the mess it creates – and got all the notifications the Wolfline sent out about when, where and how buses were running. But I still believe the Wolfline totally screwed up with how it resumed service when classes resumed Monday.

The Wolfline decided to resume on a normal schedule at the time it started, about 11:30 a.m., just in time for noon classes. This normally means one to two buses on most routes, which is enough for most routes on a normal day (I have issues with rider overflow during lunch on some routes, but that’s not the point here). However, for this situation, everyone at the University needed to get to class, work, etc. all at once, at noon. Therefore, this should have been realized and a rush-hour schedule adopted, which normally has more buses running. Personally I think even more buses should have been added as demand needed.

Also with this, several buses weren’t being tracked on the TVS system, and while Transportation is normally pretty good about notification for this issue, none was given, therefore causing more confusion. In some cases the issue caused dangerous situations to students and staff of the University; they had to walk through campus, on possibly unsafe walkways that hadn’t been de-iced or cleared of snow.

Kyle Bolton

senior, computer engineering