By Paul Esau (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 20, 2013
Is there a meaning to life, and is it the same for everyone?
This was the question students and presenters attempted to answer last Wednesday at UFV’s first Skeptics Café.
The discussion ranged from Nietzsche to Egyptian hieroglyphics as the 20 or so attendees bandied logical and philosophical structures like hot potatoes amongst the tables of UFV’s AfterMath campus pub.
The event was sponsored by University Christian Ministries (UCM) and was led by Andy Steiger and Greg Harris, both staff at Abbotsford’s Northview Community Church.
Steiger, who is also founder and director of Apologetics Canada, opened with the premise that meaning is necessary to living, and that such meaning must be “objective” rather than “subjective.”
For the former he quoted Tolstoy “[Without meaning] it is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us,” for the latter he proposed that life requires “meaning to be of infinite duration.” As an example he used the idea of language, which, meaningless when interpreted subjectively, is an invaluable tool when attributed objective meaning.
While the first Skeptics Café ended in a vibrant discussion, some members of the audience were surprised by the nature of the event. “At first I thought it was kind of misleading because the posters indicated it was kind of a skeptic’s thing or a skeptical conversation,” said Matt Janzen, a UFV student from the Theatre department, “and then [Stieger] comes out and starts talking about God and that meaning is derived from God, or that God is the author of our lives. So that was kind of interesting.”
Darren Suderman, another student, was also surprised. “I agree that I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be given by a Christian even though I’m a Christian myself. I definitely was expecting it from a more skeptical outlook … [yet] I think it’s really great for people to learn to think for themselves and to dialogue openly about these issues because some people really don’t like thinking about them or talking about them ever.”
Despite the surprise, the event fostered some good debate and provocative questions.
While no consensus was reached on what the “meaning” of life actually is, Steiger, Harris, and their audience took a courageous peek into the machineries of the infinite and all left smiling.
An accomplishment in itself.
