Last updated MIT professors Alan Lightman, Troy Van Voorhis, Alex Byrne, and Daniel Hastings speak on "Life, the Universe, and MIT" in a discussion moderated by Rosalind Picard.
The Veritas Forum is a non-profit organization which works with Christian students on college campuses to host forums centered on the exploration of truth and its relevancy in human life, through the questions of philosophy, religion, science, and other disciplines. The organization, named after the Latin word for truth, aims to "create university events engaging students and faculty in exploring life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life."[1] The first Veritas Forum was held at Harvard University in 1992. By 2008, 300,000 students had attended over 300 forums at 100 campuses across the US, Canada, France, England, and the Netherlands. In the 2010–2011 academic year, Veritas Forums were held at over 50 institutions of higher education. Veritas Forums are available for viewing online, and the organization has published several books with InterVarsity Press.
To plan a Forum, Veritas partners with Christian student groups, who organize and host the Forum, typically co-sponsored by other student organizations and academic departments. Typical events include evening keynote addresses, workshops, debates, and discussions. Common topics include the existence of God; the relationship between science and religion; social justice work; questions of social ethics; feminism and women's issues; questions of meaning or purpose in human life, evil, or beauty; human sexuality and relationships; the existence of objective truth; religion and art; Christianity and popular culture; and the historical validity of the Bible.
Kelly Monroe Kullberg founded the organization, The Veritas Forum, but has not had any affiliation with it since 2016.[2]
Peter Singer addresses a Veritas Forum at MIT about human worth and dignity
The first forum took place at Harvard University in 1986, and was organized as an academic conference in Christian apologetics.[6]Peter Gomes, Harvard's campus minister, participated in the forum in 1986.[6] The Forum's name derives from Harvard's motto, Veritas, meaning Truth.[7] Harvard's motto reflects the school's Christian heritage: although it is popularly trimmed to the one word Veritas, it officially reads "Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae," or Truth for Christ and the Church. With this name, Veritas seeks to remind the university community of the centrality of Christ to its founding. At the first Veritas Forum writers of the book Finding God at Harvard gathered to share their own questions, sufferings, journeys, and discoveries with the Harvard community.
France had its first Veritas Forum in 2006; England and the Netherlands in 2007; Macedonia in 2010. In the academic year 2010-2011, Forums were held at over forty American institutions of higher education. To date, over 400 speakers have presented at a Veritas event, representing a variety of disciplines and worldviews.[9]
Peter Singer - Australian philosopher, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, and hedonistic utilitarian
Books and media
Veritas Forum recordings are freely available on the Veritas website.
Veritas Forum Books seek to provide "academically engaging, culturally relevant and distinctively Christian points of view" to the public. Current titles include the following:
A Place for Truth edited by Dallas Willard, published in the fall of 2010
First Things (FT) is an ecumenical and conservative religious journal aimed at "advanc[ing] a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society". The magazine, which focuses on theology, liturgy, church history, religious history, culture, education, society and politics, is inter-denominational and inter-religious, representing a broad intellectual tradition of Christian and Jewish critique of contemporary society. Published by the New York–based Institute on Religion and Public Life (IRPL), First Things is published monthly, except for bi-monthly issues covering June/July and August/September.
Michael Ruse is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science. Ruse currently teaches at Florida State University.
Alister Edgar McGrath is a Northern Irish theologian, Anglican priest, intellectual historian, scientist, Christian apologist, and public intellectual. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and is a fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005.
Gary Robert Habermas is an American historian and New Testament scholar who frequently writes and lectures on the resurrection of Jesus. He has specialized in cataloging and communicating trends among scholars in the field of historical Jesus and New Testament studies. He is distinguished research professor and chair of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University.
Quentin Persifor Smith was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked in the philosophy of time, philosophy of language, philosophy of physics and philosophy of religion. Smith published over 140 articles. Of his published books, he has authored three, co-authored two, and co-authored and edited seven. He was an editor for Prometheus Books and was the chief editor for Philo from 2001 to 2007. He has debated William Lane Craig over the existence of God.
Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts, validity, or impact of atheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on the history of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in both the natural and social sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.
Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, gravity and cosmology. He is a research professor in the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics in the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Department of Physics and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is going to be Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from the summer of 2022. He has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, and has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope and New Scientist. He is known for atheism, critique of theism and defense of naturalism. He is considered a very prolific public speaker and science populariser. In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.
Lewis's trilemma is an apologetic argument traditionally used to argue for the divinity of Jesus by postulating that the only alternatives were that he was evil or mad. One version was popularised by University of Oxford literary scholar and writer C. S. Lewis in a BBC radio talk and in his writings. It is sometimes described as the "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord", or "Mad, Bad, or God" argument. It takes the form of a trilemma — a choice among three options, each of which is in some way difficult to accept.
Christian atheism is a form of Christianity that rejects the theistic claims of Christianity, but draws its beliefs and practices from Jesus' life and/or teachings as recorded in the New Testament Gospels and other sources.
John Carson Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist and Christian apologist. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and faith, and has had numerous public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
The term New Atheism was coined by the journalist Gary Wolf in 2006 to describe the positions promoted by some atheists of the twenty-first century. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated. Instead, they should be countered, criticized, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert undue influence, such as in government, education, and politics. Major figures include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett—collectively known as the "Four Horsemen", and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, known as the "plus one horse-woman".
Scott Robert Sehon is an American philosopher and a professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College. His primary work is in the field of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of action, and the free will debate. He is the author of Teleological Realism: Mind, Agency and Explanation in which he takes a controversial, non-causalist view of action explanation. Sehon has also published in the area of Philosophy of Religion, with a particular focus on the problem of evil and whether or not religious faith is a necessary foundation for morality.
Jesuism is the teachings of Jesus in distinction to the teachings of mainstream Christianity. In particular, the term is often contrasted with Pauline Christianity and mainstream church dogma of Nicene Christianity.
Frank Turek is an American apologist, author, public speaker, and radio host. He is best known as the founder and president of Christian apologetics ministry CrossExamined.org. Turek co-authored two books with Christian philosopher Norman Geisler. In addition, Turek has authored two of his own books.
Ian Horner Hutchinson is a nuclear engineer and physicist who is currently Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has made a number of important contributions to the fields of nuclear engineering and nuclear physics and has also written about the philosophy of science and the relationship between religion and science.
Jim Denison is an American author, speaker, and the CEO of Denison Ministries.
Khaldoun Aziz Sweis, is a Life Coach, global speaker, published author and Christian apologist. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Olive Harvey College. He is a tutor at Oxford University in Oxford, England.
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