Remembrance V: Spiritual Anniversary
My favourite lecturer in university was an atheist. No, he wasn’t my favourite because of his atheism, though he did try to influence our young minds in that direction. He taught me Phil 201 – Logic. It was compulsory for first year law students. In teaching us syllogism he would illustrate with stuff like this: “If God exists there will be no evil in the world. Evil exists in the world. Therefore God does not exist.” Of course the first premise is contentious, if not fallacious. Who said God and evil cannot coexist? By what exclusionary law can God and evil not coexist? And why juxtapose God and evil? Shouldn’t the proper juxtaposition be God and Satan, or evil and goodness? And if God represents goodness how come goodness and evil can coexist but God and evil cannot! Nonetheless he was a wonderful lecturer – hardworking, approachable, fair and dedicated. He represented what teaching should be. He critically engaged my teenage mind, made philosophy most interesting. I think I took four philosophy courses that year, though outside of philosophy I also enjoyed sociology and economics. These were powerful foundational knowledge and they would prove very useful to our brand consulting practice. We drew from so many disciplines. The irony though is that I got born again right in the midst of this rational assault on faith. How strange!