2008 Decide for Yourself Debates

My Fellow Humanists and Freethinkers:

I would like to address our community on the events that transpired at the debates on the 23^rd.

Friday night I went to speak to the event organizer on behalf of the CFI to find out what the situation was with our setting up. From my understanding, we (the CFI) were supposed to be given a table on which we could promote ourselves; however, this did not happen – we were informed that we would have to pay $150 if we wanted a table or bring our own. From my understanding (and perhaps Justin can clarify here) we were to be given a table at no charge.

On the Friday I started to give out flyers (after asking if I could do so), but after 20 minutes I was stopped and told I could not hand out flyers without a table. I asked if I could move elsewhere, but I was told the only way I could give out flyers was if I had a table. This was a fair request (even if prior permission had be granted), for I was the only one handing out flyers and everyone else did have tables.

The debate for Friday night was appalling. Mr. Hunt proceed to systematically ad-hom attack the Hindu religion: demonizing Kali (A goddess representation of the Hindu god-force) implying she was evil and was a deceiver because she wears skulls (representations of ego), and is often portrayed with snakes; and stated that the Gurus promote self-worship. The moderator, Micheal Coren did nothing about these blatant ad-hom attacks.

The debates for that night as well as Saturday consisted of mainly what appeared to be Dave Hunt supporters (but the only evidence I have is overhearing several people saying that they were from his church) – who were there to (seemingly) support him rather than listen with an open mind. Please keep in mind this is a subjective observation with no empirical support.

Dr. DiCarlo put forth (in my opinion) an outstanding argument, but Dave Hunt did not respond to his arguments at all, he could not stay on topic constantly digressing into ‘proof’ of creationism rather than offering data for god’s existence. At one point he even spoke about Israel. I felt like I was at more of sermon then a debate. For those of you not there, I think Dr. DiCarlo got the best line of the night: when asked what he thinks god would say if he dies and it turns out there is a god; to this, he responded “Welcome home dude! Congratulations, you used your brain instead of being a SHEEP”.

After the debate is when the trouble started. Our table was immediately swamped with fundamentalists whose only goal was to argue with us, not debate or find out information but argue. I have great respect for Dr. DiCarlo’s , Mark’s, and Justin’s patience in dealing with these people. After some time a person approached the table and began with methodically argue with everyone who approached our table and distribute creationist pamphlets (and littering our table with them). With my experience distributing flyers without a table last night in mind, I got the event organizer. I explained to him that last night I was not allowed to distribute flyers without a table, and this man is standing here distributing pamphlets without a table and being nuisance. He said that I was standing infront of people, but I reminded him that I offered to move. To this he replied “as far as I’m concerned it’s his business cards”. I had to take a walk after that. Justin suggested we take off a get some coffee.

I think it’s interesting to note that if you look up the domain registration information (through WHOIS) on decideforyourself.net you will find that it is registered to Thomas Fairfull whose email is hosted on fairfull.com which states that they are a foundation formed to “support Christian beliefs and values around the world starting in our own back yard”, and “win lost souls for the kingdom of god” (there is also some nonsense about a Christian Zionist alliance). I think it’s a bit of a contradiction to advertise “free thinking” and “decide for yourself” when you so blatantly promote the opposite.

Just a little extra. If you look back at the archive for fairfull.com (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://fairfull.com/) it appears that the domain has been home to a number of different businesses including “hydrogen power” (under Dynamic Fuel Systems) and weight loss suplements(under unicity networks). But an investigation into all this is beyond the scope of this letter.

I know that many of us feel animosity about the debate. I know I personally feel like we were deceived into coming to provide ‘entertainment’ for the Christians. As we were packing up a person from the documentary filming beside us came up to apologize (quite profusely I might add) about how his fellow Christians treated us. Justin said “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life”. I guess I’m still in shock.

It is very important for us to recognize that we did gain from this. We handed out quite a few flyers and pamphlets , and many people were exposed to Free-Thinking that hadn’t even known about it before. We stood up, with our little table with the shaky leg and said “Hey! Here’s something different! Just take a look!” And in the end, it brought a smile to my face to see Free-Thinkers, Atheists, and Humanists from all walks of life sit down at a little Tim Horton’s in a suburb outside Toronto and share their minds. I don’t think I could be a Free-Thinker without the CDRH and people like them.

Love, Peace and Freedom to you all

-Terry Price

Terry {dot] price (at} gmail [dot) com

 

Photos: here