Recent controversial lecture on faith sparks rebuttal

The line “God Has Not Left the Building,” printed on the Basic English and Bible Club’s flyer for tomorrow evening’s lecture event, shows just how much controversy has arisen over Dr. Peter Boghossian’s Jan. 27 lecture.

Titled “Jesus? Of course. Easter Bunny? Of course not. Delusions? Of course, they multiply like rabbits,” the lecture will be delivered by Dr. Vern Bissell in a direct rebuttal to Boghossian’s presentation on how faith is an unreliable way to perceive reality.

Liberal studies junior Michelle Kerns is a member of the BEBC, a Portland State student religious group. She created and organized the event with the intent to give the PSU community an opportunity to hear both sides of the issue on faith. Taking a step back from the outward argument over how to perceive reality, Kerns takes her spirituality inward.

“I don’t believe ‘religion’ is an ‘adequate’ way to perceive reality. I believe in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ/God and through that relationship one can find peace in the reality in which we live knowing that the one true, living God, who has created all things, is in control of all things,” Kerns said via email.

Bissell, a Young Earth Creationist, serves as an advisor to the BEBC and offers his time to foreign students by helping them learn English. It’s a service he says he sees simply as an honor to God. Bissell has a diverse background, with a bachelor’s degree in math and physics, a master’s degree in engineering and a doctorate in civil engineering-hydraulic engineering.

“We are made for relationships and to know truth—to enjoy and make beauty, to have hope and purpose, and to have things that are a specific reflection of being made in the image of God. His purpose for us is to have a relationship with him for eternity and that’s manifested in our relationship with other people, from God,” Bissell said.

After Boghossian’s provocative event, Bissell offered his services for the counter argument. More than just an opportunity to present the Biblical version of the integration of faith, science, reality and truth, Bissell believes it is his duty as a Christian to defend the defenseless from the philosophy professor who Bissell says disabuses students of their faith systems.

According to Bissell, attacking someone’s faith is an attack on the very core of who they are. “I see that really as a form of abuse; I consider that just as serious or more serious as the abuse by Jerry Sandusky on the kids [at Penn State],” Bissell said.

The issue of spiritual faith at Portland State has seen strong verbiage from both sides of the aisle, and of those who believe in a higher power have taken deep offense at the controversial Boghossian and his remarks. And while the philosophy professor fully supports Bissell and the BEBC’s right to free speech and response to his public lecture, he says the unconscionable comparison between helping people to have more reliable methods of reasoning and child rape speaks for itself.

“This remark should serve as a wake up call to religious moderates. When one abnegates one’s rationality, one necessarily grants cover to religious extremists like Dr. Bissell. This comment should also serve as a wake-up call for secular liberals. Sam Harris said it best: ‘The greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism; rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself,’” Boghossian said.  

Bissell is affirmative in his approach to God but offers concessions to Boghossian’s claim that he holds nothing against those with faith; they just see the world differently. It is Bissell’s worldview that will guide the lecture.

He believes the spiritual world is something people recognize, and said that in that vein Boghossian has a blind spot.

“I respect his opinion. As an imperfect man, I still try to see things the way a perfect God would. God is a god who has made man with free will but has also given us rationality,” Bissell said. “It’s really an attack on God himself. I embrace the scripture and I find it to be true; [Boghossian] wants to take it away.”

At Boghossian’s lecture on Jan. 27, it was Bissell who asked the first question. Bissell asked if the professor had time to put into his lecture a conflicting article that he had sent earlier in the week, attached to which was a Ziggy cartoon that showed two birds, one hanging upside down inquiring whimsically to the bird perceived right side up: “How do you know you’re not the one upside down?”

Bissell’s lecture will be held tomorrow evening from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Smith Memorial Student Union, room 298.