The Veritas Forum is an annual event sponsored by students featuring Christian and secular perspectives on academic topics like science, ethics, theology, sociology, and philosophy.

Several years ago, two Cal Poly students who were chemistry lab partners realized they were the student leaders of the Veritas Forum and the student Atheist club. As they talked about more more intentionally about working together on future Veritas Forums, they joked, “we should do a Forum called ‘Could Jesus and Darwin be lab partners?’”

This year, for the the first time, students from AHA, the Cal Poly Alliance of Happy Atheists, and the Veritas Forum were out on campus working together to promote and invite students and faulty to the upcoming 1/30/19 Forum. 

Students built a 8′ tall box, a graffiti board, with four questions they invited other students to stop by Dexter Lawn and comment on: 

• is religion a net good for society?
• what makes a society good?
• where to moral come from? 
• is a “pretty good” society good enough? 

Afterwards, students – both Christians and atheists – invited other students and faculty consider attending the upcoming Forum. 

In one instance, a student approached a professor walking by the graffiti board and asked him to comment on the question: “where do morals come from?” The professor stopped and said, “From the Ten Commandments, of course.”

The student was a bit surprised, and grimaced a bit. In this case, the student was an atheist; the professor was a Christian. Both of them are planning on attending.

We hope you will be able to attend, and will consider you’ll take this opportunity to invite your students, or colleague, as well. While space limitations don’t allow us to open up this event to the larger community, feel free to invite a friend to join you as your guest. 

Here’s a link to the Facebook Event. 

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