The age-old question about whether or not God exists and how do you know or do not know as discussed at Wichita State last Thursday.

 The WSU Atheists and Agnostics sponsored the “Does God Exist” event. The four-member panel featured believers and non-believers. They debated reason, evidence, faiths purposed in their own lives and why they do or do not believe.

“It’s a role in my life…that’s grown stronger over the years,” Paul Ackerman, WSU Psychology Department assistant chair, said. “I have a sense of walking with God.”

He said this belief developed from a lifetime of personal experiences.

WSU Atheists and Agnostics Vice President Ben Holman said he lacks enough evidence and significant life events for him to believe in God’s existence although his thoughts have changed.

 “Incredible claims require incredible reasons,” he said. “My beliefs and convictions change with evidence.”

The panelists, which included WSU Agnostics and Atheists President Abram Howell and Pastor Mark Hoover of New Spring Church, a non-denominational church, discussed events caused by nature, such as storms and flooding, and whether or not this is evidence of God’s existence or not.

Ackerman said an event might be extraordinary for one person and not another.

“We don’t have the same sense of any extraordinary claim,” he said.

 Howell said, “I don’t know what qualifies as an incredible claim. I don’t think science necessarily replaces faith.”

He said he interprets significant environmental events to be nothing more than science even though those events reach a high degree of complexity and sophistication.

“There’s not reason to suppose it wasn’t anything but a natural solution,” Howell said.

Hoover said, to Howell, significant acts of nature indicate God does exist and that everything in life has a purpose and design.

“I’m just not sure I’m willing to say nature isn’t pointing to a supreme being,” he said. “Why would I assume (it) is different from all my other life experiences?”

Hoover said his faith had been a life-long pursuit with the understanding that all science, religion and philosophy are man-made. Even so, he said his environment would have to change for him to cease believing in God.

“All nature would have to disappear,” he said.

Ackerman expressed a similar sentiment.

“I would give up all kinds of things if you had the evidence,” he said. “I made a certain commitment to God….and I’m not going to give it up.”

Howell said he would view faith, God and religion differently if evidence convinced him otherwise.

“Solid Biblical prophecy would move our conversation in a different direction,” he said. “A lot of times it’s how bad could the evidence be and we still believe it. If the facts change, so does the conclusion.”

Howell said no one could always be right.

WSU engineering junior Jorge Rodriquez said he did not think anyone was converted by the discussion or heard anything new.

“They’re already going to come in with their set of beliefs and stick to them,” he said.

Rodriquez described the debate as “going nowhere fast.”

Becky Simmons, a Newman University graduate, came to the event, she said, because she is reassessing her beliefs. She said she appreciated the congenial nature of the discussion.

“They were willing to talk,” Simmons said. “They weren’t confrontational.”

She said she looks forward to more discussions.

“I really thought the points they brought up will lead to another one of their debates,” Simmons said.

Susan Spillman, director of the WSU Writing Program, moderated the debate. About 100 people attended.