IS RELIGION NECESSARY?
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| IS RELIGION NECESSARY |
Is Religion Necessary - Debate between Robert MacGowan VS Clarence Darrow Agnostic
DEBATE Affirmative: Rev. Dr. Robert MacGowan, minister of Bellefield Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. Negative : Clarence Darrow eminent criminal lawyer and agnostic, Chicago,
At Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh, Pa., Thursday evening, January 15, 1931, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, the "Highland tongue'' still with him, matched arguments with Clarence Darrow, veteran of a half century in the criminal courtrooms of America. The debate centered on the question,
"Is Religion Necessary?" Before a tense audience, Rev. Dr. MacGowan, student at Glasgow, Edinburgh and London Universities, opened the discussion with a 25-minute statement. Mr. Darrow followed negatively with 35 minutes. Each speaker had 25 minutes for rebuttals, and Rev. Dr. MacGowan closed the argument with a 10-minute sur-rebuttal.
There was no judges' decision. Following the debate, members of the audience, meeting the speakers on the platform, questioned them and produced their own arguments for a full hour. As will be noted in the text which follows, war "caught hell'* from both debaters. The Pittsburgh meeting was held under the auspices of the National Speakers' Forum, of which George G. Whitehead, Columbus, O., is the director. Elbert R. Moses, of the Pittsburgh School of Speech, was chairmans.
Except:
This is my playground, this world ; it is my working place, too, and it is my cradle and it is my grave, but somehow there is a mystery in it all, and I would like to know what that mystery is that lies behind all that I see."
I begin to ask why, where, when and how, and so long as I do, religion will suggest itself to my mind. Now, why should I be asking questions? Because I look at nature all about me, and I see—and it is always the first argument I see evidences of intelligence in nature as it rises in its grandeur here and there. I see more; I see that everything—and this comes from scientists themselves, that everything in nature, organic and inorganic, is subject to a reign of law. Law!
That is the wonder of the most eminent scientists in the world today. I see more ; I see evidences of a will, too, in the processes of the seasons, in the beauty of azure skies ; there is plenty and to spare for mankind. Nature gives it ; where it goes is another matter ; that may be an economic device, but nature is plentiful for you and for me.
There is evidence of goodness, there is evidence of might, vast power there. But we call it not just might ; we call it creative will. I said intelligence is behind it. Then intelligent energy becomes creative, producing the highest things from the very humblest beginnings in life, as science knows it today. But there is other energy organized for the purpose of producing the highest end.
What am I to say about it? Intelligence, goodness and will, what are these? And these are the parts of my own being; they constitute personality, and so we say that behind this universe of ours there is personality.
But you say, "You are only thinking in terms of your own nature; it is anthropomorphic"—that is the scholarly name for it.
