Two Sides of a Religious Debate

Do you all remember Cliffe Knechtle, the pastor that was in the quad about two weeks ago? He was debating against Matt Dillahunty, the former president of the atheist community of Austin. Well I had the opportunity to speak to both Knechtle and Dillahunty. I was curious as to what both of their purposes for participating in the debate was,  so I decided to ask both of them and Knechtle decided to answer first.

My purpose for the entire time at Texas State has been to introduce them to the closest friend I have, Jesus Christ.
-Cliffe Knechtle

Dillahunty then answered the question, not trying to push any beliefs on someone ,but to make sure people know what atheism is all about.

“I decided to participate in today’s debate because I do lot’s of debates. I think it’s a good thing to have these sorts of conversations,” Dillahunty said.

One of my primary goals is to make sure nobody leaves without actually meeting an atheist and without actually seeing who we are because there’s a lot of misinformation from pulpits, to news and everything else.
-Matt Dillahunty

Dillahunty then decided to elaborate and clear the air on misconceptions about atheists and the atheist community as a whole.

“I think the most common are that if you’re an atheist you can’t have any form of moral foundation. There’s also a lot of confusion over what it even means to be an atheist. Their immediate presumption is an atheist is someone who believes there are no Gods, which isn’t actually true. An atheists is just someone who does not believe that there are Gods,” Dillahunty said.

Knechtle also elaborated on any misconceptions about Christians and the Christian community.

“I think the biggest misconception is that faith in christ is the opposite of science. It seems that a lot of people think that faith in christ is equal to intellectual naivete’. So faith in Christ is not something that Jesus called for or the new testament called for unsupported, instead it’s supported by evidence that Christ is reliable,” Knechtle said.

Regardless on what your stance is on this topic, these two men were entertaining to watch during the debate and both proposed interesting ideas and challenged each other for two hours straight.

Reynaldo Leanos Jr, KTSW News.