On Tuesday we held our annual debate at Atheist Society as to whether Professor Dawkins had been a positive or negative influence on the whole atheism discussion.

To my surprise almost everyone came out in a huge sea of support for Dawkins and rightfully so too!

Myself and Ian Abbott from Lancashire Secular Humanists at the Ummah Channel studios where we were filming a debate.

On Tuesday we had our first formal debate of the academic year at Atheist Society on the motion “this house believes there is no god.”

Myself and Norm were arguing for the opposition which went quite well I thought – obviously the motion carried but by a reasonably slim margin which at an Atheist Society is no minor achievement. I managed to get away with quite a bit too, nobody called me when I described how evangelical Christian Francis Collins was very much outspoken on atheism (which he technically is – just not on the right side ).

Friday night saw us to take the street outside the union for all night debate in an attempt to talk to even more students and had out some free hot drinks to people in need of one. It wasn’t as fast moving as it is during Rationalist Week but we got some quite long quality conversations and chatted to some great people so it was well worth it.

On Tuesday we had a debate with the Islamic apologist Adam Deen. The man is a fantastic public speaker and even though I think most of us from A-Soc have heard all the arguments before, they were very eloquently put. Norm did a good job of speaking for outside, as did Sophie chairing a debate for the first time – not an easy one to start on!

Tuesday saw A-Soc roll around again and with no exec members there on the night, it was up to Sophie to lead us for the night. But of course she didn’t so I had to do it . The night involved a short introduction to Humanism given by myself followed by a formal debate on whether Humanism was a religion.

Michael argued it was and made some good points but was ultimately beaten by Tom who bravely swapped sides at the last minute after none of the speakers who were going to be arguing Humanism isn’t a religion showed up.

Wednesday we had a long awaited debate with the Islamic Society scheduled. It was a big step forward as traditionally they have been very hostile towards us and generally refused to engage in any kind of interfaith communcation.

It turns out though that the guy organising it had “left ISoc” which apparently (though I’m going on what I’ve been told, but this is by people directly involved) that he was kicked out of the society for trying to encourage interfaith dialog between ISoc and Atheist Society.

We had no idea of this though and ISoc didn’t seem to actually be organising the debate (which would fit with the above being true) so we volunteered to take responsibility for running the event and get it all organised.

This was a bit of a headache but needs must and all that so we took about getting it all sorted.

It turns out however that the day before the debate, ISoc had gone down and cancelled the venue booking (which was in their name because they guy originally organised) to prevent the event from actually going ahead.

We only found this out at about noon yesterday (the day of the debate) and tried out best to get the message out to everyone but unfortunately didn’t get to everyone – some people were doing three hour round trips to attend and were not amused to find out it had been cancelled.

So there you have it, I don’t know why we expected better from ISoc but at least we won the debate by default – does that count as proof there is no god? .

Last night saw us hold a fairly informal debate prep meeting ahead of the upcoming debate with the Islamic soiciety later this month. They are bringing in an external speaker so we thought it best if we gathered our heads together a bit.

Despite our actual speaker for the debate not turning up we got a few good ideas down though a lot of it just needs a bit more research really. Never the less it should be a debate that is going to be very interesting indeed.

Yesterday saw us repeat a debate we ran at Atheist Society last year, “do the benefits of religion outweigh the negatives.” Initially we had five people volunteer to speak but three of them having pulled out at the last minute, myself and Nicola ended up arguing for the oppisition.

We won, and while this is to be expected I thought it would have been a closer debate given we were just winging it. Perhaps it is just too much of an easy argument to win? Though I did have an idea of what I wanted to say, having argued for the opposition last year.

Afterwards we headed down to OK Karaoke were it was indeed free entry – but there wasn’t any karaoke. I mean seriously, what karaoke bar doesn’t offer karaoke? At least, you would think that is the kind of thing they would have mentioned to Sophie when she spoke to them on the phone. They did however mention drinks offers, to which there weren’t any.

So we prompted stormed out and headed to Courtyard for a drink or two. Unfortunately Courtyard being dead as normal, decided to close at ten so we were only there for less than an hour. So all in all a bit of bust, but we’re still smiling so it’s all good.

The first formal debate of the year having arrived last night, myself and Tom took it upon ourselves to put forward the case for the Flying Spaghetti Monster being the one true god.

The debate was of quite a high standard with both sides making some excellent points. The motion was ultimately defeated but at a fairly even split of 14 votes to 12 but this is of course just part of his devine plan. Ultimately, it was a really fun debate and one we should definitely run again in the future.