People of various beliefs and backgrounds gathered Friday on Central Campus for an interfaith dialogue in honor of the freedom of religion to conclude First Amendment Days.

The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State celebrated its centennial with a weeklong celebration of the First Amendment.

Event coordinator Joela Kemp, junior in advertising, said she wanted the event to represent all faiths on campus but could only get two atheists and two Christians to participate. She said she wanted the event to be open to discussion on various topics.

“I don’t want to dictate,” she said. “I want them to speak on what they want students to think about and know about.”

The interfaith dialogue was kicked off by Dan Barker, a minister-turned-atheist from Madison, Wis.

Barker said that while the number of Christians is shrinking and the number of Muslims is growing, those who label themselves “nonreligious” are the fastest-growing group in the country.

“America is a free country,” he said. “Free to believe and free not to believe.”

A lengthy discussion was conducted by Nick Even, of Campus Crusade for Christ; Kyle Krause, of the Atheist and Agnostic Society; Chris Tweedt, president of the Christian organization Truth Bucket; and Eric Lindstrom, president of the Atheist and Agnostic Society.

Tweedt, who helped establish Truth Bucket in 2002 to provide intellectual reasoning for Christian belief, said he was going to speak on two topics: the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Lindstrom said the Bible is the primary source for evidence of the resurrection and that the Bible’s flaws should be apparent to anybody who reads it.

“The largest evidence of the resurrection is in one place, this book. If you really haven’t read this book, you’d see how silly it is to agree with every single word in here,” he said, holding up the Bible.

Tweedt and Lindstrom both attacked sections of the Bible, including parts of the Old Testatment, as being harsh and applicable to only a select group of people. Tweedt said the laws outlined in the book of Exodus were meant to be civic law that applied to Israelites only.

“The ones that Eric read were not applicable to Gentiles,” Tweedt said.

He said the laws should not be followed because they are not universal.

After the four debated the validity of the resurrection story, members of the crowd were allowed to ask questions for the speakers.

Thomas Bullock, senior in political science, asked how people know they are doing wrong outside of the Bible. Tweedt said if someone feels guilty about an act, it is probably wrong. Bullock said that, despite getting an understandable answer, he doesn’t believe in universal morality.

“But I’m not going to convince him there isn’t,” he said.

Jennifer Erwin, senior in computer engineering, also said she does not believe in a universal morality.

“I think morals are completely culturally based,” Erwin said. “An example would be tribes in Africa, where a woman can have more than one husband. Here, that’s a problem.”