MARIANO GRINBANK, also known as MARIANO APOLOGETICUS, is an Argentinean-American Jewish Christian researcher and lecturer who has been involved in Christian apologetics for nearly a decade. He attended private Jewish school and had his Bar Mitzvah in Israel. He was involved in the New Age Movement and was a practitioner of Reiki, Tai Chi Chuan, Chi Kung and the I’Ching. For over six years he has been involved with the apologetics ministry at Calvary Chapel of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has lectured at the Santa Fe Conference on Biblical Discernment. He runs a contra-atheism blog called Atheism is Dead and a Christian apologetics blog called Life and Doctrine. His essays are available at: http://apologeticsinfo.blogspot.com. At this debate, Mariano will argue that God is the source of morality while materialistic concepts lack the ability to account for moral values, duties and accountability.
MICHAEL SIZER-WATT is a local atheist activist with a keen interest in moral philosophy. As a member of the prominent fellowship, Society of Ontario Freethinkers, and co-organizer of the meetup, Grand River Atheists, he helps coordinate guest speakers who express secular views on philosophical topics and contributes articles and interviews for Canadian Freethinker magazine. An armchair moral theorist, Michael asserts that ethics are rooted in objective principles rather than in any concepts of any deities. He plans to present a case for the multiple components that comprise the system of our moral sense, as well as some recommendations for justifying our moral convictions without appealing to religious dogma.