Public critic of intelligent design P.Z. Meyers looked back to the creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago to argue that the religious belief of creationism doesn’t make sense in a lecture Thursday night in Crouse-Hinds Hall.

Meyers, biology professor at the University of Missouri and author of award-winning science blog Pharyngula, included creationism, feminism, abortion and the history of the universe in his discussion, “Science versus Religion: How Faith Makes Us Wrong.”

Meyers drew the largest crowd so far — a little under 200 — as the third speaker in the Free Thinkers lecture series from the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers Alliance at Syracuse University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said James Johnson, vice president and co-founder of the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers Alliance. In attendance were many from outside the SU and ESF community who subscribed to Meyers’ blog.

The creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago and the creation of earth 4.5 billion years ago are at odds with the creation story, Meyers said. Scientific discoveries in the 1700s about the universe led to a reconstruction of religion, he said.

On Christianity, he said, “What they did when they saw all this data coming in from the astronomers and later from the geologists and paleontologists was they said, ‘Well, hey, the universe is even bigger than we thought.’ Therefore God’s creation is even more awesome. We have more reason to worship a deity because he’s built this immense universe all for us—never mind the fact that we only have a thin skin on one small speck of dust in this gigantic sea of stars.”

Conflict between religion and science come up when dealing with the gap of millions of years between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2, the great flood and the appearance of human kind. Meyers directly addressed Christians on the inconsistencies in the religious theories on the 2348 B.C. flood and animal diversification expressed in exhibits at the Answers in Genesis’ Creation Museum in Kentucky. Despite scientific discoveries about evolution, he said the museum proposed some animal diversification might have occurred, but humans are purely produced from God alone.

“They always set it up as God’s word in conflict with human reason. This is the other amazing thing about this museum, you go through there and you discover that human reason is the enemy. Human reason is to be squelched. What you’re supposed to do is just listen to God’s word,” Meyers said.

The lecture also included discussion on preformation, the belief that the man implants the woman with a miniature being, epigenesis, the belief that an embryo develops progressively, and abortion.

Meyers contrasted photos of anti-abortion advertisements showing babies with messages on the developmental stages and images of what a fetus looks like 28 days from conception. In reference to an ad that read, “I got my genes at conception,” Meyers said it was “radical reductionism” and “grossly dishonest” to reduce a human being to a collection of genes.

Meyers called the advertisements a collection of lies. “They are lying to us from billboards all over the country. Things like, ‘Embryos are tiny babies.’ No, they’re not. Embryos tend to be little amorphous blobs,” he said.

YooJung Hong, a sophomore public relations major, came as part of a class assignment. As a Christian, she found Meyer’s lecture to be offensive based on his jokes, comments and “just the fact that he pretty much assumed everyone in the audience were atheists and didn’t really show any respect to Christians or any other religions,” she said.

Johnson, vice president of the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers Alliance, said with the group in its first year as a university-funded group, they wanted to “come in with a bang” through the lecture series.

“We knew we wanted to stir up conversation about it so people could hear that we exist,” said Johnson, a senior environmental forest biology major at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

For those who were offended by the lecture, Johnson said that was not the intention.

“Our goal isn’t to offend people, our goal is to have an honest, open, respectful debate, but there are some things that people will always be offended by. There’s nothing you can do about that. Some beliefs need to be challenged,” Johnson said.

Johnson became an atheist four years ago and said he feels a lot of what he grew up thinking about atheists is wrong. As a biologist, Johnson said he took the issue of science versus religion seriously when it conflicted with helping humanity. He said he found the “pseudo-science” of Deepak Chopra’s alternative medicine or John Edward’s psychic communications offensive.

“Science is what drives human success, but that is being confronted by religion. And, I feel that we need to mount a counter resistance to these ideas that are threatening our way of life. There are religions out there that don’t believe in vaccines, medicines,” Johnson said. “I don’t think this is beneficial.”

 

Published on April 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride