One of Creighton’s newest organizations is hoping to clear up some fallacies about religion on campus through honest and open discussion. It’s first topic: items one would find on a grocery list.
On Sept. 5, the Skeptical Thinkers and Rationalists held its first meeting with six new members. Although the meeting was mainly intended to set the goals for the organization, the new members did not miss the opportunity to begin discussing religious arguments involving bananas and peanut butter. Do not re-read the previous sentence. That’s right: bananas and peanut butter.
To make a long story short, some creationists have used arguments in the past involving bananas and jars of peanut butter to prove that God designed the Earth and that the theory of evolution is nonsense. After these arguments were shared, some of the new STARS members called these arguments absurd.
“But you have to support your claims with evidence. You can’t just say, ‘That’s absurd,'” said Arts & Sciences junior Joe Wright said.
All the members agreed with him and decided that during discussions it will not be sufficient to simply disagree with something. Every person will have to articulate why he or she does not support certain religious beliefs.
STARS founder and president, Arts & Sciences senior Daniel Meeker, came up with the idea for the organization last year as a leader on the CUnity retreat. During the retreat, there was a discussion among the participants about religion and spirituality, and the subject of non-religion was also brought up in the same discussion.
“During this discussion, I voiced my opinion that I thought Creighton needed a group that was geared more toward the non-religious, but I assumed with the Catholic foundation of Creighton, an organization such as Skeptical Thinkers and Rationalists would not get approved,” Meeker said.
However, theology professor Dr. H. Ashley Hall, who helped lead the same retreat, suggested he should try anyway. Meeker began writing a mission statement and constitution for the organization and asked Dr. William Stephens, classical and Near Eastern studies professor, to be the moderator at the end of last school year. Stephens was pleased to accept the role.
“I’m going to support their goals of having discussions about issues that are relevant in society today of a philosophical and political nature,” Stephens said. “The purpose of the group is to encourage open and respectful discussion of different philosophical ideas, political ideas and ideas in science, and I’ll be happy to assist them however they want to do it.”
One of Meeker’s main goals for the new organization is to clear up some misconceptions about religion on Creighton’s campus.
“It seems to be that in America everyone is assumed to be born and raised Christian, which is not at all the case,” Meeker said. “I hope that this group will foster dialogue among Creighton’s religious and non-religious and make people aware that there are non-religious students at Creighton.”
As of the group’s first session, the organization did not set an official meeting time but will most likely begin gathering every other week, eventually switching to once a month. Along with having discussions at these meetings, STARS also hopes to show documentaries, host speakers and foster dialogue with other religious organizations on campus throughout the year.
As mentioned in the organization’s mission statement, STARS “will work to show that no matter what faith, or lack of faith, the members have, all are good, moral persons and are valuable to Creighton and society as a whole.”
For more information, e-mail Daniel
Meeker at [email protected].