Pro-Intelligent Design Op-Ed in NY Times

[T'ai Chi]

Meanwhile, U.S. schoolchildren keep dropping in ranking when compared with other nations.

Data?

Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, I always say. Yee-haw!

Or in strip clubs...

 

[T'ai Chi]

1. What does the present design tell you about the designer?
2. Point to some other examples of this designer's work.
3. What processes did the designer employ in the creation of his designs?
4. Did the designer simply set things in motion and adandon (or step back to observe) the design, or is the designer actively continuing to design? What evidence supports your answer over the other possibility.
5. Where is the designer now?
6. Is the proposed designer natural or supernatural?

Let's talk SETI instead!

1. what do you know about aliens?
2. point to examples of what the aliens have done
3. discuss the aliens' biology
4. did aliens create us?
5. where are the aliens?
6. are the aliens natural, or supernatural?

 

[Art Vandelay]

Behe’s strategy seems to be to take one basic claim and split it up into four “separate” claims. This allows him to make it more difficult to disagree, because it’s difficult to decide exactly where he crosses the line from “not really right” to “definitely not right”. His entire argument, really, can be summed up in one sentence: “It looks to me like life has been designed, therefore that’s the explanation I’m going with”. The rest of the article is just an attempt to make that sound more rigorous.

First, what it isn't: the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea, even though devout people opposed to the teaching of evolution cite it in their arguments.

ID is firmly grounded in religious thinking, and is motivated by a desire to defend literal interpretations of religion. I have yet to see any atheist advance ID, and those that I have seen advance it appear to be markedly more fundamentalist than the general populace. If Behe cannot see the undercurrent of religion that runs through ID, it is probably because he takes it so much for granted that he does not even recognize it as religious. The very idea that intelligence requires a creator is itself closely associated with religion.

"we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore."

This is merely begging the question, namely "Did humans evolve through natural processes?" If the answer is "yes", then Mount Rushmore must be understood as resulting, ultimately, from natural processes. To say that Mount Rushmore cannot be accounted by natural processes simply because the proximate cause involves humans is as valid as saying that humans cannot be accounted by natural processes because the proximate cause (sex) involves humans. If we're going to allow such arguments, we might as well declare evolution to be false a priori and be done with it.

I am a naturalist. What that means to me is that "supernatural" cannot be assigned a meaningful definition, and reference to it is usually an excuse to gloss over the inability to have one's explanation conform to reality. Philip Johnson has said that naturalists refuse to accept supernatural causes, but that is a form of emphasis that grossly misrepresents the situation. It is not "If it is supernatural, then it is not a cause", but "If it is a cause, it is not supernatural". Humans are part of the natural world, therefore anything which causes them is, by definition, part of the natural world, and subject to natural laws. If one insists that their explanation for humans is not subject to natural laws, then it is not truly a cause, as the very concept of "cause" relies on the concept of natural laws. To say that a being, by performing act A, caused event B, is to claim that B would not have happened without A, and one cannot make such a statement without implying that there is some law constricting the being in question from effecting B in the absence of A.

The implicit premise behind Intelligent Design is not, as someone naively relying on the actual name of the movement might think, that intelligence was involved in the design of humans. Who in their right mind could disagree with such a trivial statement? No, what ID claims is that the hypothesis of intelligence somehow stands in opposition to naturalism, that there is somehow something unnatural about intelligence. It must therefore be understood that ID is a philosophy which disagrees with naturalism not merely with regard to the past, but also with regard to the present. According to the thinking that underlies ID, intelligence is a quality that transcends the natural world, and therefore can neither be created, nor determined, by natural processes. The inescapable conclusion is that to accept ID is to accept that humans not only were created by a supernatural being, but, by virtue of their intelligence and ability to engage in intelligent design themselves, are supernatural creatures. Despite frequent claims that ID is not a religious idea, the theological pedigree should be obvious: humans have souls, souls cannot be created through natural means, therefore there must be a supernatural being behind human existence. Cross out “souls” and put in “intelligence”, and you have the central claim of ID. Knowing that the ID concept of “intelligence” is more akin to a soul than mere problem solving ability, the circular nature of the watchmaker argument and its variants should be clear. To say that it is obvious that a watch, or Mount Rushmore, or anything else, was created by intelligence in the ID sense of the word, requires one to first declare that the ID sense of the word is valid. Since the claim depends on ID being true to begin with, to turn around and use it to “prove” ID is ridiculous.

The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence.

Here, it is necessary to point out the high degree of subjectivity inherent in the term “explanation”. An explanation is something which causes a person to think that that a situation makes sense, and so to say that there is no explanation can be as much a statement about oneself as about the science.

----
Anyone who thinks they can get all of the above into 150 words is welcome to try.

SpaceFluffer

Intelligent design is a non-testable theory,

The problem with saying that is that you are accepting it as a theory. It is not any kind of theory, testable or not.

 

[davefoc]

new drkitten wrote:

Behe's claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie;

I was prepared to cut him a little slack on that claim.

I can see how that hypothesizing an undefined intelligent entity that played some role in the development of life on earth could be seen as non-religious.

This is a gray area I think. If a person hypothsesizes the existence of ether as an explanation for some natural phenomena is that a religious idea? There is no definitive evidence for either the ether or the intelligent designer, they are just ideas put forth to explain some observed natural phenomena.

Some of your argument went to the idea that Behe is religious. I don't doubt that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of an intellgent designer is religiously based.

But I also see your argument that it is a religiously based notion. It is an essentially untestable hypothesis that is consistent with the idea of a supreme being that is obviously a common theme in many religions.

 

[drkitten]

Some of your argument went to the idea that Behe is religious. I don't doubt that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of an intellgent designer is religiously based.

But I also see your argument that it is a religiously based notion. It is an essentially untestable hypothesis that is consistent with the idea of a supreme being that is obviously a common theme in many religions.

I don't believe I actually addressed the question of whether Behe personally was religious (although I would be extremely surprised if he wasn't). My point is simply that the intelligent design movement itself (for example, the infamous Discovery Institute, the major financial supporter of Behe and Dembski both, as well as the major lobbyist behind the ID movement) is very explicit in their own writings and public speeches that ID is a religious movement.

For example, Dembski stated publically in 1992 that the intelligent
designer had to be a "supernatural intelligence." Phillip Johnson spoke in 1996 that "My colleagues and I speak of ‘theistic realism’-- or sometimes, ‘mere creation’ -- as the defining concept of our movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator [italics mine], and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology. [italics mine]" He later spoke (2001) about how the success of ID would demonstrate that "the Christians have been right all along -- at least on major elements of the story, like divine creation."

The best examples, of course, come from "the Wedge Document," which was written and published by the Discovery Institute and lays out step by step the religious agenda behind ID. When this document came to public attention, they attempted a rather thin smokescreen that doesn't actually cover anything up.

Even in the apologetic smokescreen, the religious overtones come through. "We think [the worldview of scientific materialism] is false, we think that the theories that gave rise to it (such as Darwinism, Marxism, and Freudian psychology) are demonstrably false, and we think that these theories have had deleterious cultural consequences." Fair enough -- that's what they're opposed to. They are specifically against "scientific materialism."[p. 6] "The Discovery Institute's Center... seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies." [p. 6]

In its stead, they wish to raise (really, resurrect) "the cardinal idea [that humans were created in the image of God]." [p. 6] "Discovery Institute's Center... wants to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialistic worldview and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." [p. 8] They try to backpedal in their apology by noting that "consonant with" does not mean "the same as." Notice, however, that they are still attempting to dictate the results of scientific inquiry ("it should be consonant with Christianity") prior to the development or examination of evidence -- and this is a point they don't even attempt to disguise.

Furthermore, the actual Wedge document is very explicit in its attempt to bend scientific results to their desired political framework. It outlines some (now-outdated) rather Stalinistic "five year plans," of which the first phase is Research, Writing, and Publication. At this point, they expect to enter phase II, "Publicity and Opinion Making," where they will "seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do thiis primarily through apologetics seminars." [p. 14] The word "apologetics" is significant in this context, but I need not belabor the point.

I don't think there's any room for doubt that the ID movement as spearheaded by the Discovery Institute is a religious movement; there may in fact be a few wing-nut groups out there that would be amenable to the abstract proposition that mankind was designed by intelligent but non-divine creatures (I believe the Raelians would qualify), but that's not what the ID movement is offering or supporting.

And, to the point, my original claim was that :

Behe's claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie;

Behe is a member (senior fellow) of the Discovery Institute, recieves substantial support from them, and they are major supporters of his book Darwin's Black Box. He is aware of the religious nature of the Discovery Institute's agenda and of the religious basis of the idea; he's one of the movers and shakers behind it. For him to claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie.

 

[hgc]

I sometimes wonder how all the IDers would react if a science teacher forced to include ID in a public school ciriculum said, "ID is based on the idea that everything is too complex to have arisen from natural methods; if everything really is that complex, then it must be too complex for a single designer, therefore it must have been designed by a group of designers." I cannot imagine IDers reacting well to that concept.

God by Committee!!!

 

[Brown]

For him [Behe] to claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie.

I do not disagree with the thoughful analysis, but I might add one additional wrinkle.

I have been following very closely many church-state controversies that have been working their ways through the courts: The Pledge Case, the Divinity Case, the Ten Commandments Cases, and so on. Not only have I been following the formal arguments asserted by the parties, but also the remarks of members of the courts and also the non-legal remarks of those who have taken sides in the dispute.

And there is an interesting pattern that emerges.

Many religious people do not see their own religious ideas as religious.

They seem to be pretty quick to perceive the religious ideas of others (and occasionally some non-religious ideas of others) as religious, but they do not see their own religious ideas in the same way.

Consequently, when Behe says that intelligent design is not religious, he may be following this pattern. To me (and to many others), the notion of intelligent design is patently religious, because it posits the existence of a superior (if not supreme) being that cannot be observed directly and that is supernatural by definition. When intelligent design is described in such a fashion, it is difficult to conceive how anyone could see such a belief as not being religious.

And yet, there are folks out there--some of them sitting on the United States Supreme Court--who do not see what should be obviously religious concepts as religious. To a degree, such positions often seem to be disingenuous, or double-talk, or flat-out illogical. The feeling of these folks seems to be: "I have good reasons for my beliefs, therefore these beliefs are not really based upon faith and are not really religious." What these folks ought to do (and what many of them seem to be incapable of doing or unwilling to do) is to look at the issues from the point of view of a neutrally-religious outsider, and ask whether that neutrally-religious outsider would perceive these concepts as religious. They seem to be able to do this with other religions; they ought to be able to do it with their own.

 

[drkitten]

I do not disagree with the thoughful analysis, but I might add one additional wrinkle.

I have been following very closely many church-state controversies that have been working their ways through the courts: The Pledge Case, the Divinity Case, the Ten Commandments Cases, and so on. Not only have I been following the formal arguments asserted by the parties, but also the remarks of members of the courts and also the non-legal remarks of those who have taken sides in the dispute.

And there is an interesting pattern that emerges.

Many religious people do not see their own religious ideas as religious.

I think you're simply being too charitable. I think that these religious people of whom you speak are simply lying; they are quite willing to acknowledge that their beliefs are religious in private (or in communities of like-minded believers), but are smart enough not to make such statements in a public and potentially hostile situation where they could be used to dismiss the statement out of hand.

Unfortunately, the First Amendment (and subsequent cases) have made it extremely clear that religious beliefs cannot be used as a basis for government actions. So any halfway intelligent believer will recognize that it is necessary to cover the religious belief with a spurious fig-leaf of secular reasoning, and to deny that the belief is in fact religious. Very few of us are above lying in a good purpose. If the legal situation demands the Behe lie about whether or not ID is a religious belief, I believe that he would.

More forcefully, I believe that he has.

 

[alfaniner]

If the Universe was designed, what kind of drafting table and writing utensils did the designer(s) use? Where did these materials come from if nothing had been designed yet?

 

[davefoc]

I seem to be in the mnority here but I still think it is at least a plausible position that the concept of intelligent designer is not necessarily a religious idea.

I certainly agree that for the most part people that claim it isn't are just doing so as a method of pushing forth their own religious views about the orgins of life. I also agree that most, if not all. of the people promoting the notion have religious views consistent with the idea of an intelligent designer.

But I think that the concept of an intellgient designer is not necessarily religous and claiming that it is has the effect of adding a largely semantic element to the ID debate. Is the hypothesis that human life was designed and created by an extraterrestial genius a religious notion or just one more hypothesis in a long line of them that attempt to explain the origin of life on earth? Where is the dividing line between a religious hypothesis and a naturalistic hypothesis? I don't think there is a clear one.

 

[Brown]

I think you're simply being too charitable. I think that these religious people of whom you speak are simply lying; they are quite willing to acknowledge that their beliefs are religious in private (or in communities of like-minded believers), but are smart enough not to make such statements in a public and potentially hostile situation where they could be used to dismiss the statement out of hand.

That may be so.

Nevertheless, the Ten Commandments cases now pending before the Supreme Court (the case will be orally argued on March 2) involve issues of whether the presentation of the text--specifically including the prominent text "I AM the LORD thy God"--is secular. In the Texas case, the State of Texas argued--apparently with a straight face--that the Ten Commandments were no more religious than "In God We Trust" on a one-dollar bill:

This line-up of words and symbols on the dollar bill--all-seeing eye, eagle with stars and stripes, the words “ONE” and “IN GOD WE TRUST”--is strikingly similar to the prefatory line-up on the monument--all-seeing eye, eagle with stars and stripes, the words “the Ten Commandments” and “I AM the LORD thy God.” The reasonable observer would not likely find this confluence of words and symbols insignificant. Instead, she would reasonably perceive in the design the message the monument’s designers no doubt intended to send: like the motto on our currency, the Ten Commandments are presented here for their civic, and not for their religious, significance. (page 22, emphasis added)

Personally, this argument strikes me as absurd, unless one assumes that the so-called "reasonable observer" is a believer in a religion that endorses the Ten Commandments. To such a religious reasonable observer, the proclamations would not necessarily be thought of as religious, even though the contrary view would be evident to a non-religious reasonable observer.

In Stone v. Graham,, a 1980 US Supreme Court opinion holding that the Ten Commandments could not constitutionally be posted on the wall of public classrooms, the Court said:

The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one's parents, killing or murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. ... Rather, the first part of the Commandments concerns the religious duties of believers: worshipping the Lord God alone, avoiding idolatry, not using the Lord's name in vain, and observing the Sabbath Day.

One of the purposes of the pending Ten Commandments cases is to vitiate Stone, if not overrule it outright. Chief Justice Rehnquist, who dissented in Stone, thought the case was wrongly decided:

The Court rejects the secular purpose articulated by the State because the Decalogue is "undeniably a sacred text...." It is equally undeniable, however, as the elected representatives of Kentucky determined, that the Ten Commandments have had a significant impact on the development of secular legal codes of the Western World. The trial court concluded that evidence submitted substantiated this determination. ... Certainly the State was permitted to conclude that a document with such secular significance should be placed before its students, with an appropriate statement of the document's secular import.

In the Ten Commandments cases, the governmental bodies asserted secular purposes (to commend the Fraternal Order of Eagles and to post a monument about law). In Justice Rehnquist's view, magic words that recite any sort of secular purpose solve all constitutional problems.

In the years since Stone was decided, Justice Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun have left the bench. Justices O'Connor, Scalia and Thomas have joined, and all of them have expressed views that the government can take a stand on what are plainly religious issues without offending the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the First Amendment (and subsequent cases) have made it extremely clear that religious beliefs cannot be used as a basis for government actions. So any halfway intelligent believer will recognize that it is necessary to cover the religious belief with a spurious fig-leaf of secular reasoning, and to deny that the belief is in fact religious. Very few of us are above lying in a good purpose.

I agree with this sentiment. Nevertheless, what will be at issue in the coming months is whether this sentiment will carry constitutional weight. In the Kentucky Court House case, Liberty Counsel (representing the Kentucky Counties) urged that not all assertions of secular purpose should be dismissed:

Courts should be “deferential” to any “articulation of a secular purpose,” especially where “a legislature expresses a plausible secular purpose,” unless it is insincere or a “sham.” Petitioners’ stated purpose to educate the public about some of the “documents that played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government” is a legitimate secular purpose and clearly not a sham. As Judge Ryan noted, a “sham” means a fraud, a hoax or an intentional deception. There is no such evidence in this record.

If the Supreme Court adopts this line of reasoning (and Justice Rehnquist has indicated he would view it favorably), then there should be no constitutional difficulty associated with requiring public schoolchildren to memorize Bible verses pertaining to ethical conduct, or erecting a crucifix on public grounds, or displaying a blatantly religious message on a public building during Christmas-time, or requiring public schoolchildren to "learn" about intelligent design. All of these activities can be justified with some sort of plausible secular purpose.

 

[BillHoyt]

I seem to be in the mnority here but I still think it is at least a plausible position that the concept of intelligent designer is not necessarily a religious idea.

If one takes the position that the ID is an alien species, one simply begs the question of who designed them. It is, then, a total non-answer, because we're back to square one.

 

[drkitten]

In the Texas case, the State of Texas argued--apparently with a straight face--that the Ten Commandments were no more religious than "In God We Trust" on a one-dollar billersonally, this argument strikes me as absurd, unless one assumes that the so-called "reasonable observer" is a believer in a religion that endorses the Ten Commandments.

Again, I think you're being too charitable. I think that this argument is absurd, and that not even the lawyers for the State of Texas actually believe it. But one of the professional skills of a lawyer is the ability to present an absurd argument, in which one does not personally believe, with a straight face and apparent conviction. In many cases, this is the only way that a defense lawyer can justify his fee.

So, yes, I think that the Texas lawyers are lying. Presumably either on orders from their bosses, or out of a personal sentiment.

Liberty Counsel's comments are interesting, too, if not in the way that they intended (emphasis mine):

Courts should be “deferential” to any “articulation of a secular purpose,” especially where “a legislature expresses a plausible secular purpose,” unless it is insincere or a “sham.” Petitioners’ stated purpose to educate the public about some of the “documents that played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government” is a legitimate secular purpose and clearly not a sham. As Judge Ryan noted, a “sham” means a fraud, a hoax or an intentional deception. There is no such evidence in this record.

It is widely accepted -- ask any cop -- as an informal rule of thumb that a person who is accused of something of which he is innocent will deny the accusation. Someone accused of something of which he is guilty will instead deny or cast doubt on the evidence. "You took Chris out to dinner last night!" "Who told you that?" So why did the Liberty Counsel, in representing their clients, claim only that "there is no such evidence in the record" instead of saying "my clients were clearly not attempting such a fraux, hoax, or intentional deception"?

Well, I (of course) can't prove anything. But my suspicion is that the Kentucky Counties were attempting an intentional deception, and that their lawyers were aware of it. Lying in a brief before the court is usually a bad idea -- but the statement "there is no such evidence in the record" is, of course, not a lie. If it could later be proved (for example, some whistleblower produces the right document) that the Counties were presenting a "sham" purpose, Liberty Counsel would still be in the clear.

 

[BillHoyt]

Behe is a member (senior fellow) of the Discovery Institute, recieves substantial support from them, and they are major supporters of his book Darwin's Black Box. He is aware of the religious nature of the Discovery Institute's agenda and of the religious basis of the idea; he's one of the movers and shakers behind it. For him to claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie.

As much as I may agree with your conclusion, it can't be argued from this standpoint. This is the subject/motive shift fallacy.

 

[Brown]

Well, I (of course) can't prove anything. But my suspicion is that the Kentucky Counties were attempting an intentional deception, and that their lawyers were aware of it.

The facts of the Kentucky case are almost comical.

Originally, McCreary and Pulaski Counties wanted to post only the Ten Commandments in their courthouses. The reason for doing so was not to educate the public about law or acknowledge the influence of the Commandments upon government. The reason for the posting was expressly religious.

The Counties got sued. In response, the Counties decided to post additional documents that "demonstrate America’s Christian heritage," and asserted in court that the United States--legally, factually and historically--is a "Christian nation." The additional documents--some of which were obscure--were not posted in their entirety. Instead, the excerpted portions of documents had been selected to include only the documents' references to God or the Bible.

The Counties lost in the district court. The district court enjoined the displays, saying that the documents "were chosen only for their religious references."

Undeterred, the Counties tried again. The Counties erected the Commandments (of course!) but also other documents ostensibly chosen that "played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government." The Ten Commandments, said the display, "provide the moral background of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of our legal tradition."

Once again, the district court enjoined the displays saying, in essense, who do you think you're trying to kid?

The facts, from the Counties' standpoint, are pretty bad. Originally there was a series of forthright statements of blatantly religious goals; but as the court proceedings started to go badly, there was less candor on the part of the government. The notion of religion being the basis for law was floated, and it flopped. So the government tried again, adding more secular stuff to the display, but ALWAYS keeping the Commandments as a part of the display.

The Liberty Counsel, defending the Counties, knows that the facts are bad from its clients' standpoint. That's why Liberty Counsel's brief includes passages like the following:

Whether those who posted the foundations Display were accurate regarding the role of the Ten Commandments in American law is irrelevant to their purpose. So long as the government is sincere in its purpose, it need not be accurate. ... Petitioners’ purpose is not to debate historians but to post a Display about law. Regardless of whether someone disagrees with it, Petitioners’ purpose is sincere and legitimate. The purpose is not fabricated.
...
The majority used the prior displays to "taint" the Foundations Display. Yet, the argument that an alleged religious purpose always taints a subsequent purpose that is substantially secular must fail. The Foundations Display is unlike any prior display. The Foundations Display clearly is not devoid of a secular purpose. Even if Petitioners were deemed to have begun with a wholly religious purpose, they did not end with one.
...
Even if some officials began with religious motives, evidence of which is absent from this record, the focus must center on the purpose of the current Display. Motives do not equal purpose.
...
Nothing in the Display, nor its past history, evinces a religious purpose, let alone a wholly religious purpose. [Underscoring mine, italics in original.]
...
Thus, on its face, the Ten Commandments frame contains more secular than religious language. Like the other secular documents in the Display, the Ten Commandments is presented in its entirety except for a few words. Had Petitioners excerpted only the secular portion of the Decalogue, that action would evince hostility rather than neutrality toward religion. ... It is the Ten Commandments, not the "several commandments," that influenced American law.

 

[T'ai Chi]

If one takes the position that the ID is an alien species, one simply begs the question of who designed them. It is, then, a total non-answer, because we're back to square one.

Maybe they evolved.

 

[Art Vandelay]

This is a gray area I think. If a person hypothsesizes the existence of ether as an explanation for some natural phenomena is that a religious idea? There is no definitive evidence for either the ether or the intelligent designer, they are just ideas put forth to explain some observed natural phenomena.

I don’t think is a good analogy, because there simply is not the same relationship between ether and religion. A better analogy would be claiming that the idea that the Sun revolves around the Earth is not a religious idea.

While the idea of intelligent design is not inherently religious, I think that in the context of our society, it is simply inseparable from religion.

Brown

What these folks ought to do (and what many of them seem to be incapable of doing or unwilling to do) is to look at the issues from the point of view of a neutrally-religious outsider, and ask whether that neutrally-religious outsider would perceive these concepts as religious. They seem to be able to do this with other religions; they ought to be able to do it with their own.

I don’t see how you can possibly expect them to do this. The reason they’re able to view other religions as outsiders is because they are outsiders. When a religious principle becomes so internalized that one views it as an obvious fact of existence, it’s very difficult to recognize it as having arisen from religion.

In the Texas case, the State of Texas argued--apparently with a straight face--that the Ten Commandments were no more religious than "In God We Trust" on a one-dollar bill

It seems quite reasonable to me that if “In God We Trust” is not religious, the Ten Commandments are not either. Where the state of Texas and I part company is the issue of whether “In God We Trust” is religious. Those that say that issues such as this and the Pledge are of little consequence are contradicted by the argument presented by the State of Texas. If the Pledge is upheld, it is certain that it, like IGWT, will be used to defend still further violations of the First Amendment.

BTW, what is the Divinity case?

 

[davefoc]

If one takes the position that the ID is an alien species, one simply begs the question of who designed them. It is, then, a total non-answer, because we're back to square one.

I completely agree with your comment here. It is one of the reasons that I never understood why people believe in God. What does it explain? What created God? What designed the designer? This is the kind of question that I have asked myself for as long as I can remember and I assumed that everybody else had thought about this kind of thing also. I asked a believer about that and her response to my surprise was that she had just never thought about it. So I guess for some people the notion that God created the universe is a completely satisfactory explanation.

 

[davefoc]

Art Vandelay wrote:

While the idea of intelligent design is not inherently religious, I think that in the context of our society, it is simply inseparable from religion.

I think this is exactly correct.

I wonder what an ID advocate who is claiming that ID is not religious would think of the idea that the intelligent designer might be just an extraterestial setting up the world as part of a sophisticated doll house game. Since ID as a non-religious concept doesn't make any specific claims about the nature of the designer beyond some pretty amazing powers for creating and/or modifying life it's consistent with the idea that just about anything or anybody could be the designer as long as he's got the right set of super powers.

Maybe BillHoyt has just been playing us and he's not really a strip club bouncer. Maybe he's really the intelligent designer who got life going on earth.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Maybe BillHoyt has just been playing us and he's not really a strip club bouncer.

Oh, I know he ain't one.