[Mb-civic] "God said it. I believe it. That settles it."

[Ian]

Michael:

 

You can't imagine that I would not respond to this?  LOL.

 

While I cannot speak for others (i.e., those who support ID simply as an attempt to introduce creationism into the curriculum), I must take issue with many of your statements.

 

First, promotion of ID in no way "bridges the separation of church and state."  The Constitution only speaks to the issue of government "establishing" religion - and, more specifically, establishing a particular religion as opposed to others.  So your argument fails on two grounds.  First, simply teaching something in a classroom does not "establish" it as religion: i.e., no child is required to believe the concept of ID, but only to "hear it out."  Second, even if ID were nothing but "creationism in sheep's clothing" (more in a moment), and even if children were "required" to learn it, it would not be an attempt to establish a "particular" religion, since both Judaism and Christianity (and, to a lesser degree, Islam) have similar beliefs in this regard - despite the fact that only the "Christian Right" seems to be pushing it.



You then say, "We are asked to believe in the existence of a serious debate within the scientific community between Evolution and Intelligent Design when there is no basis for debate.  The scientific leaders and intellects recognize ID as dependent on nothing but faith.  Because there is no scientific evidence."



You could not be more wrong.  Have you ever read "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe?  Behe is a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University.  Have you ever read any of William Dembski's half dozen books on the subject?  Dembski has a double Ph.D. in mathematics and philosophy, and serves as both professor of theology and science at Southern Baptist University, and associate research professor in Conceptual Foundations of Science at Baylor University.  Have you ever read "Darwin's God" by Cornelius Hunter?  Hunter is a Ph.D. in biophysics, and among the most respected evolutionary biologists in the world.  Have you ever read anything by Ernst Mayr?  Mayr (who died this year) was a Ph.D. in ornithology, and Emeritus Professor of Zoology at Harvard.



And I could give you at least a dozen more names of heavily credentialed, heavily published, highly respected scientists in a variety of fields directly related to evolution, all of whom challenge various aspects of Darwin's work.  And those who are still alive are actively involved in the ID movement.  Nor are all of them Christian - or even believers.  They are scientists who believe that Darwin did not get everything right, and that evolution is not the be-all and end-all of the discussion on human origins.



As I have pointed out before, Darwin himself was not an atheist who set out to disprove the existence of God.  Darwin was a life-long Christian whose only earned degree was in theology.  And although his faith admittedly wavered at times, he became a deacon of his church and was buried in Westminster Abbey.



Rather, what Darwin set out to prove was that not every species came about by an act of "special creation," but that species "evolved" through the process of "natural selection."  However, Darwin credited that process to God - which is largely what the scientists and those with a true understanding of ID are doing.



Indeed, Darwin's own words make him perhaps the first proponent of ID.  The following is from his final thesis in the "Summary and Recapitulation" of "The Origin of Species":



"Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created.  To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed upon matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes...There is grandeur in this view of life...having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one." (Emphases mine.)



There is no question as to the interpretation of this ultimate statement: God initially created "life" ("breathed into a few forms or into one") and then let "evolution" - a "law" that God set in motion - do the rest.  There can be no other reasonable, logical interpretation.  And note that this was no "tacked-on" ending: it was the end result of 5 years of field research, and ten years of additional study, research and writing.



Darwin's final statement is the true core of ID - whatever other less-than-honorable goals the Christian Right may have.  And Darwin's statement, combined with post-Darwinian scientific knowledge and discovery - including much that undermines some or many of Darwin's hypotheses, all such discovery done by credentialed, published, respected scientist - proves that ID is not just "creationism in wolf's clothing," but is a legitimate field of scientific study and theorizing.



As for your comment about God always being referred to in the male gender, this is a red herring if ever there was one.  Firstly, it is a cultural matter: many faiths and religions worship Gaia or other female Creator/nurturer figures.  Secondly, at least in Christianity (and perhaps in Judaism and Islam), the use of the male gender is for simplification purposes only: God had to be referred to in some way, and, the Judeo-Christian God having "come through" a patriarchal society, referring to God in the male gender was simply a "device."



I leave you with a few choice quotes about Darwin and evolution from a few highly respected philosophers and scientists, in chronological order:



"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."  Sir Isaac Newton



"In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."  Sir Isaac Newton



"Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the Bible."  Napoleon



"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."  Charles Darwin



"To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."  Charles Darwin



"I was a young man with unformed ideas.  I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire.  People have made a religion out of them!"  Charles Darwin



"A little science estranges men from God; but much science leads them back to Him."  Louis Pasteur



"Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe in it only because the alternative is special creation - and that is unthinkable."  Sir Arthur Keith, who wrote the forward to the 100th edition of "The Origin of Species."



"The evolutionists seem to know everything about the 'missing link' - except the fact that it is missing."  G.K. Chesterton



"Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe - a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."  Albert Einstein



"Either we see everything in life as a miracle, or we see nothing in life as a miracle."  Albert Einstein



"Religion without science is blind; science without religion is lame."  Albert Einstein



"In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God.  But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views...I want to know how God created this world.  I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element.  I want to know His thoughts.  The rest are details."  Albert Einstein



"In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it."  H.S. Lipson, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester



"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged [via evolution] is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein...The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one out of 10 to the 40,000th power.  It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution."  Sir Fred Hoyle



"The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, and not the evidence of fossils."  Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University



"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."  Stephen Hawking



And a couple from the "other" ("religious") side:



"Darwin admitted that millions of 'missing links' - transitional life forms - would have to be discovered in the fossil record to prove the accuracy of his theory that all species gradually evolved by chance mutation into new species.  Unfortunately for his theory, despite hundreds of millions spent on searching for fossils worldwide for more than a century, the scientists have failed to locate a single missing link out of the millions that must exist if their theory of evolution is to be vindicated."  Grant Jeffrey, Christian minister and author



"Dogs have puppies, not kittens.  Cats have kittens, not chicks.  Horses have foals, not calves.  It doesn't matter how many thousands of years pass, elephants don't have giraffes, nor do monkeys have men...It is interesting to note that pig heart valves have been used as replacements for human heart valves.  Pig skin has even been grafted in humans to deal with severe burns.  In fact, pig tissues are the nearest in chemical composition to those of humans.  Perhaps wishful evolutionists should spend more time around the pigsty."  Ray Comfort, Christian minister and author.



"As the statistical probability of series' of coincidences rises to extreme - and in some cases, absurd - levels, even the most confirmed atheist must begin to sense the existence of a higher power, whether or not they call it 'God'."  Ian Alterman, Christian minister
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