Folks everywhere are blogging about today's decision by the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in the suit against the Dover Area School District for requiring an Intelligent Design disclaimer be read to students in 9th grade biology classes (PDF of the court's decision). I'm not going to try to report on the reporting, or on the decision itself, but instead take this opportunity to post my reaction to the whole Intelligent Design controversy.
I approach this issue as an evangelical Christian, by the way. I believe that God created the Universe (but not in exactly seven days). I believe God created the sciences as the rules that every thing in the Universe must follow. I believe that the Theory of Evolution is more or less accurate, because that's how God wants these things to work. He didn't manufacture fossils to confuse us. He didn't cheat by jump-starting life here on Earth, and then stepped back to let it develop without further dramatic and invasive action.
But I really want to address how I feel about my fellow Christians who, having failed to get Creationism or Creation Science into the public schools, have tarted up those two philosophies and relabeled the whole thing as Intelligent Design. What really gets me is that they run the Creationism line all the way up to the word "God," and switch it to "intelligent agent" or some other such substitution.
I believe that the big-name ID proponents are liars falling into two camps. The more honorable camp are merely lying to themselves by turning off their brains to the illogic of their position. The others are true scum, who know they're lying about their word substitution in an attempt to get Biblical Creation taught in the public schools. But hey, they're lying in order to get the word out about God! That's honorable, isn't it?
Intelligent Design contains no falsifiable premises (the accepted standard for scientific theory). While ID proponents say their "theory" is non-religious, that's a pile of nonsense. ID is no more scientific than Astrology. Are we going to start teaching that in science classes?
And I take exception to the whole Intelligent Design premise on a religious basis, and this is what I believe to be an original position. You ID proponents need to reexamine your faith, the underpinnings of your religion. Why do you believe in God? Why do you believe that He sent his Son to us, to die for our sins? Do you require God to give you some proof that He's who He says he is? Do you require a lock of Jesus's hair or something like that to prove that He existed? Must you have some token or something which proves, which irrefutably guarantees, that Jesus is your Savior?
If so, you are lost. My God is not your God. My Savior is not your Savior. My God requires me to take Him on faith, with no evidence whatsoever of His existence. He requires me to believe that Jesus died for my sins without a shred of proof that it actually happened.
You ID proponents are trying to prove God's existence. And thankfully, you're failing miserably at it. Because there is no proof. And you make me believe, at least, that you have no faith.
