Mmmm…spaghetti…gooood

So, as you can probably tell (if you read the posts below, especially), I like to write about topics that are light-hearted. That don’t require too much critical analysis. Things like fainting goats. Air-brushed license plates. The magic touch.

Sadly, there’s lots of other topics in the world that are much more important than these. The current topic that is enjoying the healthy blaze of controversy is Intelligent Design. The theory basically states: The world is too complex to have been formed by natural, random, and unguided processes. Not only that, but that the world shows signs of things that have design, and therefore must have a designer or designers.

Intelligent Design, in my opinion, is Creationism veiled in a politically correct, religious-wording-taken-out package. I sincerely do not believe that there is anyone who belives truthfully in Intelligent Design that does not believe in some form of Creationism.

It boils down to this: I want to believe in the literal story of Creation in the Bible. Without a doubt, it is a story of faith. I have faith in God, and what he said and did. I don’t want to get bogged down in the uselessness of arguments over whether it occured in seven 24-hour periods (“days”) or over billions of years.

On the other hand, I want to be intellectually honest. Instead of trying to stand firm on a faith perspective, the apologetics for the Intelligent Design camp tried to use human arguments from science to “prove” that a Creator, pardon me, a designer, created all of life we see now. Basically, they tried to prove that evolution was not possibly true, and hope that in accomplishing that, the the only other possibility people would consider was their view.

Unfortunately, even if they were successful in proving evolution false, that doesn’t make Intelligent Design true. It still requires a measure of faith to believe in ID… which is something a logical, human argument can not prove in any real capacity. You still have to have faith in the fact that a designer exists.

Put another way, the critical problem of the Intelligent Design movement is not that they are arguing against evolutionary theory – it’s that they tried to divorce the scientific aspects of the origin of life from the spiritual. By not mentioning the spiritual for the sake of having the idea taught in public schools, they rob the whole idea of any potency.

What evidence do I have for this? Here’s one example: Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. Feel free to read the linked article, but if you don’t feel like it, basically it describes a parody religion, which believes that the world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. The founder of FSMism wrote a letter to the Kansas Board of Education about the FSM, and how he felt the theory deserved to be taught in classrooms. Using twists on oft-used Intelligent Design arguments, he puts forth the view that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was the designer and architect of the world.

These enterprising individuals are using satire and humor to prove the same point as above, to expose the flaw in the arguments Intelligent Design proponents put forth publically. In the end, Intelligent Design supporters can never prove their theory correct using their current arguments, because they have to prove the existence of a creator. That “creator” is God, and he cannot be proven using logical theories or ideas.

So where does that leave us? In hopelessness? No. Trying to branch away from Creationism to Intelligent Design was a fatal mistake in my opinion, and any appeal that will change people’s beliefs about the origin of life have to be grounded in both the scientific AND the spiritual.

So why did this happen? Because you can’t teach religious principles in public school systems. Evolution is taught in high school biology, so they only want to confront this force was to present an idea that seemed scientific in nature, that is, grounded in the scientific method as an alternative to evolution.

Why do I say all of this? Who cares? Well, Pat Robertson does. The short summary of that article is as follows: The Dover, PA School Board that had had some success introducing ID into their school district. The board members came up for election, and 8 out of 9 of them were voted out of office. Here’s what angered/fired me up. Pat Robertson said, on the “700 Club”:

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.”

#%@$%@#%@#$!@#. I don’t even know where to start with this.

Feel free to comment. Point out where I’m off the mark, comment about what Robertson said, comment about how you think I forgot to link some sort of entertaining link (and then I’ll comment about how wrong you are [note: it has nothing to do with CNN or Wikipedia.])