Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Fake ID
John Derbyshire posted this on The Corner today:
ID is not just lousy science, but lousy religion. I dislike it at least as much for religious as for scientific reasons. I dislike it, in fact, for the same reasons, or at least the same KINDS of reasons, that I dislike the "Left Behind" books & movies, and unbelievers telling me that natural disasters like the recent tsunami "prove" the non-existence of God. All that kind of thinking trivialize God.
The ID-ers' God is a sort of scientist himself, sticking his finger in to make things work when natural laws -- His laws! -- can't do the job. Well, if that's your God, I wish you joy of him. My God is much vaster and stranger than that.
Now there are different ID theories out there, but they all boil down to the idea that there was involvement of a higher being in the process of creation. It does seem like ID-ers' try to straddle a fence (that is really a chasm) between belief in biblical creation and abiogeneis/evolution.
There are some out there that are defending the biblical creation from a scientific standpoint. However, most of the scientific community views the universe as being billions of years old, man evolved from baser life forms (think ancient viral patriarchs), and if there is a God that started it all, he isn't willing to be subjected to the scientific method so he's not a factor in their thinking.
So it comes down to a matter of faith. I do believe that most of what is used to defend evolution and an old earth has more than one explanation. Any evolutionist will tell you that the supportive evidence is "overwhelming" (they love that word). That seems like cold comfort to me though.
In the end, if there was no Adam there was no fall and Jesus died for nothing. The fence that separates the two groups is truly a chasm that ID isn't going to breach.
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ID is not just lousy science, but lousy religion. I dislike it at least as much for religious as for scientific reasons. I dislike it, in fact, for the same reasons, or at least the same KINDS of reasons, that I dislike the "Left Behind" books & movies, and unbelievers telling me that natural disasters like the recent tsunami "prove" the non-existence of God. All that kind of thinking trivialize God.
The ID-ers' God is a sort of scientist himself, sticking his finger in to make things work when natural laws -- His laws! -- can't do the job. Well, if that's your God, I wish you joy of him. My God is much vaster and stranger than that.
Now there are different ID theories out there, but they all boil down to the idea that there was involvement of a higher being in the process of creation. It does seem like ID-ers' try to straddle a fence (that is really a chasm) between belief in biblical creation and abiogeneis/evolution.
There are some out there that are defending the biblical creation from a scientific standpoint. However, most of the scientific community views the universe as being billions of years old, man evolved from baser life forms (think ancient viral patriarchs), and if there is a God that started it all, he isn't willing to be subjected to the scientific method so he's not a factor in their thinking.
So it comes down to a matter of faith. I do believe that most of what is used to defend evolution and an old earth has more than one explanation. Any evolutionist will tell you that the supportive evidence is "overwhelming" (they love that word). That seems like cold comfort to me though.
In the end, if there was no Adam there was no fall and Jesus died for nothing. The fence that separates the two groups is truly a chasm that ID isn't going to breach.
# posted by Joe Florida @ 1:55 PM 
