One either abandons reason and the Scientific method or one goes to hell? What Jack Chick comic did you glean that little theological gem from?
Most Scientists in the U.S.A. are Christian. Most know that I.D. is not Science but a religious philosophy. Many of them are named Steve apparently.
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Christian, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas
>>Most know that I.D. is not Science but a religious philosophy.
I received my BS/MS in Geology, and then my JD. I wished I had rec’d my JD first, because it taught me to distinguish b/w fact, and theory, assumptions, inferences, much better than what you are taught in University colleges.
Evolution is not a fact. We find fossils in the rock record. Those fossils are different at different strat-time layers. That part is fairly decided as fact. There is no fact of evolution. It is a supposition. There is no witness to evolution, that it occurred, or that it continues to occur. That is assumption, inference, theory. In fact, the original theory was so riddled with deficiencies that it was revised to “punctuated equilibrium.” Apparently, the original “fact” of evolution had to be changed to fit with the actual observable facts of the rock record.
Intelligent design is more than God created the Earth. Evolution contends that the most simple single cellular life ever, evolved, by happenstance, into the most complex forms of life of today. Great, great, great ......grandpa blue cheese. Some ID proponents have argued that some elements of life are so irreducibly complex that it could not have occurred by natural selection.
That argument, in and of itself, is wholly a scientific argument. How well either side stands up can be argued without referencing the Bible, God or any religion. And it is an incredibly challenging problem for evolution.
And aside from the biological arguments, there is the universal acknowledgment that science cannot explain what caused the Big Bang, why it happened at all, or what existed just before? Theories are that all matter of the universe was condensed into something the size of a golf ball? Then the expansion. OK. That seems scientific. Wait. Bible says there was nothing, the void, then God spoke the earth and the heavens into existence. So, both state that there was practically no matter in the universe, then there was. That seems pretty high minded science for a book that was written about 1,500 before Christ.
So, let me get my scientific hat on right, all the matter in the universe was originally compacted into the mass the size of a golf ball, then it expanded, and the Earth just so happened to develop the right atmosphere, the right gravity, be the right distance from the sun, and the from that golf ball expansion, human beings evolved from inorganic chemicals (which cannot be shown to have happened) to develop incredibly complex features such as eyes, which gave Darwin terrible trouble, and all of these are suppositions and inferences, and nearly none are fact.
Really, at bottom, the folks that so zealously object to ID feel that they, and science, are far too superior to entertain the notion that God exists, and that only their reason can explain the origin and development of man. Yet, their reason forces them to admit that they cannot know why the universe came to exist, what prompted the existence, etc.
What is your source for that statistic? Here's what I have found, from the journal Nature late 90s:
" The latest survey involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half replied. When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism."
This would make the landslide majority being atheists, with the next largest plurality being agnostic--and a tiny minority being simply theistic (not necessarily Christian).
I think Ben Stein's point (see the movie trailer here) is that there is a more-than-McCarthiestic attitude that prevails in the scientific establishment against any possibility of a Creator. Intelligent Design after all is a BIG TENT, running the gamut of a few agnostics open to the possibility of a Supreme Being somehow being a part in making the universe (and even using evolution to do so....) on over to firm young-earth Creationist-Christians.
But from what I've read, and what Stein puts forth, it's very difficult to be a mainstream scientist, especially in the field of life-sciences, and be able to honestly say on Sunday
"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth..."
You obviously have not researched what ID advocates. Your comments are nonsensical, and ill-informed.