Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
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Posted on 12/23/2005 12:57:35 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator
Issuing theological statements isn't normally thought of as the job of a federal judge. Yet, this week when U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III released the first federal ruling on intelligent design, there was at the core of his written decision an unambiguously theological ruling: that evolution as formulated by Charles Darwin presents no conflict with the God of the Bible.
Quite apart from what one thinks of his legal decision, what should we make of his theology?
In brief, Jones ruled that disparaging Darwinian evolutionary theory in biology class violates the separation of church and state. The context is Kitzmiller v. Dover, a case dealing with the question of whether a school district may teach about an alternative theory, intelligent design (ID). The latter finds hallmarks of a designer's work in the evidence of nature.
Wrote Jones, "[M]any of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, [p]laintiffs' scientific experts testified that thetheory of evolution... in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."
As a matter of fact, Jones is wrong. Darwinism is indeed "antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general." There are three reasons for this, and you don't have to be a theologian to grasp the point.
First, consider the views on religion from leading Darwinists themselves. Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, the most distinguished of modern Darwin advocates, writes that "faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate."
In his book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," Daniel Dennett, of Tufts University, condemns conservative Christians for, among other things, "misinforming [their] children about the natural world" and compares such a religion to a wild animal: "Safety demands that religions be put in cages, too — when absolutely necessary."
Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, at the University of Texas, declares, "I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive of religious belief, and I'm all for that."
At the University of Minnesota, biologist P.Z. Myers, a bulldog for Darwin, writes about how he wishes he could use a time machine to go back and eliminate the biblical patriarch Abraham: "I wouldn't do anything as trivial as using it to take out Hitler."
And so on. These are just a few examples but the bottom line is evident: Not all Darwinists, including the most famous and admired, share Judge Jones' view that Darwin and God may coexist peacefully.
Second, and more fundamentally, Darwinism and religious faith begin from antithetical metaphysical assumptions. In "The Origin of Species," Darwin's working premise is that God has no role in the unfolding of the history of life. In view of this belief, which he never states or defends but simply assumes, Darwin goes on to detail his theory about natural selection operating on random variation. It is only in the absence of a supreme being working out his will in the evolution of life that we would even undertake Darwin's search in the first place. That was a search for a purely materialistic explanation of how complex organisms arise.
As Darwin himself clarified in his correspondence, "I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of natural selection if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."
Religion, by contrast, does not assume that material reality is all there is.
This may be why, third and finally, thinkers who have tried to assert the compatibility of God and Darwin invariably end up changing the meaning of one or the other. Those, for example, who say that God may operate through the medium of Darwinian evolution have resorted to a logical fallacy. Again, the whole purpose of Darwin's theory is to discover a model by which life could have evolved without a need for God. Anyone asserting a full-bodied Darwinism has, by definition, rendered God superfluous and irrelevant.
The comforting thought articulated by Judge Jones, that we may have both our God and our Darwin, doesn't stand up to scrutiny, as some of the fiercer Darwinists themselves evidently recognize.
What this says about the public-policy question — What may be taught in schools? — should be clear enough. Whether children are taught materialism (Darwin), or an openness to what transcends nature (intelligent design), they are being taught not merely science but a philosophy about life and existence itself.
The idea that it is constitutional to expose young people to one such worldview, but not lawful to introduce them to another, is not really education. It is indoctrination.
Be prepared for the additional embarrassment of a rebuilt Holy Temple and restored `Avodah (sacrificial service) in the near future, please G-d.
This article is full of crap. ID is not science.
David Klinghoffer of Mercer Island is a columnist for the Jewish Forward, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and the author most recently of "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History" (Doubleday).
Amazing how it is that posters somehow manage to forget to include that passage; it appears right at the end of the column.
"In brief, Jones ruled that disparaging Darwinian evolutionary theory in biology class violates the separation of church and state."
My my, that is quite the whopping lie.
If you're going to post garbage like this, you should at least be honest enough to post the disclaimer at the bottom of the article that identifies the writer as a stooge for the Discovery Institute.
Let's pour a good libation to Bacchus. And then repeat.
The temple for the cult of Beheism.
Um, WTF?
Brilliant analysis.
I wish you knee-jerk, insulting Darwinists would get the clue. The basic issue is not which is correct, Darwin or ID. The issue is whether tyrannical left wing judges can force people to swallow whatever they dictate in violation of the basic principles of the Constitution.
This month it's Darwin. Next month it will be condom education in kindergarten. The month after that it will be gay marriage.
What this article says, basically, is that federal judges have no business making decisions on the basis of bogus theology.
Doesn't take long for the hostility of the Darwinists to come through. Its amazing actually, because they have a compelling case. So why the extremist defensivness and hostility?
And they won, this case anyway.
Pretty shocking what the two Darwin honcho's had to say....and to state that one would rather off Abraham than Hitler? Now that is revealing!
Now I guess we know where the research budget for the DI does. It goes to get pieces like this into print.
Some research, eh? Nobel prize just around the corner.
Your "knee-jerk" reaction to the thoughtful, deliberative ruling of a Republican judge appointed to the Federal bench by Pres. Bush in 2002, is duly noted. Perhaps it is you who needs to "get a clue"....
You should take time to study the Dover case a little closer. It was the local citizens backed by their science teachers who had to go to a Bush appointed conservative judge after the board, which admittedly had been seduced by a Seattle based seller of charlatan books, attempted to force people to swallow whatever they dictate about what teachers can and can't teach as science. When you consider the amount of garbage public schools are putting into the curriculum these days, consider this a rare victory for the local citizens against outside forces with a perverted agenda.
Great minds think alike indeed!
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
Archival ping.
Judge Jones acted in the best conservative tradition. He carefully determined the facts, which are pretty much beyond dispute: Here's the judge's opinion.
Having found that ID is creationism, he then applied precedents (he didn't make up his own law) and ruled that it was unconstitutional to present a religious doctrine in a science class. Not a difficult decision, when you're following the law.
Apparently,. some on the right actually want judicial activism, provided it benefits their agenda.
Judges are not in business either to decide what is good and bad science or to decide what is good and bad theology.
He was appointed by Bush? So what? Earl Warren was a Republican appointee. David Souter was a Republican appointee. They have both made more trouble than the worst Democrat judges.
Evidently Bush made a mistake. He never should have appointed this activist friend of the ACLU.
This is not the action of a conservative judge.
If the citizens didn't like the actions of their school board, they had at their disposal the usual democratic option of voting them out and electing somebody else.
Instead, they brought in the ACLU and brought suit. I assume that it cost the taxpayers a mint by the time it was over, and the town is now saddled with an arbitrary, unconstitutional decision by an unelected judge. No way they can vote THAT out of office.
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