In what possible way could "here a Designer steps in" be anything less than religion? It is not falsifiable, testable, observable nor any of the other umpteen requirements for a scientific theory (heck even a scientific hypothesis).
You are in denial about Republicans rejecting evolution, just like you are in denial about ID and Creation being valid alternative explanations to evolution.
If you are right, I am very afraid of the damage our party is doing to the next generation of Americans. You can repeat "denial" all you want but that doesn't fix the problems of Creationism and ID vis a vis real science.
But I understand your philosophical thinking. It just needs to stay in philosophy.
See my post 128, it deals with this.
If you are right, I am very afraid of the damage our party is doing to the next generation of Americans.
You can relax. Because the truth is, that the evolution/ID/Creation debate really doesn't impact much practical science.
Had darwin never been born, we'd still have developed cell phones and nukes, and traveled to the moon. We'd still have explored the microscopic world and discovered DNA, because we'd still be asking questions about how God designed and constructed us. We'd still catalogie species based on similiarities and eventually DNA.
About the only difference is that more people would still have their tonsils, those unfortunate few who had their tailbones removed by medical doctors believing in evolution would never know the hell that they missed, and research into DNA would probably be more complete becaused the "junk DNA" wouldn't have been so easily dismissed.
Contrary to the cries of the evolutionary faithful, Creationists wouldn't turn back the clock to the dark ages, in fact, Creationists fathered many of the scientific fields.