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The "men from mars" point is how ID theorists hand wave away the fact that they're really talking about how God created the species, but they know they can't admit that out loud without problems with church-state separation. They claim with a straight face that ID *could* mean little green men from mars, so they aren't really attempting to hijack science in the name of religion. Right.

I think all that they are saying is that ID doesn't necessarily mean that the designer *has* to be the Judeo-Christian God. The same could be said when atheists state that evolution doesn't *preclude* the existance of God.

The point about clouds is that it could easily be concluded by someone unfamiliar with condensation and convection that they were "designed". After all, why do they have distinct edges where the open sky ends and the cloud begins. Why wouldn't the water in the air spread itself evenly, instead of clump together? It was the norm for people to have such views 300 years ago. God brought the rain, the lightning, etc. and in today's parlance they would be "designed".

But nobody has tried to claim that a cloud is alive.

I think all that they are saying is that ID doesn't necessarily mean that the designer *has* to be the Judeo-Christian God.

No, they're specifically including extra-solar aliens so they can plausibly claim that ID is not "religious", and therefore should be taught in public schools given the church-state separation thing.

The same could be said when atheists state that evolution doesn't *preclude* the existance of God.

That's because it doesn't. Many parts of the Old Testament have been totally discredited by science. There was no flood, because it would have left far too much evidence behind. Yes, there have been genuinely scientific searches to find such evidence, in particular by to scientists in the 50's who were seeking to prove elements of the Bible. They failed.

So you're left with a choice. You can either believe that Genesis, in particular, is not factually correct, but continue to accept God and Jesus anyway (a great many Christians have in fact decided in this manner, apparently even including Pope John Paul II, and millions more). Your other choice is to recognize the claim in the Bible that it is 100% inerrant, and since that cannot be true, it therefore it must be completely false. That was the choice I made after some on these threads finally convinced me I couldn't have it both ways as in the first option.

But nobody has tried to claim that a cloud is alive.

The philosophical arguments that claim that creatures must have been designed also apply to non-living things apparently designed by an intelligence.