Surely Intelligent Design is not religious, but scientific in nature?
Like old fashioned creationism, intelligent design is religion dressed up as science. This is once again apparent just by reading intelligent design literature and listening to ID advocates speak. Jonathon Wells, author of the book Icons of Evolution, made the following statement while giving a sermon to the Unification Church:
"Father's (the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s) words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle (J. Wells n.d.).”
Philip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial, made the following statement:
“Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools (P. Johnson 2003).”
William Dembski, author of such works as Intelligent Design, No Free Lunch, Design Inference, and Uncommon Descent, has made many such statements too. Some are as follows:
“Christ is never an addendum to a scientific theory buy always a completion.”
“If we take seriously the word-flesh Christology of Chalcedon (i.e. the doctrine that Christ is fully human and fully divine) and view Christ as the telos toward which God is drawing the whole of creation, then any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient. (William Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1999.) “
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory (Dembski 1999, 84).”
Judge Jones found ID to be religious in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial:
"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory." (page 43)”
"Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause." (page 132)”
Please see here.
Many ID books are published by InterVarsity Press, whose purpose is:
“As an extension of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, InterVarsity Press serves those in the university, the church and the world by publishing resources that equip and encourage people to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord in all of Life.” Please see here.
ID is also not scientific. Judge Jones’ ruling states:
“After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community." (page 64)”
Please see here. "The one textbook (Pandas) to which the Dover ID Policy directs students contains outdated concepts and flawed science, as recognized by even the defense experts in this case." (pages 86 – 87)
Please see here. "ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID." (page 89)
Please see here
ID offers no testable hypothesis or falsifiable claims. The ID theory consists of nothing more than attacks against evolution and science. It is the same tactic used by the old school creationists.
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