Thoughts in a Haystack: Surprise?

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Surprise?

I wonder if the Discovery Institute can still surprise anyone? Looking over the “Briefing Packet for Educators” from the NOVA program “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” the kind of things that are in the Packet that the DI has complained about before include:

Q: Can you accept evolution and still believe in religion?
A: Yes. The common view that evolution is inherently antireligious is simply false. All that evolution tells us is that life on this planet could have arisen by natural processes. For many people of various faiths, showing that something is due to a natural process doesn’t take it outside the realm of the divine. Religious thinkers across the ages have written that merely showing that something is natural puts it within the infl uence of God, the creator of all nature. By defi nition science cannot address supernatural causes because its methodology is confi ned to the natural world. Therefore science has nothing to say about the nature of God or about people’s spiritual beliefs. This does not mean science is antireligious; rather, it means science simply cannot engage in this level of explanation.

The Discovery Institute has repeatedly complained that Judge Jones was ruling on theological matters when he said in his decision:

Both Defendants and many 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, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

They have also complained in the past about an educational website funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley that included statements from religious organizations that accept evolution and egged on one of Larry Caldwell's bogus lawsuits about it. The Briefing Packet also includes "a list of statements from a wide range of religious organizations that see no conflict between religious beliefs and acceptance of evolutionary biology."

I'm gonna bet that the DI's complaint is still going to be that letting children know that they can believe in God without being an ignoramus is unfair to the type of religion IDeologists practice.
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Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 5:19 PM