Thoughts in a Haystack: True Beliefs

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

True Beliefs

William Dembski is over at the Undiscovery Institute once again proving that the Inteligent Design "Movement" has nothing to do with science.

As has long been noted, the real dislike of creationists is reserved not for atheists but for "theistic evolutionists." Dembski is so incensed at Darrel Falk of Biologos that he is willing to give away the whole ID scam:

Theologically speaking, ID imposes few limits and is compatible with God acting at all levels of creation and through all modes of causation. When design is detected, God is active. And when design is not detected, God is still active. This doesn't make ID contentless. Rather, it means that ID is largely neutral with respect to one's doctrine of God, a fact that should not be surprising given that ID is compatible not only with Judeo-Christian theism but also with just about any religious view that regards purpose as basic to reality.

He does pay lip service to ID being "science" ("ID's content is scientific, not religious or theological") but then he says this:

I don't accept common descent. I think the scientific evidence is against it ... [E]ven though common descent may be acceptable in broad theological terms, I think it is problematic exegetically with regard to Scripture. Simply put, I think you're going to have a hard time getting large-scale evolution out of Scripture or rendering the two compatible.

But why do you need to keep science and scripture compatible? The scientific evidence for common descent is every bit as certain scientifically as the evidence that there was no global flood within the last 10,000 years. But when Dembski made the mild suggestion that:

Noah's flood, though presented as a global event, is probably best understood as historically rooted in a local event.

... he was made to recant that view because a recent global flood is "what the Bible teaches."

If you can't save your theology within science, then why are you pretending to do science? The Disco'tutes have made it clear, once again, that they can't and won't.
_________________________________

Via The Sensuous Curmudgeon.

Labels: Designer As God, ID Not Religious

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 11:48 PM

Comments:

With a more recent post at Uncommon Descent it is looking like open war between ID and TE.

# posted by

nwrickert : 12:42 AM

It has always been a war.

Sometimes it's just that the knives have been a little bit more hidden.

# posted by

John Pieret : 7:00 AM

As far as problems with Scripture, the Bible more directly supports geocentrism. Perhaps there is a plausible inference from what the Bible says to the denial of common ancestry or variability of species, but the Bible explicitly says that the Earth does not move and that the Sun moves around the Earth. This is confirmed by the universal opinion for almost 2000 years that the Sun moves around the stationary Earth as said by the Bible, and universal silence about species.

TomS

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:46 AM

As I've written on a number of occasions, if ID wins the day, in the next moments blood will flow down the aisles, under the pews, and over the altars as the contending sects unsheathe their knives and start carving on each other. :)

# posted by

RBH : 3:54 PM

Dembski is certainly correct, ID imposes few limits. It's also consistent with homeopathy, levitation, psychokinesis, astrology, and the possibility that one day my dog will begin to speak Latin.
It sounds to me like the "scientific evidence" Dembski thinks is against common descent is...exegesis.

# posted by

Mark : 9:52 AM