No Debate

Now, I know calling Intelligent Design "fuckin stupid" in my last post wasn't very nice. It seems uneducated, immature, and reactionary on my part, doesn't it? Like maybe I don't even want to engage in intellectual debate with these people, I just want to ridicule them.

Well, I DO want to ridicule them, and the primary reason is because there isn't a debate. No matter what the Christians have convinced themselves of, Intelligent Design vs. Evolution is not the long-touted battle the world has been waiting for. I don't know if they've noticed, but scientists don't seem particularly concerned about their latest attempt to disguise belief as fact.

This is because scientists measure things. They observe events and reactions. They record data and exhaustively test it to determine it's worth. And, until something with harder evidence comes along, that theory becomes the best possible explanation we have to work with. This is all based on empiricism.

Intelligent Design is not a theory; it's religious hogwash. It is not a new branch of science, as we are being told; it's a perfunctory attempt to dress up Creationism in 21st century clothing. ID proponents cannot produce a single observable trait of their idea. More importantly, because ID can't generate testable data, nothing about it can ever be confirmed. Gravity is a theory because, thus far, it's the only explanation that corroborates the extensive investigation into it's nature. ID is a belief, because nothing about it can be measured, tested, or examined.

I'm fine with teaching Intelligent Design in schools as a theology class. It should be an elective that people can take if they're interested in its philosophy. However, to call ID "science" is a hideous lie. It is NOT an alternative to evolution any more than fantasizing about a big-ass cheeseburger is an alternative to eating. And why is evolution the only theory being challenged? Why can't we use faith to overturn inertia, or Pythagoras, or the first law of thermodynamics? Christians need to stop worrying about whether they can pull this new wool over our eyes, and examine the mistruths that have led them here in the first place.

Science is not the opposite of faith, but faith can never be explored scientifically. That's why it's called faith, not fact. Explore your faith and understand its nature. Don't try to turn it into something else when you stumble over your insecurity.