But apologetics for what? They don’t care what one’s theological position is, as long as you are willing to disparage “Darwinism”, whatever that is (definitions used within ID vary significantly individual to individual).
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I was thinking more of the ID “institutions” like the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis. The Wedge Document is the go to example.
The guys who found the term “intelligent design” and hijacked it.
Vile miscreants.
The false dichotomy it buys into in the second paragraph told me it wasn’t a piece of writing to be taken seriously.
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The Discovery Institute includes Jonathan Wells, who, being ordained in the Unification Church, teaches that Rev. Moon, not Jesus, is the true messiah. Despite having theology degrees, he claims to be a Christian on the grounds that Christianity is not about Christ but about opposing evolution. The DI also seems to condone the Raelians, who claim that Jesus, like “Rael”, was a human in touch with the teachings of the space aliens. The relevant insight from “Rael”’ is that humans were made by aliens using cloning technology. They were making headlines for a little while back when Dolly the sheep was big news, claiming to have produced a human baby by cloning, before dropping out of the headlines when it became obvious that no supporting evidence was forthcoming. In reality, the babies in question were undoubtedly produced by more traditional means, particularly given that one of “Rael”'s other insights is “free love”. The DI also promotes Michael Denton’s claims, ignoring the fact that those claims have changed greatly from promoting poor antievolutionary arguments to endorsing evolution as an example of design while arguing that we need an extended evolutionary synthesis, not just mutation + natural selection. Denton is not particularly theistic.
Of course, Christians can work together with non-Christians on areas of common interest. But to claim to be Christian apologists and to claim to just be doing science regardless of theological beliefs is inconsistent.
The relationship of young-earth groups to ID is also complex. The DI is happy to market to young-earthers and cooperate with them but doesn’t care about the age of the earth. Some young-earthers saw ID as a new label to use to dodge the Supreme Court ban on creation science. That’s what got them in trouble at Dover. Other young-earthers saw ID as a new category to get away from the abysmal quality of popular YEC. ID has also brought in a wide range of old-earth views.
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I’ve always viewed these groups as fellow travelers that the Christian apologetics movement uses to give the appearance of being inclusive. If you go to any internet forum, discussion group, or ID confab you will find an overwhelming majority that see ID as a part of Christian apologetics.
Given the near absence of any ID based scientific research, the emphasis on apologetics stands out.
ID supplies YEC’s with a new list of arguments from ignorance. That seems to be the bridge between them.
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While it is true that most fans of ID are under the delusion that it is Christian apologetics, the reality is that popular ID is promoting an unbiblical punctuated deism. Popular ID seeks to attack “Darwinism”. Like creation science’s focus on the age of the earth, it becomes a legalistic false gospel. Thus, neither ID nor creation science actually cares whether one is following Christ, as long as you follow their claims about science.
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- Whoa! So Creationism “takes all kinds”,
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All good points. There may be a few layers here, one of which is to fight against a common enemy. Once they have won that battle, then different factions will take on different paths. This can often be seen in other political movements/factions.
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Not sure I understand your piece completely. For me it is easy to think of every step in creation, every bilogical process, every physical constant maintaining habitation comes from the intellligent designer. Nothing comes from nothing. The something that was behind creation was supernatural but yet power and energy. All creation was made from the supernatural and beyond scientiic evidence and understanding. Science tells us how it was done follwing the moment of creation when the supernatural became natural. Science will not explain everthing although it explains a lot. Science tells us how God did what Genesis tells us he did. Creation is where the supernatural created the natural.
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