Lesson to be learned this Thursday: is the ID movement a loving work of God?

[jbabraham88 (josh abraham)]

We are told that knowledge will pass away. So whatever our PhDs are supposed to do before we are all dead, they must be used in the service of love.

Now check this out. This contextual origin of ID.

The Edwards v Aguillard decision opened the door to alternative theories being presented in the classroom after YEC got shot down as religion.

Richard Dawkins said antievolutionists are insane and evil.

Both events triggered the birth of ID in the early 1990s.

Campus Crusade and Intervarsity jumped on board in 1996.

This Thursday I sit in on a Discovery Institute linked apologetics ministry at a major university here in Dallas.

Lauri Lebo the Dover journalist told me the trial divided neighbor from neighbor.

She is an atheist.

Has the ID movement been a loving work of God?

All those PhDs in the movement…are they being wasted?

What do you think?

Thanks

[pevaquark (Matthew Pevarnik)]

@jbabraham88

Has the ID movement been a loving work of God?

I don’t think it makes sense to question the motivations or intentions of many well meaning individuals. We can ask if the effects of the movement and its interactions as a whole are consistent with Christ but there is an important difference there.

@jbabraham88

All those PhDs in the movement…are they being wasted?

Yes and no. The ‘yes’ aspect is that some essentially stop doing actual science as what they do and write no long resembles science but everything that science stands against despite masquerading as science. The ‘no’ aspect is that what should I do with my doctorate in Physics? Do I have to publish papers and advance my discipline as a whole? Or can I do other things with it? There can be a lot of flexibility and some statistics show as little as one in 200 who get doctorates might end up as tenured professors: professorship - What ratio of PhD graduates in STEM fields ultimately end up as (tenured) professors? - Academia Stack Exchange

From the viewpoint of someone in the movement, it can seem pretty amazing to use your degree and your Christian faith to write articles that encourage other Christians. I think one can just hope that it doesn’t become a case of the famous Sinclair quote:

‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

I think there are some very sincere and loving people in the ID movement, but in answer to your question, I think the movement as a whole is like all movements which are led by fallible people,and they have somewhat lost their way in some respects. All creationists believe God is the great intelligent designer of all that is, but the formal movement seems to have been sidetracked into spending their energy on what they are against, rather on what they are for. Perhaps that is because showing direct intervention leading to design in nature is pretty much impossible, so the arguments come down to philosophy and mathematical models with unproven and tenuous assumptions.

[SkovandOfMitaze (Mi)]

I’ll respond more later on about the wisdom aspect.

But no I don’t think they are wasting their degrees. I think they are interpreting the data in a different way that’s not actually that much different from theistic evolution. The biggest difference to me is a fine tuned evolution vs other concepts of evolution just like a fine tuned cosmic origin vs whatever else is out there. All the random coincidences of evolution sometimes seems almost like it’s guided and if it’s guided it’s reasonable to believe maybe there is some evidence tossed in there of that. But maybe the evidence is the fact there is so many coincidences. I’ve noted ID and theistic evolution sometimes have slightly blurry edges when hard pressed for some.