For the sake of argument, let’s surmise that, after a long controversy, finally ID succeeds in scientifically convincing all people that life and the universe are designed. Good, but what happens now? If the universe is a design there must be a designer. What is the designer?
It is likely that evolutionists convinced to ID were atheists or at least agnostic. Therefore for these persons, quite paradoxical, accepting ID could imply a very critical point in their intellectual path.
Let’s start with the worse possibility. The worse case for them would be to equate the designer with something that has nothing to do with God, or – worse – even with something that is a caricature of God. This is clearly the case, for example, of the “flying spaghetti monster”. Maybe such disgusting invention came from insane or disturbed persons, nevertheless come to mind the René Guénon’s words:
One can consider satanic, in some measure, any theory that exceedingly deforms the idea of divinity; first of all, according to this point of view, would be the conceptions of a God that evolves and those of a limited God. (L’erreur spirite, part II, chap. X) [my translation]
Hence, technically, to greater reason, “the church of the flying spaghetti monster”, has an ultimate satanic inspiration. Moreover it clearly shows the sign of grotesque, as often satanic productions do. This explains also why this “church” (or better, this “anti-church”) is against all religions. For these reasons, before this sort of things, I don’t laugh at all.
If a Darwinist convinced by ID risks to fall in an incorrect or malicious conception of the Great Designer, then I go until to say that it is better the atheist evolutionist remains such. Because blasphemy and sacrilege are far worse than simple ignorance and negation. That said by an ultra anti-Darwinian (my name speaks clear).
But let’s consider the serious evolutionists, who have demonstrated their intelligence by recognizing the truth of ID. At this point they are in a somewhat intermediate position. They have abandoned materialism but haven’t yet reached theism. They are in a risky middle ground between two opposite worldviews. I said “risky” because they face a cross-road. On the right there is true spirituality, on the left there is false spiritualism. False spiritualism is far worse than materialism. If they abandon materialism to go towards false spiritualism, it would be better for them to remain materialists. That said by an ultra non-materialist.
Countless times it has been said that ID theory per se is simply a scientific design inference. That ID theory doesn’t specify a designer. That the ID inference is unrelated to the identity of the designer, etc. This is true in a sense. But in my opinion to leave fully undefined the designer, without giving at least an hint about, is not to do a good service to our converted friends evolutionists. To have won the scientific controversy without offering a global framework of knowledge, a correct complete worldview, could be a lost opportunity or even counterproductive for them. An ID proponent who has helped to lead those evolutionists towards an ID non materialistic position, has some responsibility about their future intellectual iter, iter which is necessarily related to such worldview. As a metaphor, if you help someone to get across a perilous river, then you cannot leave him alone in the middle, you have to escort him to the opposite side.
It is having in mind my part of responsibility that, in a previous post I tried to explain that theism is an implication of the design inference on the cosmos and give an idea about the Great Designer.