Christopher Hitchens is nothing if not a straight-shooter. He calls it like he sees it, and not even a vicious attack could stop him from denouncing evil, racist ideologies that are still with us today. He is also a fearless and formidable debater. In recent years, he has declared himself an anti-theist, a term he defines as follows:

You could be an atheist and wish that the belief was true. You could; I know some people who do. An antitheist, a term I’m trying to get into circulation, is someone who’s very relieved that there’s no evidence for this proposition.

On Bastille Day in 2007, in response to an article entitled What Atheists Can’t Answer by op-ed columnist Michael Gerson in The Washington Post, Christopher Hitchens threw down the gauntlet to theists:

Here is my challenge. Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first – I have been asking it for some time – awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

Hitchens has repeated this challenge on numerous occasions since then. The first time I heard him issue this challenge, I thought: “He has a point.” Read More ›

In this thread, I will suggest the identity of Intelligent Designer of life. The question of the identity of the Intelligent Designer is outside of ID proper, but if a design is detected, it inspires the question, “who is the Designer?”

If the identity of the Intelligent Designer is outside of ID proper, is it outside the speculations of science? I think not. As Dawkins himself once remarked:

You then realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science.

Richard Dawkins
as reported in Dawkins on the Discovery Institute Payroll?

In that spirit, rather than offer a theological speculation, I will offer a speculation based on inference from scientific observation. And I will argue scientific observation suggests the Intelligent Designer is a Deity of some sort.

To begin, I point out this essay in the prestigious scientific journal Nature in 2005 by physicist Richard Conn Henry:

“The ultimate cause of atheism, Newton asserted, is ‘this notion of bodies having, as it were, a complete, absolute and independent reality in themselves.’”
…
The 1925 discovery of quantum mechanics solved the problem of the Universe’s nature. Bright physicists were again led to believe the unbelievable — this time, that the Universe is mental.
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According to Sir James Jeans: “the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter…we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.”
….
The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual.

Richard Conn Henry
The Mental Universe: Nature Volume 436

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I’m honored to have the chance to present a post-Darwinist conversion account by one of our Uncommon Descent readers, Dr. David Cook, MD. Physicians like him serve as role models to the young and are a symbol to the scientific community that highly intelligent and scientifically literate people can be skeptical of Darwinian evolution.
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Feature: The Intelligent Design Controversy in Higher Education
This week on The Coral Ridge Hour we look at Intelligent Design, a movement which is gaining adherents at colleges and universities around the world. But what about professors who dare to challenge evolution by presenting alternatives to students? As you are about to see, the consequences can be severe.

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President’s Veterans Day Speech

By President George W. Bush

TOBYHANNA, PENNSYLVANIA — Thank you all for coming, please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. I’m glad to be back in Pennsylvania, and I’m proud to be the first sitting president to visit Monroe County — especially pleased to see so many military veterans with us today. Those who have risked their lives for our freedom have the respect and gratitude of our nation on Veterans Day and on every day. Read More ›

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

Intelligent Design in American Classrooms?

Aired August 23, 2005 – 21:00 ET Read More ›

Notoriously, on the evening of October 30, 1938, many people missed the opening remarks for Orson Welles’ radio dramatisation of H G Wells’ War of the Worlds. As History dot com recounts: Millions of Americans, as they were every night, huddled around their radios, but relatively few of them were listening to CBS when it was announced that Welles and his fellow cast members were presenting an original dramatization of the 1898 H.G. Wells science-fiction novel “The War of the Worlds.” Instead, most of the country was tuned in to NBC’s popular “Chase and Sanborn Hour,” which featured ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy . . . . disoriented listeners who stumbled onto the “Mercury Theatre on the Read More ›

As of March 13, 2022, this page will not be updated. The issues re COVID-19 have now moved to the stage where only serious enquiries into the costly Crazy will be any use. Meanwhile, we leave you with this thought: Now, as we move forward (or not), a final message: Maybe you didn’t care when ID proponents lost their jobs for not fronting Darwin. After all, you didn’t think it would spread. But it does. The COVID Crazy is what happens when “science” becomes a placeholder for a variety of wants and fears, power grabs and pursuit of profits. Now that you had to live with it – and should justifiably fear the next Crazy coming down the pike – Read More ›