Applied Intelligent Design tells us why ID is a horrible argument for religion

Nature cannot tell us whether we should be our brother’s keeper or whether it is better for a man to lose the whole world but keep his soul from corruption. Nature has nothing to say about anything like that, but religion does – by revelations the universe really does work that way, whether we happen to see it locally today or not.

How is this different fron Gould's NOMA idea? That science and religion can happily co-exist because they speak about different aspects of our world? A Gene

All Religion consists of 3 parts: ritual/ceremony, doctrine, and personal religious experience. See "Inside the Neolithic Mind". Any particular Religion emphasizes 1 of the parts (e.g.,doctrine) over the other 2. Most "primitive" Religions emphasize personal religious experience. The Religion of the Ancient Romans emphasized rituals and ceremony. Most "organized" Religions (e.g., Christianity) emphasize doctrine. Modern anthroplogists have concluded there is no meaningful, objective distinction between "superstition" and "relgion". "Superstitions" are simply Doctrines of someone else's Religion. Intelligent Design, as a Scientific Theory, proposes that observation of the details of Biological systems suggests a level of complexity and interlocking precision that implies a Designer of the systems. This Designer would, by definition, be "super-natural", since the Designer itself must be more complex/intelligent than any natural system. The traditional human term for a "supernatural being" is a "god". It is then a very small step, but perhaps a step beyond "science", to conclude that the theory of Intelligent Design requires the existence of at least 1 god. But the theory of ID does not say anything about the nature of that god nor suggest any upper limit on the number of supernatural beings that might exist. Statements about the nature of the gods are entirely Religious Doctrine. Except for those individual humans whose Personl Religious Experience has convinced them that they have met 1 or more of the gods. But even then, the Experience is interpreted by the human's understanding of the Doctrine of that person's Religion. mahuna

I would not go so far as to say ID is a horrible apologetic. This is like saying "a car engine is a horrible car". The phrase might be technically true, but it is misleading. "A car engine is vital component of a car" is a more accurate statement than "a car enginge is a horrible car". Both statements are true, but one is a better characterization of reality. The issues are nuanced. I would say "ID is vital to certain religions". If ones religion depends on creation, then ID is a COMPONENT of good apologetic, but not the whole apologetic. The following statement is consisent with a religious belief inspired by creation: "If creation is true, then ID is true" The contrapositive of this: "If ID is false, then creation is false". Thus proving ID is a necessary but not sufficient condition to believe in creation. Thus refuting evolutionary theory is a necessary but not sufficient condition to accept creation. The benefit of ID is that it prevents disproof of religious views based on the hypthesis of creation. It is an apologetic in as much as it prevents the atheist case from being the ONLY dedeuction from the facts at hand. For that reason, ID is a good apologetic if one is willing to mean that apologetic argues against atheism being the sole outcome of scientific observation. It is not a complete apologetic in as much as it doesn't guarantee the Christian faith is the only faith. In fact, perhaps no such airtight argment for the Christian faith exists, since many of its tenents are based on faith. Same is true for other religions. scordova

Yes Gregory, one can be an atheist and an IDists as ID does not have anything to do with any "God". However one can also redefine atheism to exclude ID. Joe

Moderator Question: Why was JunkDNA banned from UD? Is there a link? Upright BiPed

"ID is consistent with atheism!" - Eric Holloway (ID 'Researcher') Gregory