From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Aug 01 2003 - 10:19:10 EDT
Howard J. Van Till wrote:
...................
> ID's claim, "does not require a miracle," is as hollow as claims get. If X
> is a non-natural form-conferring intervention by an unidentified,
> unembodied, choice-making agent, then what sort of non-miraculous phenomenon
> could X be?...................
I don't think that the claim is so much "hollow" as it is part of a shell game.
In discussions of scientific issues, IDers make this claim which, in that context, has
some validity: Life on earth could indeed have been seeded by ETs. But in the larger
context in which ID functions as part of the "wedge" strategy against "naturalism," the
putative design could not have taken place through natural processes accessible to
science & is therefore properly described as "miraculous." Directed panspermia would be
completely useless for the crusade against naturalism (besides the fact that it just
pushes the problem of the origin of life back a step).
I would have much more respect for the ID movement if its spokespersons would
stop exploiting this ambiguity in order to try for both scientific respectability _and_
the support of Christian anti-evolutionsists.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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