Hi Ivar,
Fear of religion seems to be common among people either promoting Darwinism
or opposing ID. (I'm unsure which most of you are doing, fighting traditional
religion or promoting your own religion - materialism. The tone of the
arguments resembles the emotionalism usually associated with religious
zealotry.) In discussions about evolution, I'm finding religious people more
tolerant and open minded that the materialists. Most ID supporters seem
willing to tolerate any number of naturalistic explanations. However they do
not regard random processes adequate to completely explain nature's
complexity. Fear of religion seems silly to me. Historically, the trend is
toward a lessening power of organized religions. However I suppose fear is
often not rational.
I am a politically liberal agnostic, and don't believe that traditional
religion and materialism are not the only alternatives. I have nothing
against materialistic explanations. I, myself, considered them a reasonable
explanation of evolution before learning how complex nature actually is. ID
probably means different things to different people, but all those supporting
ID seek to look beyond materialism -- materialism, as we now know it, in any
case. No one is ever going to prove the nonexistence of God. Those trying
to explain the universe materialistically are as doomed to failure as the
alchemists were. I suspect we have to consider things we now regard as
"supernatural", such as mind, free will, creativity, intelligence,
consciousness, spontaneity, etc. In the meantime I embrace ID as the only
effective opposition to "random mutation and natural selection".
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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