Do Religious People need to champion Intelligent Design?
1) No. Maimonides was open to the possibility of a radical revision of
the understanding of Genesis, and to jettison the concept of creation,
if Aristotle’s proof of the eternity of the universe was sound.
He showed however that this proof was flawed, and that therefore there
was no need to abandon the idea of creation. The implication is that
even where there is apparent conflict with Torah, if the proof is
sound, a new interpretation must be found. Thus if modern scientific
theory were found to irresolvably conflict with the present
interpretation of Torah, presumably Maimonides would prefer an
alternate interpretation which would not conflict. That is, if there is
a perceived irreconcilable conflict between the religious understanding
of the creation account and the scientific theory of origins (the
theories of modern science and philosophy regarding the origin of the
universe and of life, eg the big bang and evolutionary theories), and
we wish to overcome this conflict, we can change or inteprretation of
the creation account. And so we are not forced to find an alternate
theory such as ID.
2) No. There is no need even to consider abandoning the present origin
theory: as the many books and articles on the subject indicate, many
Orthodox Jews feel that the theory of the big bang and of evolution
aren’t necessarily counter to Jewish belief as long as the
atheistic theology of assuming that there’s no God or Designer is
detached from it. Darwin even long after presenting his theory of
evolution considered the universe to have been created by God, and one
of the Nobel Prize winners for detecting the traces of the big bang is
similarly a religious Jew, and so clearly one cannot claim that the
scientific theories are counter to religious belief. Indeed many
religious Jews and Catholics who accept the truth of the creation
account of Genesis believe that together with scientific theory what it
tells us is that God created the big bang and the laws of nature and
programmed the laws to ensure that complexity increased and life
emerged, and then at some point infused the emerged beings with a
soul.[ - the present theories fit well enough with the religious
interpretations]. There is therefore no Jewish religious need to reject
present day scientific origin theories and champion an alternative
scientific theory [since the present scientific theories do not
irretrievably conflict with the Jewish uunderstanding of Genesis]. The
possiblity of Intelligent Design is therefore not a solution to a great
problem and support of this theory should not be considered to be
support for religious belief
3) No. Even if science eventually leads to the idea that the universe
was designed, the designer science would find need not be what Judaism
calls “God the creator", and so even if science espoused
intelligent design this would not mean that Genesis is
‘proven’.
4) No. To be similar to Genesis, a theory of ID must propose the
existence of an infinite creator. However, a theory of ID which invokes
an infinite creator is no more scientifically acceptable than is the
creation account in Genesis, and so it wouldn't 'resolve' the
cotradiction with science. Even if even eventually no answer to the
enigmas of present day scientific origin theory is found, scientists
will not therefor eturn to Genesis for the answers. Many scientists and
philosophers do not suppose the proposition that an infinite being
created everything to be an acceptable answer for anything until one
could explain how such a being exists. And if forced to choose one of
two possibilities, rather than accept a being whose origin and
existence is a mystery beyond science, scientists generally prefer to
believe instead in a complex universe whose origin and existence is a
mystery beyond science.
5) No. ID proponents point to enigmas and lacunae in the present
theories. However although there are many enigmas in evolutionary
biology, and intelligent design ‘answers’ any such
question, most professional biologists believe (note the word) that
eventually evolutionary mechanisms will be discovered which do not
require design, and it is in their opinion too early to give up the
search for such mechanisms. In the meantime, scientists would prefer to
say ‘we cannot yet find an adequate explanation’ and try to
find one, and not jump the gun and conclude that there is no possible
explanation, or that the universe was necessarily designed. And so when
religious people espouse ID for supposedly scientific reasons, it seems
disingenuous.
6) No. To consitute 'proof', a claim must convince people. It is no
good to say that one has a proof of something but one's listeners are
too blind to see the truth, or too ignorant and stupid to follow the
argument, or too stubborn or brain-washed to allow new ideas in, or too
dishonest to admit that they know it is true. Thus, although there are
many people who are convinced that there are valid proofs of the
existence of God, the great majority of people, even of educate
dreligious people, do not accept these as valid proofs, and so for my
purpose here I consider them not to be proofs at all. Given that all
the alleged 'proofs' offered over the millenia have evaporated under
critical scrutiny, I assume that God wished to be hidden from 'proof',
and I hypothesize that this will remain true (at least until 'the end
of days'). Therefore, I believe that no scientific theory will ever be
propounded which will constitue a 'proof' of the existence of what
religion considers God to be, and so supporting ID in the hope that it
will lead to God is mistaken. Furthermore, it is generally only
literalists who have such great trouble reconciling scinetific origin
theory with the bible and it is not conceivable to me that a scientific
theory will lead to a description of events which will replicate the
literal meaning of Genesis. Thus for those who find modern scientific
origin theory religiously objectionable there is no point in adopting
ID as a counter to it.
Conclusion: To my mind,
Intelligent design should stand or fall on its scientific merits alone.
Both closed-minded rejection a priori and ideological support for it
are as out of place as they would be for any scientific theory.
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