Bush Officially Endorses Teaching Intelligent Design in Public Schools

[KillerPollo]

Re- this. The other night on Special Report some guy from The Washington Times was talking about Intelligent Design being the issue in 2008 - like gay marriage was in 2004 - and it would somehow find it's way onto state ballots

This would motivate evangelicals and fundamentalists, who'd by-and-large vote Republican

Dave

EVERYBODY... VOTE RE-FU¢KING-PUBLICAN

Down with those filthy seculars.

[Democratic Hawk]

Re- this. The other night on Special Report some guy from The Washington Times was talking about Intelligent Design being the issue in 2008 - like gay marriage was in 2004 - and it would somehow find it's way onto state ballots

This would motivate evangelicals and fundamentalists, who'd by-and-large vote Republican

Dave

EVERYBODY... VOTE RE-FU¢KING-PUBLICAN

Down with those filthy seculars.

I'd vote for Intelligent Design to be taught in public schools  .......... and DEMOCRAT , just as I would have done with gay marriage

Dave

[12th Doctor]

sh**t even the Catholic Church is pro-evolution. Why must we have such a ing backwards President? Get this creationist idiot out of office ASAP.

Acctually, the Catholic Church is pro-intellegent design.  There is a difference between strict creationism (the world was created by God, as in Genesis, in 6 days) and intellegent design, which preaches that all the science is sound, but things developed through the will of a divine being.  I wonder if the President understands the difference.

At anyrate, what are you all so affraid of?  Let them be taught together, and let the kids choose which they believe in.  If they want to believe the world was created in 6 days, so what?  You are tollerant of people who believe much odder things, like Buddists and Hindus for instance.  This will probably have the effect of acctually opening up evelution to many schools that, according to current statutes, are allowed to not talk about it at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Question: what *exactly* is Intelligent Design?

[Ebowed]

Intelligent design advocates accept old earth dating methods, believe the fundamental things of Darwin's evolution theory to be true, etc., but contest that the earth is so complexly made that there is an intelligent designer.  This could be a god who created the first cell and stopped paying attention; it could be the Christian God; it could be a group of aliens.

Those who believe in theistic evolution, i.e. Catholic Church, could be classified as being part of the intelligent design category.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Intelligent design advocates accept old earth dating methods, believe the fundamental things of Darwin's evolution theory to be true, etc., but contest that the earth is so complexly made that there is an intelligent designer.  This could be a god who created the first cell and stopped paying attention; it could be the Christian God; it could be a group of aliens.

Those who believe in theistic evolution, i.e. Catholic Church, could be classified as being part of the intelligent design category.

Ah, O.K...
I don't really see the problem with that; nothing wrong with disputes over what caused things to happen.

[KEmperor]

Hahaha, this part really made me laugh:

"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature."

[dazzleman]

There's actually no conflict between believing in evolution and creationism, or intelligent design, or whatever the latest catchword is.

I believe in evolution, but evolution cannot explain how life began.  It's ridiculous to say we have to believe in one or the other.  The truth could be that there are components of both present in the development of the universe.  We'll never know anyway, at least not in this life.

[KEmperor]

Intelligent design is a nice little compromise way for people to accept evolution and still have faith in their creation myths.  Which is certainly a step foward from those who take such things literally, which leads them to believe totally ridiculous things like the Earth only being 6000 years old.

Regardless, it is a religious doctrine, and should only be taught by those organizations that are religious in nature.  As Al said, this is a debate about cause, not what has actually happened.  Those who believe in intelligent design do not deny that evolutionary change has happened.  Evolutionary theory is a scientific theory and should be taught in science class.  Intelligent design is a religious theory and should be taught in religion class.  It is the job of the church to have religious classes, not the secular authorities.

[dazzleman]

Intelligent design is a nice little compromise way for people to accept evolution and still have faith in their creation myths.  Which is certainly a step foward from those who take such things literally, which leads them to believe totally ridiculous things like the Earth only being 6000 years old.

Regardless, it is a religious doctrine, and should only be taught by those organizations that are religious in nature.  As Al said, this is a debate about cause, not what has actually happened.  Those who believe in intelligent design do not deny that evolutionary change has happened.  Evolutionary theory is a scientific theory and should be taught in science class.  Intelligent design is a religious theory and should be taught in religion class.  It is the job of the church to have religious classes, not the secular authorities.

I'm not really sure that you can say that intelligent design is necessarily a religious theory, unless you say that anything that can't be explained by concrete science is religious in nature.

I don't see anything wrong with presenting intelligent design in a non-religious context as a theory of development, especially since nothing that science has come up with can actually explain the origins of the universe in any case.

[Ebowed]

KEmp, I don't really see how saying that our galaxy was created by aliens is religious doctrine.

[ATFFL]

KEmp, I don't really see how saying that our galaxy was created by aliens is religious doctrine.

It is a matter of faith lacking empirical proof.

[Ebowed]

Saying that aliens created our galaxy is not a matter of faith; it is a theory because there is so little to go on, scientifically, to explain the origin of the universe.  It is as valid a theory as the one that says the universe just sort of came out of nowhere randomly.  Intelligent design says that there must be some sort of intelligent creator or initiator to explain the complexity of the world.  Unless you follow that by saying something like, "And the intelligent creator who did that was God, who is three persons in one god: The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit... by the way, Jesus Christ died on a cross to save you from your sins," it is not a religious doctrine.

[Emsworth]

Saying that aliens created our galaxy is not a matter of faith; it is a theory because there is so little to go on, scientifically, to explain the origin of the universe.

The question then becomes, how were these aliens created?

If it is to be assumed that the aliens always existed, then why can we not assume that the galaxy always existed? And if it is to be argued that the question of the origin of the aliens is unanswerable, then why not save a step, and say that the origin of the galaxy is unanswerable?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

then why not save a step, and say that the origin of the galaxy is unanswerable?

Because, up to a point, it isn't... it's pretty much known how the galaxy, the universe and all that came into being; as always the problem is what caused that to happen.

[KEmperor]

Tredrick gave the same answer I would have.