Intelligent Design: 4

My nephews say that perhaps I should say ID is polytheism, not idolatry.

I think they're right. However, one Greek word is as good and as impenetrable as another, so idolatry stands. (If you were an ID supporter, you would say "Idolatry Rulz!" in the inner sanctum of your boys' club of spiritual depravity.)

In 1975, David Foster had a book call The Intelligent Universe. It was published by G.P.Putnam's Sons, New York, 1975. Mr. Foster was a scientist. Mr. Foster was postulating a universal intelligence based on data and information. This all hung on the analysis of the term intelligence. I quote:

"There is a classic argument for the existence of intelligence on a fairly universal scale based on the thought that a human design can only be created through intelligent human means, and therefore if we witness pattern or design in nature, it is highly suggestive that this is the result of intelligence. The idea is that you cannot have design without a designer..."

"But such views...are really beliefs of a quasi-religious nature, and while I do not dispute the possibility of their validity, nevertheless, they are hardly capable of proof in a scientific sense. The postulates are too simple and to inferential to be satisfactorily convincing, and even suggest that ' God is made in the image of Man. ' " 

There is a subtle point in all this ID that 30 years ago Mr. Foster got and we in our benighted generation cannot; that if you mix God and Science, you will either get bad Science or monstrous Religion or both.
In a era of scientific achievement, God will be reduced to a human scale: a heavenly draftsman.
In an era of religious achievement ( few and far between, alas) , science will be reduced to Scholasticism.

I mean, just how comfortable do you feel with a scientists who says, I've come across a situation I can't understand fully. I could either experiment and investigate, or I could retreat into some obscure idolatry. Suppose this scientist was your medical doctor. How comfortable would you feel? I don't understand your symptoms. I could run more tests, or I could sacrifice a chicken.

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