02/11/2006

'Intelligent Design' Needs an Intelligent Designer

ZANESVILLE, Ohio, Feb. 10 /Christian Newswire/ -- Your local newspaper's commentary on "Intelligent Design" in public schools expose the misguided attempts of Christian conservatives to repel the state-mandated atheism and humanism of our public education system. We rightly abhor our public institutions teaching things we despise to our children at our expense. It was Thomas Jefferson who said, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagations of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." But we have picked a battle-line in this culture war that would not give us victory even if we won.

In athletic competition, it is good to play by the rules, but in the war of worldviews, defeat is guaranteed if the truth plays by the rules of the liars. Conservatives have tried to play by the rules as we have insisted that our "intelligent design" theories that we attempted to infuse into scientific curriculum in public institutions were not "creationist" nor theistic in nature. Rather than challenge the validity of the "wall of separation of church and state," we have respected it. The courts were unconvinced: intelligent design, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones wrote , "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious antecedents," and thus it violates the wall of the separation. In his decision, Judge Jones forbade the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board from teaching intelligent design as a viable scientific theory in public schools biology classes.

Bad arguments for good conservative ideas may convince a majority of voters, but they aren’t going to convince a Judge and the intelligentsia. What must be shown to the public is that all education is inescapably religious and the question before the courts and the American people is, which religion is true. Even atheists worship: they "worship and serve the creature (nature) more than the Creator, who is blessed forevermore" (Romans 1:25). Rather than play by the rules that tilt the field in the favor of the state-sanctioned religion of naturalism (practical atheism), conservatives must show that the rules are wrong.

Public education, for instance, has proclaimed the standard of scientific truth to be the scientific method, and since an intelligent designer cannot be empirically verified by the scientific method, "it belongs in a comparative religion class and not in a science classroom." Yet if the scientific method is the only way to know truth, then the scientific method cannot be true because the validity of the scientific method cannot be confirmed by the scientific method! The reliability of the scientific method assumes things that are religious in nature – the reliability of the laws of nature and the laws of logic, and the immorality of falsifying data. It can be shown that only Christian theism supports the presuppositions of the scientific method. The false religion sanctioned by the state cannot even support itself, much less science; it falls from the weight of its own internal contradictions.

The religion of naturalism, which accepts naturalistic evolution as its most plausible explanation for the origin of life, cannot accept any theistic theories for the origin of life by definition. Until their religion is toppled then they will never accept as viable any scientific theory we offer as to the origin of life if it includes an Intelligent Designer that cannot be empirically verified in terms that an atheist can accept. This religion must be shown to be false, and we can do it with God’s help.

In the battle of worldviews in our public institutions, we must do something novel and defend Christian theism instead of going out of your way to hide it! Christian conservatives must pick a battle-line upon which victory will actually glorify the God we claim to serve. A theory of intelligent design that deceptively goes out of its way to exclude an Intelligent Designer and is consistent with any unbiblical theory of God or gods does not please the authentic Intelligent Designer, the Creator described in the Bible, for He hates Baal as much as he hates atheism. Neither will it please a circuit court Judge who can see through our sophistry.

Until the official state-sanctioned religion of public education is abandoned for the truth of God’s Word - which truths were taught to American schoolchildren for two hundred years - as for me and my house, we’ll homeschool. We'll also work diligently to force the government to stop stealing our money through coercive taxation to fund the teaching of lies to our children in the name of science (see www.stopschoollevies.org).

Patrick Johnston, D.O. Family Practice, Zanesville, Ohio www.rightremedy.org www.prolifephysicians.org