1. There is a huge difference between an idea being inherently religious and an idea having positive implications for religion. Intelligent Design (ID) theory isn't religion-based. In fact, it uses Charles Darwin's approach to science: determining the cause, now in operation, that is known from our experience to be a cause of the effect you're trying to explain. Using this method, ID theorists have demonstrated, quite powerfully, that cosmology, astrophysics, biology, and genetics all point to a designing intelligence.
2. ID theory does not constitute evolution denial; it only denies one main tenet of the materialist neo-Darwinian paradigm: namely, that all of nature originated through blind, purposeless processes. This is not an automatic rejection of common descent, a theory many scientists believe is supported by paleontology and genetics. ID itself is totally unconcerned with that particular definition of "evolution". To be sure, some ID proponents are skeptical about the so-called "tree of life" that theoretically connects all living things, present and past, to a common ancestor. But, some ID proponents have no problem whatsoever with the idea of common descent. It is the materialist philosophical claims ID proponents are rejecting --that there is no designer behind it all and blind processes are a sufficient explanation of nature. In other words, guided or intelligently planned common descent is totally compatible with ID theory.
The origin of "nature" (I presume this means the universe) is not addressed by evolutionary theory. Evolution is a unifying theory of biology. Hypotheses on the origins of 'nature', the universe, are typically reserved for physics, cosmology. You are basically objecting to germ theory because it doesn't address the origin of atoms.
Only one kind of person insists that evolution covers cosmology, and objects to evolution based on that straw man. A creationist.
"Some" ID proponents accept common descent, you can practically count them on one hand. The overwhelming majority deny common descent. Because they are creationists. And that denial of common descent is heavily reflected in average ID literature.
You have admitted that your primary objection to evolutionary theory is your perception that it is atheistic. You object to "materialism", something that, from your perspective, is synonymous or married with "atheism". You believe evolutionary theory promotes materialism.
You don't support theistic evolution. You don't believe that evolutionary theory is correct and that your god is the mastermind of the mechanism of evolution.
But you have yet to address something that is actually part of evolutionary theory itself, you don't demonstrate flaws in the theory.
Instead, you keep bringing religiophilosophy into a matter of biology, of science.
This idea of evolution you have, that it somehow attempts to explain the origin of the universe, this is not part of evolutionary theory. A purposelessness in everything, a randomness in everything, this is not expressed by the theory of evolution. When you argue against "evolution" in this manner, you don't argue against evolution, you completely bypass the actual theory, you don't "demonstrate" what's wrong with it since you never address it, and instead you're arguing against this spectre of atheism in your worldview. This idea of evolution you have exists only in the minds of creationists and is something they perceive as nihilistic, atheistic, scientific materialism and a grave threat to their supernatural beliefs.
Tell us again how God has nothing to do with this?
(btw a more scientific and accurate metaphor of the old "tree of life" is actually "web of life". You would know this if you read things from scientific sources instead of creationist ones, which rely heavily on a 4th-grade-to-9th-grade presentation of evolution instead of a university presentation)
Edited by Duchykins, 25 April 2014 - 01:08 AM.
