Hiding The Creator

Intelligent Design is a relatively new attempt by fundamental Christians to force a form of creationism into public school science classes. A few years ago school boards in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Kansas attempted to add this "theory" of human origins to the high school biology curriculum but were blocked by the courts.

Promoters of Intelligent Design argue that living organisms and the environment they live in are so complex they must have been created by some kind of higher force. This sounds reasonable and we could almost accept Intelligent Design as a theory comparable to evolution.

But U. S. District Judge John E. Jones ruled in 2004 that the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania would violate the constitutional separation of church and state if they added Intelligent Design to the high school biology class curriculum. Jones found that the concept was creationism in disguise.

There is a thin line separating creation and intelligent design. This appears to be the elimination of the word "God" in identifying the origin of intelligent design. Jones found that the implication was too strong to be ignored, and that the concept was an attempt by fundamental Christian believers to cram creationism into the minds of young children.

Evolution is an accepted scientific theory. Since the work of Charles Darwin, biologists have brought forth scientific proofs in the fossil record that strongly support evolution as a valid solution to a scientific question, even though the theory cannot be proven.

Creationism, on the other hand, can never be classified as a theory. It is based solely on a religious belief system and some words in the Bible that claim that a powerful force in the sky created everything out of nothing. No scientific evidence can be found to support this claim. It is a faith-based belief by people who argue that the Bible was written by holy inspiration and therefore must be true.

Intelligent design is much like creationism except that it is a little more vague as to whom the creator is. And it appears to follow a more flexible course between random evolutionary development of life on Earth and development of all things by the design of a creator. Therefore, under the terms of intelligent design, there seems to be room for some evolution as long as we acknowledge that an external force had a hand in putting everything together to make it work.

There was a time in my life when I would have really liked the intelligent design concept of explaining our origins. The evidence exists in the fossil record that evolution, indeed, occurred and that life of all forms sprang from the bowels of the Earth over a time-span of millions of years.

We also find evidence in the rocks of great extinctions, caused by global calamities, followed by an explosive rekindling of life within a few hundred thousand years.

For these reasons, we can’t dismiss evolution as a theory that must be considered when attempting to explain how we got here. Religious thinkers argue that the speed at which life forms appear in the fossil record prove that an outside force, or god, was busy with “creation” during these periods in history.

Intelligent design cannot stand alone as a theory, unless you add an additional factor. That would be the identification of the creator. If you take this idea to its alternative conclusion, and determine that alien contact was part of the intelligence behind the design, we add new pieces to a puzzle that has perplexed us for a very long time.

The remainder of the solution lies in recognition of the Mother Earth as a sentient being, filled with the pre-biotic chemistry of life. The entire universe is alive. Even space is found to be filled with bacterial cells that are in communication with each other. All things are part of a vast communication system. The proofs to these statements are found everywhere yet are ignored by science because they conflict with Christian dogma.

Acceptance of these two factors as truth is a hard-sell when pitted against the power of religious belief systems. Science appears blinded by religious dogma when anyone suggests the concepts of alien involvement in human origins or turning back to native mythology considering the Mother Earth as a living organism.

Thus we have a problem with teaching intelligent design to children. We believe it cannot be taught with an open mind and the instruction will slide directly into creationism.