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By Richard Akin - founder
ASUSA
Outline and audio of lay sermon given on
September 4, 2005
Audio (46 mins., 13.6 MB) can be heard with
QuickTime.
A. Roots of "Intelligent Design"
1. Fundamentalist Christianity
a. Definition: Meeting of Conservative Protestants, 1895
Verbal Inerrancy of Scripture – Plenary/God Chosen Words,
Infallible, (translation: King James Version)
Divinity of Jesus Christ (Jesus, the Christ)
Trinity (only unforgivable sin, deny the Spirit)
Virgin Birth
Substitutionary Atonement
Physical Resurrection and bodily return of Christ.
b. Creationism: How the Earth & Environs would look according to the
inerrant scripture:
The inerrant Bible says hares chew cud, bats are birds, insects are
4 legged (Leviticus 11),
the mustard seed is the smallest seed (Matt 13), and
a seed must die in order to sprout (I Corinthians 15).
2.Neo-fundie/Dominionist/Reconstructionist
Neo-Fundamentalist is political and aggressive, the Religious Right
which mobilized the vote for the presidential election in 2000 and
2004. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, et al are still or were
Pentecostals, Assembly of God, the “emotional” or Charismatic sects.
Falwell said no one gets elected in the state of Virginia unless he
approves.
Dominionist – take dominion over the Earth, America First, to hasten
the return of Jesus.
Reconstructionist – exchange secular documents, laws, social models,
and institutional structure for sectarian. I.E. they want to
establish a Theocratic government in the US.
a. The Fundamentalist wants:
To preserve religious integrity.
Maintain orthodoxy.
Retain moral purity.
Be distinguished as “The Virtuous Group” – non-followers are
hard-hearted, immoral, untrustworthy, weak willed, misguided, and
malevolent (agents or pawns of Satan) = “The Evil Ones”.
Be involved in the Manichean fight (Dualism) between good and evil.
b. Why they want it: (disclaimer)
To be assured of a place in Heaven; to avoid going to Hell. And that
a life does not end at death.
They live in Fear, Anger, Un-empowerment, Insecurity, and in a world
of “Weltanshung” of Guilt-Sin-Death.
They have no tolerance for Ambiguity and avoid Uncertainty. (My
bumper sticker “Think Love”.)
They need Cognitive Closure and to feel Special.
They are Dogmatic, Authoritarian, and Manipulative.
c. How they intend to get it: taken from “The Wedge Strategy”,
Discovery Institute, Center for Renewal of Science & Culture, 1996,
(the think tank for propagating what they call “Intelligent Design”:
Re-establish that man was created in the image of God, the bedrock
principle on which civilization was built. Including democracy,
human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and science.
Nothing less than the overthrow of materialism (secularism) and its
cultural legacies.
Establish how new developments in biology, physics, and cognitive
science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism
(evolution) and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic
understanding of nature.
Replace scientific materialism (grounded in Darwinism) with a
science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
Encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that
support the faith.
To see Design Theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and
political life.
Influence public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality,
abortion, and belief in God.
While this information was taken from the publication of an
organization about 70% funded by Howard Ahmanson funding Religious
Right and Republican political candidates, The Stewardship
Foundation funding evangelical activities, and Maclellan Foundation
“committed to the infallibility of Scripture…”, recognize that ID
proponents do not usually proclaim biblical literalism and the
literature for public consumption also does not. This may be because
biblical “Creationism” and “Creation Science” have already been
denied a place in public school curriculum. But, the Institute
instructs its speakers to stay away from “Creationism” to avoid the
question of the existence of God.
d. What society is when they succeed:
Looks like Christian Rome, Crusades, Inquisition,
Catholic/Protestant wars and persecution, Salem Witch Trials,
Catholic/Protestant Rioting, Massachusetts & Virginia jailing of
non-conformists, Prohibition, Blue Laws, and Faith Based government
funding (Pat Robertson’s charity is to get $25M to aid New Orleans).
B. Science Defined:
Observation, hypothesis, testing, publishing, peer review, third
party testing, publishing, peer review, public review,
prognostication, testing, Theory, testing. The drive is to prove or
disprove the theory.
Why ID is not science and is not science theory.
Observation, hypothesis, publishing, teaching. The very same
methodology followed in the creation of any other myth.
One of Discovery Institute’s scientists, MD Robert Davidson has
publicly admitted they have no “content”, thus push the questioning
of evolution, driving a wedge between science and religion. They
have nothing to offer for proving or disproving. Having failed to
introduce any science, they seek to destroy what exists and has
functioned very well for millions of trials. All because they don’t
like the morals, laws, culture, and political structure generated by
naturalistic materialism. Davidson also called the Discovery
Institute’s direction a misuse of science and religion, quoting his
minister, “Science is about measuring and God is immeasurable”.
Why evolution is factual science.
The theory has survived over a hundred years of the rigorous
methodology previously outlined. Can or will it change? Of course,
that is the nature of science and any other human undertaking
because we are not omniscient. As we find better ways of doing or
knowing, we adopt and adapt.
C. Public School Curriculum With ID as science.
All inquiry and response begins with the supposition of the
existence of God. Any course dealing with nature and the environment
is mired in religious myth propounded by those who protect the
faith. Anti-intellectualism runs deep in the ranks of the
Fundamentalist. Part of this is carry over from the working life of
the average Charismatic. The favorite saying, “He just an educated
fool.” And the instruction of wannabe ministers that getting
advanced degrees from secular schools endangers your soul.
Demands on the student:
a. Accept or be ostracized, at minimum.
b. No consideration of alternative reasons or methods.
c. No answers as to why they should conduct themselves ethically or
morally other than “God said it”.
d. Limited access to science information. (in Montana, a primary
contributor to medical research, happened onto a medical text
providing a background on evolution.
e. To a child’s reasoning mind, nothing is so sacred as a fact. The
child wants to know how the world operates and what is his place in
it – trying to accept what the authorities in his life tell him.
Demands on the Teacher:
a. Remember the Scopes trial?
b. What will you teach – there are some who question science saying
that an Intelligent Designer did it?
c. What will happen in Dover PA if/when teachers refuse to pass on
the idea to the student?
d. How will you reconcile your role from giving children the facts
of existence to being a consort to passing on mythology as fact?
Demands on the Parent:
a. How do you assure that your child is schooled in those subjects
which could prepare her for a career in science or medicine?
b. How do you explain that the teachers of facts and knowledge are
in error?
c. Can you be comfortable with contributing to the further dumbing
down of America?
d. How do you discipline a child to behave and learn in school when
the child “feels” something is wrong?
e. Can you explain to the child that ID, if it is to be taught,
belongs in a class on religion, not science?
f. Can you explain that when some adults say that teaching the
controversy, being fair, and considering both sides of an argument
means: the controversy is between faith and science, not within
science, that being fair means allowing a factual argument to be
heard, that argument, as in debate, means comparing oranges with
oranges and apples with apples.
D. What Can Be Done.
Organize local resistance.
Get a website, publicity.
Ally with similar groups in other locales.
Speak to groups, school boards, PTA, teachers.
Immediately write letters to the editor when any relevant news item
is printed.
E. Difference in resistance approaches:
Atheist
Humanist
Secularist
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