Today’s Intelligent Design: “Sneaky Deep” Conversion Strategy of the Christian Right
August 29, 2007
There’s something you don’t know about me. When I was in high school, I was taught…intelligent design. But this wasn’t anything like the pseudo-scientific flim flam being passed off today in courts and school districts around the country. It was a decent, honest attempt to reconcile science with belief in God.
Mrs. DuPen, our beloved biology teacher at Holy Names, had a banner posted above the white board of our freshman biology classroom. It read, “The likelihood that the universe was created by accident is equal to the likelihood that the Oxford English Dictionary was created by an explosion in a print shop.”
We weren’t taught that evolution contradicted the idea of God as creator. Rather, we were encouraged to investigate empirical matters scientifically while allowing ourselves private beliefs where matters of faith were concerned. It was a wonderful way to teach science while respecting religion, and I do understand evolution very well. My own personal reconciliation of evolution and faith–one that I shared with many of my classmates–was that God set evolution in motion because God was wise and knew that this was the best way to create vibrant, healthy, thriving species.
If we are to allow for the possibility of God in American science classrooms, I would suggest Mrs. DuPen’s method as the way to do it. But the current intelligent design movement isn’t about allowing for the possibility of God. It’s about converting a generation of American children to Christianity.
If Evangelical Christians were really only concerned with the idea of intelligent design, then they would adhere to the 1987 Supreme Court decision that creationism could not be taught alongside evolution because it disobeyed the Constitution by promoting a specific faith in public schools. They would simply fight for the allowance of the possibility of God and leave the matters of specific faith or non-belief up to individual children and their families.
Instead, they are continually working against their own political interests by trying to advance a “sneaky deep” message about the rightness of only one religion: theirs. This is all part of the larger goal of converting the entire world to their particular way of believing.
I’ve been thinking and reading a great deal about doctrinal fundamentalism–both religious and social–lately. I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the biggest threats to the future of humanity. Any ideology which leaves no room for doubt, variation or individual conscience cannot be allowed to impose itself on a democratic system of governance. Such an eventuality would be an assault upon human dignity and liberty.
While I have no belief in any Omnipotent guide in the universe. I certainly share your disturbance at christian fundamentalism. Apocalyptic faiths are extrodinalrily dangerous, as they belive that their moment of glory will come in a moment of the most terrible violence. In such populations, I am sure people will arise that see them selves as the holy hand that instigates this violence. Let us remember that the christian end of days begins in the “holy land.” Anyone who does not believe will be horribly punished by their supernal patron, and the believers will have sex with little girls and boys untill the end of time.
To hear the religious right talk about it, you’d think all they’re trying to do is take back the power that was unjustly stolen from them by ‘those damn atheists.’
What people like that never understand is that despite the presence of the word ‘God’ in the Declaration of Independence, this nation was NEVER founded on Christian principles and was NEVER endowed with its theological teachings. The ideals this country was founded upon were those of John Locke, who was unapologetically AGAINST the concept of rights being derived from God. Instead, those rights are a consequence of your existence and are yours, whether a state (or religion) recognizes them or not.
But the religious Right do not and do not WANT to understand this. They need to believe they’re on some holy mission to destroy the non-believers. They don’t want to give people, or children especially, the intellectual fortitude to make these choices themselves. Instead, they want to indoctrinate them.
Ian:
One of the most insightful statements I have ever read.
Hello, I am a Christian. I must admit that I do not understand everything you are saying.( I am trying to understand where you’re getting this from.) But I am going to pray for you. Sometimes I don’t see why many people are against God, but it is man’s sinful nature. I hope someday you will come to know the Lord. Oh, did you know that Christmas is really to celebrate Jesus Christ’s birth? Jesus is God’s son who died on the cross to save us from our sins.
John 3:16 ” For God so loved the world [that includes you] that he gave his only son, Jesus Christ, and whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”