Big Bang?

[Mike Weaver]

Rob:
>The "we're right, they're wrong" rhetoric is just as ugly whichever
>direction it comes from

Ugly ol' world innit?

"We're right - you're wrong" is a pretty fundamental motor of human 
development. It makes a poor debating tool, but when push comes to shove 
where you put your weight depends on which side of the argument you go for. 
MOR fans may burble on about balance but who decides where the fulcrum 
goes? Several layers of political and social struggle do. Religion engages 
as a social force not as a spiritual one.

Rob again:
>the binary opposition which I've
>been challenging: i.e. the "science is truth and light and all must
>kneel at its altar" vs "belief in god/s is primitive and idiotic and
>believers are intellectually inferior" argument.

I think what you started arguing was that science was a belief system just 
like spiritual systems whereas others were saying science is one thing and 
belief systems are another. Science is based on the observation of natural 
processes and the human manipulation of what we can observe - 'what' and 
'how' Belief systems are about 'why'. The specific area of opposition which 
triggered the debate concerns ID advocates trying to get equal time in the 
science class, when, as Dawkins and co, point out it belongs in the 
philosophy class.

AndRobagain:
>As I understand it, and I could be wrong, the only difference is that
>ID proposes "God" as a first cause

Yep yer wrong. Intelligent Design is not just about God as first cause but 
by its very name about there being the application of some intelligence to 
the design of natural phenomena - usual example being the eye. I'm an 
atheist of the Occam's razor variety, but a deliberate first cause wouldn't 
upset my universe - I just can't see it happening that way. ID asserts a 
view of existence which I regard as anathema because it places faith (in 
superior, attainable, levels of existence) above observation of the world 
abounding.