The Wrath of the Intelligent Designer

[Joel Katz]

ID is a pile of cigar aficionado/american heritage institute thinktank 
bullshit.  it, and the whole cynical movement associated with it, rests on 
the cowlike misunderstandiing of the concept "theory" in our culture, and 
the window it opens for the repudiation of science by people whose entire 
lives, down to the most trifling emotional response, are completely 
equalized, conditioned, and manipulated by science.

so, aquinas can basically suck it.  why is he considered so cool, anyway?  
if you take away the importance of god (who does not exist) from his 
writing, he's basically a moron.

the real issue in this phony evolution/ID imbroglio is the large percentage 
of scientists who say they believe in god, and who endorse a sort of 
division-of-labor credo between science and belief.  that's the crux of the 
problem, if you ask me.  they allow this other crap to thrive.  the greatest 
ethical catastrophe on this planet right now is the belief in god by people 
who know better.


>From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: The Wrath of the Intelligent Designer
>Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2005 14:58:04 -0400
>
>
>On Sep 18, 2005, at 10:25 AM, jporter wrote:
>
>>There's something almost "V. like" about this latest hybridization
>>of technology and religion called "Intelligent Design."
>>
>>     http://www.discovery.org/
>>
>>I'm not at all sure that this attack on the theory of evolution which
>>seems to accept almost all of the scientific explanation of how
>>the universe has evolved, excepting the transition from the inanimate
>>to the animate,
>
>Yes, this does seem to be the case, though isn't it rather odd to  restrict 
>"intelligent design" thusly.  The inanimate features of the  universe are 
>as well-ordered and purposeful as the animate ones. I  think the 
>distinction is in large part tactical.  The Evangelicals  feel it necessary 
>to try to bring conservative Catholics over to  their side,  and there is 
>no way Rome is ever again going to snooker  itself into a radical 
>anti-science position.
>
>Aquinas didn't make any such distinction in his fifth proof (of five)  for 
>the existence of God
>(in which he sets in opposition the idea of things coming into  existence 
>fortuitously (or in modern terms by Evolution) or their  coming into 
>existence designedly):
>
>"The fifth way is taken from the governance of he world. We see that  
>things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end,  and 
>this is evident from the acting always, or nearly always, in he  same way, 
>so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that  they achieve this 
>end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever  lacks knowledge cannot 
>move toward an end, unless it be directed by  some being endowed with 
>knowledge and intelligence, as the arrow is  directed by the archer. 
>Therefore some intelligent being exists by  whom all natural things are 
>directed to their end: and this being we  call God. "
>
>Yes, the Evangelicals want to argue for the existence of God in  science  
>class.
>
>
>
>
>
>>doesn't signal a last desperate gasp by the belief
>>community before the final plunge into Scurvhamism- seduced
>>over one by one into worship of the clock-like perfection of the
>>material world.
>
>Sorry to have interrupted you in mid-sentence but I got hung up on a  word. 
>What is scurvhamism?
>
>>
>>The question that looms for me is where do they draw the line
>>between the designer and the designed? Stencil may have been
>>able to avail himself of the third person, but he was only framing
>>a part of the whole. It's more difficult to be objective when one is
>>responsible for the whole shebang.
>>
>>jody
>>
>>
>

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