Kenneth Miller on Intelligent Design

Fine, I'll drop agnostic for athiest in denial... it's just easier to SAY agnostic

Nah, we don't know, nor do we care

Actually, to be fair, creationism cannot be disproven. Ever. That's exactly why it isn't considered a "theory" or "science"... There is no way to disprove it. Even things we know to be fact can be disproven, in theory, if data ever comes out that shows it to be incorrect - ID never can be, because the answer is recursive - all problems are explained away by the concept of ID.

The purpose is clear. It's no secret the founders feared a state run church, like the Church of England. The separation he spoke of was in this regard. Never shall the USA have a Church. The wall is high indeed if we are talking about that.

Perhaps not in your lifetime, but over a span of the last 10 million years (at the least), that is not a true statement at all.


If you want Creationism in the school classroom (like hte I.D.ers do) then yes, you need to offer a testable theory. I.D. does not do that, its very premise is weak and amorphous.

As for falsifying Evolution, I.D. hasn't even done that yet. Not even close. You can offer hypotheses which *would* falsify it if proven , but to date none of them have panned out. Conversely, there's no way to even propose falsifiability for I.D. That puts it completely out of the realm of science.

Two strikes, that's pretty much the ballgame.

Can we make that assumption, or have we simply not yet developed the tools (and therefore the science) to measure the concept of God?

They also feared a church-run-state so it goes both ways. The state-run-church was established as a direct result of the church running the state. It's not so much a singular idea as fear of the entire circuit.

No, because that's the beauty of the concept, and its failing: One can always elevate ID out of the reach of criticism. Assume, for example, we are talking of Christian ID (There ARE others, but CID is the most common): It doesn't matter how far we advance, even if we go all Stargate Ancients and ascend to some higher plane - God would always be higher, so our lack of ability to measure him wouldn't indicate he didn't exist.

Unless, of course, we ascend and he's there waiting for us with a club sammich and a beer in hand. That would be pretty cool, but it might throw some people for a loop, Christians included.

I believe Rose posted an excellent selection of quotes from the founding fathers relating their disposition on Christianity. Perhaps you should go find it and read it several more times, then come back and amuse me with your attempts to pretend they meant something other than what they stated so explicitly.

The point is, there is nothing in the founding documents prohibiting the government from providing assistance to religions. The only requirement is the government must do so fairly, without discriminating against any particular religion. If atheism isn't a religion, it's not even an issue, and should not be regarded when deciding if the government is being fair to all faiths.

Although, I believe the USSC has ruled atheism is a religion when it comes to discrimination, but not when it comes to pushing their agenda in schools.

Now that is a God I could follow. I'm hungry now. Bastard.

They wrote in the documents those things that they agreed on, and that was to bar any state run church and to deny congress the power to write laws that limit ones ability to practice ones religion.

My point is that to prohibit a state-run church, one must necessarily not have a church-run state, or the one will create the other.

Which church is running the state?

Anybody else notice his source for this (apparently cut-and-pasted) is apologetics.org? Specifically, http://www.apologetics.org/fastfactsonid.html

From the apologetics.org "About Us" page:

So yeah, take that from whence it comes.

-S

At this time, the Christian Church as an entity is attempting to, but we aim to prevent that.

Actually it wasn't a cut and paste from www.apologetics.org, it was from the discovery site, which is the major proponent of ID, which was the point of the post.

Hi Ulri..

Which Christian church?

You're attempting to focus on a building or specific denomination as a method to discredit, but it won't work. Mainly because of the Christian rhetoric that it is the people and basic tenet of belief that defines the Church, not the building or the denomination. Since Christendom claims that the Church is not the firmament or the sediment, but is the body of the spirit of Christ through its believers, it is that "universal Church body" that I am addressing.

So my reference to the "Church" includes portions of every denomination and creed within Christianity, specifically the conservative fundamentalists of said "Church".

And how exactly are these loosely grouped members (people who don't even hold meetings or discuss issues) controlling the state?

Is there some big conspiracy I'm not aware of? I really need to be in on this power over government. After all, I am part of the body.

I stand corrected. Evidently apologetics.org just lifts it's information wholesale from the discovery site.

Who's Ulri?

-S

Kevn, he said *attempting to* not that they *are*. Go back and read it.

Who do you think is the driving force behind the proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? Who do you think is the driving force behind wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade?

The result of a discongolmerate group is multiple splinter groups, such as those that lobby to have Christian morals enforced in the media, censor the media to match those morals, vault up those who agree with and would illegally promote their causes into public office, and even a group that lobbies for political maneuvers in the mideast that seem to make an ideal formula for the apocalypse described in Revelation. This even includes those who try to have I.D. taught in schools and organized prayer established as the norm in public schools (note that it's only Christian prayer being lobbied). The Republican Party has shown that it may be waxing a political platform for this sort. At this point, you're asking questions that even many Christians would agree requires living under a rock for a few years not to notice without asking.

This is even noticeable in the FCA program, which meets on public school grounds but influences the school through their parent's money well enough that any other religion attempting the same has its invitation banners torn down and students threatened with expulsion for cluttering the halls.