Reply #95: But intelligent design stumbles hard on that mystery. [View All]

[Telly Savalas]

The basis for ID is that it's inconceivable that something as complicated as the universe could exist without a sentient creator, yet turns around and says it's completely conceivable that something as complicated as a creator of the universe doesn't need a creator. If one posits that the intelligent designer created itself or always existed, then why isn't it possible that the universe created itself or always existed?

For the record, it's via the metaphor of God that I grasp the notion of an amazingly complicated universe. For millenia gazillions of subatomic particles have danced around space, millions of years ago they arranged themselves into organisms we would call living, and a bit over 30 years ago they formed that which I call myself. That's a truly awesome thing to consider. (and I mean that in the original sense of the word "awesome", not in the Mountain Dew commercial sense)

When I look at things from this perspective, I see a spark of magic or the divine in it all and hang the label God on this spark. It's not so much a God that is a physical being that does things or created anything. Rather the universe contains God in the same way an organized pattern of soundwaves contains joy. Call that irrational, but even the biggest proponents of reason like music.

I identify myself a Christian because it's the tradition and culture in which I was raised, and a few blocks from here is an amazing church that's about peace and love, not "Thou shalts" and bigotry.

That said, I refuse to send my daughter to a school that tries to push any bastardizations of science like ID.