ID: A candidate for one world religion and pushing Jesus aside.

ID's only claim that it is not a religion is that it distances itself from God by installing an abstract Designer. What seems odd to me is that so many Christians are actually supportive of ID and its proliferation into schools. This seems to be a conflict of interests as Jesus is necessarily being removed from the equation to be replaced by the abstract Designer that is basically an interface for anyone to plug a particular God into to meet their needs.What happens if ID wins and makes headway into society? People start worshiping "The Designer" and just plug in their respective gods. Now we have an abstract thing that people of different faiths can agree on and the lines between religions start to blur. Slowly but surely, Jesus is pushed farther and farther down as the central figure of Christianity.My main question is how can anyone who rightfully calls themselves Christian be supportive of a movement that necessarily removes Jesus from the creation equation?As a corollary, if ID does succeed wouldn't it look a lot like the one world religion that so many paranoid Christians fear so much? Certainly a theory that unifies "The Creator/Designer" is a great place to start if I was trying to build a one world religion.Last, please help me understand, how is ID helping people come to know Jesus rather than "The Designer"? Aren't Christians who support ID just dodging the "hard part" of actually talking to people about Jesus directly? It is hard to see how you get from a logical proof of a designer to the love and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ without making it seem like this idea of Jesus could not stand on its own. IMO, pushing Jesus into the man made box of "The Designer" necessarily weakens the message, purpose, and image of Him. Moreover, it is taking the focus off of the most important component of Christianity which is salvation.IDers, please tell me where you are coming from.Not sure where this topic should go. I leave to admin discretion.This message has been edited by Jazzns, 02-18-2005 10:01 AM{Fixed a spelling error in topic title - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-04-2005 23:06 AM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

What I find interesting about ID is that they claim life can be shown to have been designed, and so our biological capabilities have a purpose (a teleology). They then argue that our teleology is to deny the purposes of the "gadgets" we have obviously been designed with.It seems to me if they are going to be consistent, they have to start trying to understand what we should be doing, based on the mechanisms our creator worked so hard to "perfect". They use mousetraps and automobiles as analogies, well those can be shown right back. The purpose of a mousetrap is to catch mice and the purpose of a car is to get around. If we are filled with lust and are capable of a lot of sex, it appears then that that must be our purpose, right?They can't have it both ways.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-20-2005 11:04 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

My answer to that would be that all of our lusts and such didn't occur until the fall. But then I would be outside the bounds of ID and have a hard time getting my position accepted in the mainstream which I shouldn't even care about anyway because I already know that the mainstream won't accept my religion. So then I keep pushing my religion away into obscurity, ignoring all the specific tenents of my religion and end up in a whole new religion.The Christian IDer is truly in a precarious position. I wonder how bad they would scream if ID ever did start to see some headway but that most people were assigning Allah or Krishna to the slot of "The Designer". It would really suck for them because they couldn't argue one bit. Remember, it has nothing to do with God right?

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By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Even if we looked past the religious elements, and assumptions, and took it for granted all those extra designs were tacked on at "the fall", all that would mean is that was when he designed those purposes for us. Hahaha... maybe they were designed for God's "Fall Catalog".But yeah, this really opens a can of worms for the Xians. That's why I usually approach it with a two prong attack, what ID does to science and what it will do to their religion. In the end I don't think they want me accepting ID, or most of the rest of the world. It won't change anything except to make defense of their position (which rejects using our designed parts and thus teleology) even harder.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

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The Christian IDer is truly in a precarious position. I wonder how bad they would scream if ID ever did start to see some headway but that most people were assigning Allah or Krishna to the slot of "The Designer". It would really suck for them because they couldn't argue one bit. Remember, it has nothing to do with God right?

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I thought people already did that? Harun Yahya, the Raelians, the Vedic creationists?Makes me wonder how Xtian IDists see that. Anybody know?

They may already but I was thinking about having it accepted more mainstream. Something on the order of, "Hey! This was supposed to be advancing OUR religion not theirs!"No IDer takers yet...too bad.

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By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show