And the US founding fathers were very explicit that their idea of religious liberty included Islam:
‘And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner propos’d, and persons appointed to receive contributions, but sufficient sums were soon receiv’d to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad, about the size of Westminster Hall; and the work was carried on with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. ‘
The argument from beauty can be given a more rigorous formulation. You might like to have a look at Robin Collins’ online paper, Universe or Multiverse? A Theistic Perspective - especially part 6. I blogged about it here, and also here, ten years ago. However, there is one major point, regarding which my thinking on the subject has changed: reading Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder’s blog articles has convinced me that we cannot discover scientific truths by looking for theories that match our ideals of beauty. The silver lining is that when we discover the truth, our initial reaction might be, “How ugly!”, but in the end, we will recognize the beauty that is there. As Dr. Hossenfelder puts it at the end of her fine essay, Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, and other lies of physics:
It’s no use, and not good scientific practice, to demand that nature conform to our ideals of beauty. We should let evidence lead the way to new laws of nature. I am pretty sure beauty will await us there.
Agreed, but this still leaves the question of why IDcreationists spend virtually all of their time generating rhetoric aimed at laypeople, instead of going to the lab or the field to see those beautiful truths for themselves.