Is Intelligent Design Like Scientology?

ID isn’t a cult. It is a backdoor way to insert Christianity into the discussion of evolution.

2 Likes

@Patrick, you can’t defend that nonsense. Good luck trying. I encourage @mung (and everyone else who cares about sane rhetoric) to dismantle you on this. Good luck, and my advice is to concede quickly.

3 Likes

I don’t see ID as a cult. Misguided, perhaps, but not in a cult-like way.

I have no doubt that Scientology is a cult.

Ok, ID is not a cult. I apologize to any IDer that I have offended. What definition of ID would you prefer?

  1. ID is an ideaology, bought and paid for by Discovery Institute?
  2. ID is psuedo science argument for the existence of God?
  3. ID is creationism disguised as science as a ploy to gain a foothold in public schools?
1 Like

Could you change that to quasi science?

1 Like

Sure, it is now official - ID is quasi science.

1 Like

Scientology is also a particular cult, which is very different than ID in many many ways. A claim like “ID is scientology” makes a parody of oneself.

2 Likes

I can’t buy into this because I believe that ID pre-dates the Discovery Institute.

I can’t buy this because if is inconsistent with your #1 and because both the public statements and actions of the DI contradict it.

I agree with you on #1, but not #2.

1 Like

I can’t buy into this one because ID is not an argument for the existence of God.

Can you see if you can present a statement about ID that we can both agree on?

:smiley:

Do you know much about the Dover trial and the Wedge Document?

4 Likes

@Patrick

No. :slight_smile:

You try to come up with one.

Really!!! Wow. That is a fairly important thing to understand here. It is also important to brush up on a concept called “doublespeak”. Do you know what that is @mark?

Do you know much about the position taken by the DI with respect to the Dover events?

In public “officially” it’s not because the DI is still trying to get around the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. In private virtually every single ID leader says the Designer is their Christian God.

Such blatant hypocrisy is but one of many reasons ID gets no traction in the actual scientific community.

Edited to cover the rare “non-Christian God = Designer” outliers.

1 Like

Do you know what doublespeak is? Have you actually asked them follow up question to clarify what they think about this is? I have. They will tell you:

  1. They didn’t like Dover.
  2. They really liked the Kansas Board of Education hearings: Kansas evolution hearings - Wikipedia.

When scientists refer to “Dover”, we mean both events. When DI refers to this episode, they disavow Dover because it was a legal disaster, and point to Kansas as the right way to do it. Kansas, however, was just as disasterous as Dover.

@mung, can you find any statements they have made disavowing the Kansas Board of Education hearings? Please do show them to us.

Totally and demonstrably false. Why would you say thigns like this?

Adnan Oktar,[46]also known by his pen-name Harun Yahya, is a Muslim advocate against the theory of evolution. He is considered a charlatan by many Muslim scholars, and his representative at a conference on Islam and evolution in January 2013 was ridiculed during and after the conference.[3][47] Most of Yahya’s information is taken from the Institute for Creation Research and the Intelligent Design movement in the United States.[48] Oktar largely uses the Internet to promote his ideas.[49] His BAV (Bilim Araştırma Vakfı/ Science Research Foundation) organizes conferences with leading American creationists.
Islamic views on evolution - Wikipedia

John Corrigan " Jonathan " Wells (born 1942) is an American biologist, author and advocate of the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design.[1] Wells joined the Unification Church in 1974, and subsequently wrote that the teachings of church founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to “destroying Darwinism.”
Jonathan Wells (intelligent design advocate) - Wikipedia

There are many many more.

3 Likes

There are even a (very) few atheist anti-evolution proponents and, even though they are not ID, they are allies.

2 Likes

Harun Yahya isn’t an ID leader. Wells’ Moonie religion is based on the Christian religion and he still accepts God as the “Designer”