dlawbailey

There is, as we all know, a small but well-funded group of scientists who have focused their work on critiquing theories of natural history which tend to make Bible stories less believable as "fact" in the public mind and to harvest and interpret data so as to suggest that theological assertions may find some vague confirmation in Nature. Their results have been occasionally interesting and sometimes they are sort of another useful nettle to keep scientists from being complacent and too isolated from the public. But they have found nothing of any theoretical value and of course their work has no positive scientific purpose. They are uninterested in pushing the bounds of discovery.

But if they had an interest in anything but science-as-canard, they would be asking the many interesting scientific questions which would arise if a person actually wanted to know if the God of the holy books was real. What was the nature of his physical relationship with the Universe if indeed He was real. "Intelligent Design" scientists do not ask these questions because they do not want inquire whether the God of the Bible is real or not. They want very much to avoid it, of course. But the physical question is relevant, because the theory of Intelligent Design is that the presence in the Universe of the God of the Bible created detectable, physical effects. Therefore, Intelligent Design really has to choose whether it is a new religion which accepts scientific dismissal of the Bible as myth and story and searches for God only on abstruse levels, or whether it actually is a scientific defense of the God of the Bible.

We know what happens when matter disappears. It makes big, big craters in the ground, producing energy along the lines of the mass times the square of the speed of light.

Even at the end Jesus weighed - what, do you figure - 50 kilograms, 60?

He disappeared. Vanished. The scripturally undeniable mass that was suddenly was not. And we even know where this happened, roughly. Now what would be the effects on the crystal structure of the subsoils and bedrock in and around the Calvary of the conversion to.....whatever...of Our Lord's 50 or so kilograms of mass?

Likewise, the Prophet (PBUH) ascended into Heaven to receive revelations and we know EXACTLY the spot where it happened. They call the adhan from it every day. And the Prophet (PBUH) was reportedly a big guy - a serious warrior in the days before Allah let him rest his sword. Surely a scientist like Behe would be willing to go to The Dome Of The Rock, subject it to some radiological tests and explain to the congregants how, according to his findings, a person the size of the Prophet (PBUH) could or could not have ascended with the Angel Gabriel from that place. I think they would be interested.

And then we have to ask what happens when matter is created. I mean what do you figure stone tablets weigh: 5 kilos a piece? When matter is created what, again, is the effect on the crystallography of the rock and subsoils? What would we expect to see in the geology of Mt. Sinai. Had to be a lot of anti-matter displacement, no?

Again, the "theory" of Intelligent Design is that the presence in the Universe of the God of the Bible created detectable, physical effects. Analysis of how much genetic diversity there is or isn't barely even touches on the question of the physical reality of God. Vague mathematical signatures of "designedness"? Why bother? God was throwing a LOT of weight around the Middle East for centuries. Huge, unimaginable amounts of physical energy moved through the normal systems of matter. Obviously that had to leave a physical record. Hell, we can detect neutrinos these days.

If it didn't leave a record - if God covered his tracks perfectly in Jerusalem and environs - then there certainly would be no point looking in the mathematics of the genome or the cosmos, now would there?

And these "I.D." idiots could just go back to singing hymns.