Red State Rabble

"We appreciate the tremendous contribution the ID leaders have made to the origins question, but we feel we must urge them to believe the whole counsel of God and return to the true Biblical record of recent Special Creation, the Fall and Curse, the worldwide Flood, and the promised return of God in Christ to consummate His purposes in Creation," writes Henry Morris, the father of modern creationism, who died Feb. 26 at the age of 87.

Morris' posthumous article, "Insufficient Design," was published in the March 1 issue of Back to Genesis, a publication of the Institute for Creation Research, which Morris founded in 1970.

There's a big problem with intelligent design according to Morris:

The most serious deficiency in the ID movement, however, is its neglect of the most important of the alleged evidences for evolution—that is, the problem of the fossils. These are the remains of billions and billions of once-living plants and animals now preserved in the sedimentary crust of the earth. These all give abundant evidence of suffering and death during all the supposed geological ages which they are supposed to depict.

Did the Designer do that? If so, just how and why? The only adequate answer is in the Bible, in its record of man's sin, the resulting global Curse and eventual Deluge. But the very purpose of the ID movement is to argue for intelligent design without reference to the Bible and the God of the Bible. Without those factors, however, it would seem that the only alternative would be to assume the Designer to be a sadistic producer of global evil as well as the intelligent producer of irreducible
complexity.

We so-called "Young-Earth Creationists" also have always believed and taught what seem to us to be irrefutable evidences of intelligent design in nature, but that is not enough. We simply have to take the Biblical record as God's Word, in which He has taught the real and total truth about origins, as well as about sin and death, then providing also the wonderful solution to all such problems in the glorious Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Whether these facts are considered scientific or not, they are historical facts which should be considered if Truth is the ultimate goal.

The fact is, there are really very few true believers in intelligent design -- perhaps less than 100 nationwide. The strength of the movement comes from biblical literalists who see ID as the leading edge of a wedge that one day will bring Genesis into science classes.

The recent failures of ID -- in Dover, Cobb County, El Tejon, and Ohio -- have the effect of calling that strategy into question. Some creationists might be willing to change the subject, as Phillip Johnson puts it, for a time in order to win a battle here and there.

However, if the ID strategy seems to be failing, as it does, why should they hide their real views. Why not fight for what they really want -- religious indoctrination for fundamentalist Christianity in the public schools.

The rift between the ID general staff grouped around the Discovery Institute in Seattle and the mass of creationist foot soldiers in the field is growing. Another defeat may lead to a parting of the ways.

By-the-way, RSR, who unashamedly wears his heart on his sleeve, can't help feeling sorry for all those "billions and billions of once-living plants and animals" who had to die because of "man's sin."

Reminds of all those poor Gulf Coast residents who lost their homes to Katrina. Katrina, we've been told by those who claim to know God's mind best, was sent in retribution for the sinfulness of New Orleans.

Why can't God, being all-powerful, as we're told he is, work on his aim a little?