Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

It's a shame that the court in Pennsylvania decided that Intelligent Design can't be spoken of in the classrooms there but I'm not surprised at the decision. The decision is probably even legally correct because the definition of "Science" used in legal applications is, paraphrased, the study of the natural causes and processes of things. The thesis of ID is that creation has a Super-natural cause so it is technically outside that definition and is thus not "Science." Therefore, don't speak of it in Science class.

The shame is that origins cannot be explained using "natural" processes. There is not even a satisfactory hypothesis. Even if one accepts as true, or even plausible, all the development theories and hypotheses that usually get lumped together and called "Evolution," nobody has an explanation for how it all started that is based on natural causes and processes. I don't recall the figures exactly but "they" have calculations and hypotheses for all time and matter all the way back to something like the first millisecond of creation but nothing before then.

For example, if one accepts the Big Bang as the creation mechanism, the theory goes something like this: All matter in the Universe was compressed into a tiny pill about the size of a pea or an atom (whatever, it doesn't matter) and then it all exploded and we've been expanding ever since, constantly recombining into all the stars, planets, atmospheres, oceans, trees, animals, people, and, they would like to also say, aliens. I won't even get started rebutting the whole Big Bang, partly because I don't have any of my reference material here but mostly because it would take a long time that I don't have. The real crux is that not even the proponents of the Big Bang can explain where the pill of matter came from and what made it explode to begin with. Even Stephen Hawking comes up short trying to explain how it all began, way back at the very beginning of everything.

Sounds supernatural to me, that is, it can't be explained by natural processes or causes.

AHA! Therefore...it's not "Science."

So, the real shame of the ID defeat isn't that ID isn't considered Science, it's that all other "natural" explanations of origins ARE considered Science. When they AREN'T. The Big Bang and most Evolutionary teachings should be relegated to the Religion Class if that's where ID and Creationism are sent because they "aren't science."

Thus, reason number 3 or 4 why we Homeschool. I want my children to grow up knowing that they are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139:14), not random acts of recombination. They need to know that God exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him (He 11:6). And that God loves them and has them personally in mind and wants them to have a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. They would never be exposed to such truths in the public school classroom.

Sure, we could spend all our evenings and weekends filling in with Christian instruction outside the classroom that would cover those subjects but we would be spending a huge effort and amount of time undoing the "instruction" in the classroom that pummels students with "truths" like: all truth is relative, evolution and the use of other natural processes is how we all got here, and God has no place in our lives except on Sundays in church (and that's only for the weak-minded). Thee philosophies behind those thoughts underpin a culture that condones racism, abortion, euthenasia, slavery, and the inevitable slide into elitism borne on the backs of an oppressed lower class.

We could have sent them to Private schools but Reason number 1 why we Homeschool speaks more directly to that. More on that some other time.

I don't disagree that arguments like "gee, stuff is just too complicated to think it happened by accident" isn't the most robust-sounding defense of Intelligent Design, or Creationism in general, but that's actually the defense put forth in the Bible. Romans 1:20 says "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature— have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

I'm glad we live in a Free Country and that I am, so far, able to think and express these thoughts freely. Those that think the ID decision in Pennsylvania was correct and that ID and Creationism are for the weak-minded are free to think that. I won't stop them, I can't stop them. All I can do is warn them that thinking that everything is sourced from random interactions, mutations, and recombinations leaves them without excuse before the Intelligence that Designed it all.