Re: Judge Jones sided with the Discovery Institute and ruled against the Dove...

David,
What I have left of your long post, especially #2, shows that ID is
religious in nature, for its "designer" is clearly a metaphysical notion.
Adherents try to obstruct this notion by referring to the inference of
design in archeology, for example. But the latter inference is to a
physical being manipulating a physical object intentionally. This is also
seen in the LGM tag applied to the detection of the first pulsar, before
they understood the mechanism. Despite obfuscation, the designer of ID is
a nonphysical entity producing matter as well as forming it.

At the other extreme, atheism is also a metaphysical doctrine. This
applies to scientism, materialism, philosophical naturalism, all
approaches to atheism. In contrast, methodological naturalism is an
approach to experiences we share. It is not a metaphysical claim, for it
is compatible with everything from Berkeleyan idealism to materialism,
and all the branches.

There is an attempt to argue from the fact that we cannot ascribe limits
to science that we cannot exclude the deity. This is correct insofar as
logical analysis goes. I note that the only aspect of light Newton could
examine was the visible spectrum. Now we detect a range from below long
wave radio on beyond hard X-rays. When IDers demonstrate how to detect
the designer instrumentally (the claimed statistical test is misguided),
we can consider ID as science. Applying my philosophical training to the
matter, I conclude that it cannot happen.
Dave

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:20:32 -0500 David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
writes:
I think what we're bumping up against here is the limitations of the
establishment clause. The short answer is no, I don't think most courts
would not bar the teaching of evolution under the establishment clause
even if it could be shown that a school board's motivations were
primarily to promote atheism. This isn't because atheism or materialism
are "scientific." It's because they don't possess the traditional
indicia of a "religion." Here, for example, is how the Third Circuit has
defined a "religion" for first amendment purposes, in Judge Adams'
influential concurring opinion in Malnak v. Yogi, 592 F.2d 197 (3rd Cir.
1979) (a case, incidentally, that was argued by one of my former
partners). Religions:

1) ponder such issues as the meaning of life, the afterlife, or man's
place in the universe;
2) are extensive in scope and far-reaching in nature; and
3) are accompanied by the existence of certain formal and outside signs.

Other courts have expanded on these factors. For example, in United
States v. Meyers, 95 F.3d 1475 (10th Cir. 1996), the Tenth Circuit
determined that the defendant, self-described "Reverend of the Curch of
Marijuana," could not escape conviction on drug charges under the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The court mentioned the following
factors concerning whether something is a "religion" for first amendment
purposes (this is a long section to be quoting, but worth it for our
present discussion):

"1. Ultimate Ideas: Religious beliefs often address fundamental questions
about life, purpose, and death. As one court has put it, "a religion
addresses fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and
imponderable matters." Africa, 662 F.2d at 1032. These matters may
include existential matters, such as man's sense of being; teleological
matters, such as man's purpose in life; and cosmological matters, such as
man's place in the universe.

2. Metaphysical Beliefs: Religious beliefs often are "metaphysical," that
is, they address a reality which transcends the physical and immediately
apparent world. Adherents to many religions believe that there is another
dimension, place, mode, or temporality, and they often believe that these
places are inhabited by spirits, souls, forces, deities, and other sorts
of inchoate or intangible entities.
Received on Mon Jan 9 13:57:59 2006