A Place for Intelligent Design

All praise to the gods of common sense and logic, for hammering out on their divine anvils the celestial lightning bolts of insight and directness, and zapping that Dover, Pennsylvania judge right between the eyese with them. This is a victory for fairness and equality, a victory of inclusion over segregation, a victory of everything and everyone else over narrow-minded and exclusionary (arguably racist) Christianity. I'm thrilled.

That being said, I don't really have a problem with Intelligent Design (ID). If that's what you want to believe, more power to ya. You can believe anything you want, absolutely anything, as long as you don't cram it down my or my children's throats. And that's what the ID folks are trying to do now. Sure, ID is a sham and a lie behind which lurks the clear intent of re-introduction of Christianity in schools. Make no mistake, these folks are not for or about Religion in schools, not even morality in schools; they are for Christianity in schools. There is a reason the forefathers said that religion and government should be separated. That's because when the two are put together, people end up getting burned at the stake. Take a look at the Spanish Inquisition for your shining example of enlightened governmental authority informed and ruled by Christian religions belief.

ID has no place whatsoever in a discussion of science, because it is not science. It is faith and belief. It is philosophical and metaphysical. Science is a rigorous and straightforward discipline of facts and research upon facts and hypotheses, not a study of belief systems and the unknowable mystical and spiritual. ID is not about facts and dedicated inquiry and verifiable testing of discrete, identifiable elements to determine empirical data supporting or disproving a given hypothesis. The core of ID is faith, belief in a Grand Someone or Something out there that had and likely continues to have a hand in the overall workings of all of reality. Hey, if you want to believe that, and if you can somehow meld that with your religious beliefs, whether they be Christian or pagan, it's absolutely nothing to me. If that's what makes you feel good about yourself and others, then please, go right ahead and do it. But don't ever tell me that it's science and that my children must be exposed to it. That's where the line gets drawn.

Here's my compromise: Why not teach about religion in school? Why not offer study in philosophy and spirituality and mysticism? I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with this idea, as long as EVERY SINGLE religion, belief, cult, sect, movement, and others get equal time, or have a fair shot at getting equal time. No, not just the biggies like Christianity and Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism, but absolutely every alternative out there--that would be fair.

But how to do it? Here's what I've thought up, in broad strokes, mind you:

It would be, for example, a high school-leve curriculum for 11th and 12th graders. It would be an elective, and not compulsory. The overall framework would be developed and overseen by the state, but the local school board would configure the program to meet local needs. The title of the course would be something like "Introduction to Religion" or maybe "Religious Interpretation." It would be an overview or religion, its bases, and how religion develops and is conceived by those who practice its diverse aspects.

And now the good part: each of the modules would be developed and presented by a different member of a faith. The "teacher" would essentially be a moderator and manager for what would be a speaker series. If there were, say, 30 classes (2 classes per week for roughtly 15 weeks in a semester), there would be 30 opportunities for presentations. And who would present? Well, of course, the competition would be extremely intense for all manner of religious institutions to present their views, and I can see that some zealots would want to monopolize the process, demanding 18 classes out of 30 for a full discussion of their subject areas. Sure, any good salesman would take advantage of such an opportunity, and what we're talking about here, after all, is a direct competition for the collection/allocation of souls into a specific following, right?

The answer would be a simple lottery. All interested parties would register, and there would be a lottery for the available class periods. Every presenting faith would have one entry, and they would have an equal chance of being chosen in the lottery than the others. Here's the possible list I can up with quickly of possible faiths/positions/beliefs that might participate: Lutherans; Quakers; Methodists; Church of Christ; Church of England (Aglican); Calvinist; Amish; Menonite; Roman Catholic; Eastern Orthodox; Russian Orthodox; Greek Orthodox; Sikh; Gnostics; Mormon; Jehovah's Witnesses; Christian Science; Rastafarian; Zoroastrian; Judaism and all of its variations; Ramayana Buddhist; Theravada Buddhist; Copts; Atheists; Agnostics; Wiccan; Druid; animist; Hindu; Falun Gong; Santa Ria; Shinto; Daoist; Confucian; Sunni Islam; Shi'a Islam; Sufi Islam; Sun Myung Moon; Aum Shin Rikyo; Satanic; any number of cults, etc. And this litte list is just a start. A quick Google of available religions comes up with goofy stuff like Zulu mythology, Raelism, cargo cults and Hellenic polytheism. Just take a look: . I mean, there's a ton of believin' going on out there, and the Christians are in the minority.

Okay, so everyone gets one ticket in the hopper, and out of all of the groups that may want to participate, 30 get a chance each semester. The next semester, another lottery of newly submitted groups gets another 30 chances to speak their minds on their subjects.

Of course, there would be issues of formats and time limits and such, but that could be worked out by the school board. A good teacher/moderator could be a real boon to the program, spurring Q&A and making it interesting for the students.

In this concept, everyone would have an equal and fair shot at offering their faith to a portion of the public to which they might not otherwise have an introduction. Of course, individuals speakers and subjects could be grounds for a student opting out, or parents pulling a student, and a quick trip down the hall to study hall covers that immediately and easily.

Would I allow my kids to participate in something like this? Of course I would. In fact, I'd strongly encourage my kids to take a course like this, just as I always encourage them to seek out and listen to/expose themselves to the new and different and divergent. They are smart enough and mature enough to make their own choices, and choice of religion, or no choice at all, is after all a personal decision that they should be making for themselves.

So where would ID fit into a plan like this? I think it probably would go away, as there'd be no need for it, not in this kind of environment. The zealous Christians would no longer have to hide their evangelical Christian proselytization agenda within the transparent Trojan Horse of Intelligent Design, so could get straight to the "Jesus Lord and Savior" message they want to put out anyway.