Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

No, he would be perfect. I've been thinking about it. He's extremely well read, he's got a great fund of general knowledge, he's exacting and precise. He's very good at communicating and getting information across. When he's in the right mood, he's got a great sense of humor and sense of the absurd and can be very entertaining. The kids (it'd have to be teen-agers because the younger ones wouldn't get his jokes) would love him. His classes would probably be the most popular and sought after of all the classes in the whatever school he was at.

Take my word for it. I've known a lot of teachers. Spendius is teacher material.

The Supreme Court has stated "the State may not establish a religion of secularism in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe." However, contrary to that principle, current litigation rules are stacked against religious expression because those rules allow some groups to coerce States and localities into removing any reference to religion in public places.

CURRENTLY...Federal law allows people to sue the State or local governments for alleged constitutional violations of their individual rights. Consequently, any individual or group could sue a state or local government claiming their individual rights were violated and demand attorneys' fees in the case if they prevail at any stage of judicial review. Fearing the high cost of paying not only their own legal fees to fight the case, but the attorneys' fees of the plaintiffs, many localities without deep pockets are coerced to simply cave to demands to remove religious expression from the public square. Los Angeles County is spending around $1 million to remove a tiny cross from the official county seal (symbolizing the founding of the County by missionaries), fearing the cost of litigation to defend the tiny seal. Thus, the seal now must be changed on approximately 90,000 uniforms, 6,000 buildings, and 12,000 county vehicles.

H.R. 2679 will amend current law to prohibit the awarding of monetary damages and/or attorneys' fees to prevailing parties in cases involving the Constitution's Establishment Clause. This will prevent the use of the legal system in a manner that coerces money from State and local governments and inhibits their constitutional actions, including religious expression.

U.S. CONGRESS UPDATE

Below is from a House of Representatives press release explaining the proposed bill regarding establishment clause lawsuits:

Quote:

The Supreme Court has stated "the State may not establish a religion of secularism in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe." However, contrary to that principle, current litigation rules are stacked against religious expression because those rules allow some groups to coerce States and localities into removing any reference to religion in public places.

Los Angeles County is spending around $1 million to remove a tiny cross from the official county seal (symbolizing the founding of the County by missionaries), fearing the cost of litigation to defend the tiny seal. Thus, the seal now must be changed on approximately 90,000 uniforms, 6,000 buildings, and 12,000 county vehicles.

H.R. 2679 will amend current law to prohibit the awarding of monetary damages and/or attorneys? fees to prevailing parties in cases involving the Constitution?s Establishment Clause. This will prevent the use of the legal system in a manner that coerces money from State and local governments and inhibits their constitutional actions, including religious expression.

What a mess. Couldn't any symbol be challenged on its spiritual meaning. Isn't "Los Angeles" a symbol recognising the existence of saints?

Intelligent design advocates to campaign in Kansas

Intelligent design posits there was a master force that designed life.

Chapter Twelve: Devout Observances


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A discoursive rehearsal of certain incidents of modern life will show the organic relation of the anthropomorphic cults to the barbarian culture and temperament. It will likewise serve to show how the survival and efficacy of the cults and the prevalence of their schedule of devout observances are related to the institution of a leisure class and to the springs of action underlying that institution. Without any intention to commend or to deprecate the practices to be spoken of under the head of devout observances, or the spiritual and intellectual traits of which these observances are the expression, the everyday phenomena of current anthropomorphic cults may be taken up from the point of view of the interest which they have for economic theory. What can properly be spoken of here are the tangible, external features of devout observances. The moral, as well as the devotional value of the life of faith lies outside of the scope of the present inquiry. Of course no question is here entertained as to the truth or beauty of the creeds on which the cults proceed. And even their remoter economic bearing can not be taken up here; the subject is too recondite and of too grave import to find a place in so slight a sketch.

Something has been said in an earlier chapter as to the influence which pecuniary standards of value exert upon the processes of valuation carried out on other bases, not related to the pecuniary interest. The relation is not altogether one-sided. The economic standards or canons of valuation are in their turn influenced by extra-economic standards of value. Our judgments of the economic bearing of facts are to some extent shaped by the dominant presence of these weightier interests. There is a point of view, indeed, from which the economic interest is of weight only as being ancillary to these higher, non-economic interests. For the present purpose, therefore, some thought must he taken to isolate the economic interest or the economic hearing of these phenomena of anthropomorphic cults. It takes some effort to divest oneself of the more serious point of view, and to reach an economic appreciation of these facts, with as little as may be of the bias due to higher interests extraneous to economic theory.

In the discussion of the sporting temperament, it has appeared that the sense of an animistic propensity in material things and events is what affords the spiritual basis of the sporting man's gambling habit. For the economic purpose, this sense of propensity is substantially the same psychological element as expresses itself, under a variety of forms, in animistic beliefs and anthropomorphic creeds. So far as concerns those tangible psychological features with which economic theory has to deal, the gambling spirit which pervades the sporting element shades off by insensible gradations into that frame of mind which finds gratification in devout observances. As seen from the point of view of economic theory, the sporting character shades off into the character of a religious devotee. Where the betting man's animistic sense is helped out by a somewhat consistent tradition, it has developed into a more or less articulate belief in a preternatural or hyperphysical agency, with something of an anthropomorphic content. And where this is the case, there is commonly a perceptible inclination to make terms with the preternatural agency by some approved method of approach and conciliation. This element of propitiation and cajoling has much in common with the crasser forms of worship -- if not in historical derivation, at least in actual psychological content. It obviously shades off in unbroken continuity into what is recognized as superstitious practice and belief, and so asserts its claim to kinship with the grosser anthropomorphic cults.