The conservative Intelligent Design movement....(brief comment)

[This is, with some additions, what I posted on the AlterNet message board for one of the
stories re ID and its effect/methods to deal with it in the classroom - http://www.alternet.org/story/22039 ]

The Real Threat of Evolution.... -->Posted by: Aureantes on May 24, 2005 11:29 PM -->

...is the idea that these bass-ackwards, head-in-the-sand creationists might possibly not be at the top of their own evolutionary ladder. That the best of humanity might lie elsewhere than in the ranks of the faithful, that a conservative politician in a three-piece-suit might be someday as outdated as a pithecanthropus, that America might not be the greatest country in the world, that the status quo of the good old days might need some revision and growth after all, even reinterpretation--in short, the very simple-yet-complex fear of being superseded, both in reality and in the process of human consciousness, morality, honour, ethics, whatever they pride themselves on as a separation to keep from realizing that everyone and everything must keep on growing and learning and adapting in order to survive.

Personally, I believe in emanation, not creation--with a direction and purpose, yes, but not arbitrary, and certainly not dropping in a species from above to have dominion over the earth and its creatures. Biological domination, apart from environmental circumstance, takes intelligence on the inside of a creature, not from the outside via deus ex machina.

The paranoia that's always lain at the heart of every religion-based scientific reactionary trend is the fear of being displaced from the center of the universe, from the apple of God's eye, from having unquestioned rulership and exploitation rights over all. It happened with astronomy, it happened with evolution, and now people are still trying to drag it back into that literal Ptolemian egotism that allows no doubt as to plan or priority, and conflate it withall their other fears as well. In short, they're afraid of not being the superior species, or type, or culture. Creationists fear for their existence, because they have reduced it themselves to such an absolute of domination or utter helplessness, irrelevance in the scheme of things. Therefore they must bolster their delusions and try to force others to believe them as well. If not, they just might become...well, extinct. >:)