My Jr. High science teacher had a simple answer to the question of religion -- "Religion answers, 'why?' and science answers, 'how?'"

Now, that's simplistic as well as simple, but it covers the bases, to me.

I see a continuum -- science is god-free, religion is science-free, and 'intelligent design' is logic-free. Sorry, a better answer is that intelligent design doesn't advance religion or science very much, but at least it isn't bound to the 'metaphor-as-actual-fact' literal reading of the origin stories in the Bible. Science can't answer the questions religion brings, so science has to eliminate the study of God. God is not knowable through science. Intelligent design attempts to combine science and religion, which can't be done as such.

Actually, if I were a science teacher, my 'intellligent design' course would be the first day: "The universe is so complex, many have assumed it has a designer, a creator. Accept this as a theory or not. Science doesn't tell us anything about this designer, but the rest of the semester, we will learn what science CAN tell us about."

"Open your books to Chapter One."


Bob