Holey Bible

The Strip is outraged by the intelligent-design squabble going on in the Kansas public schools.

So far, the local media have done a pathetic job of explaining the ideas behind "ID," giving us no real clue what's actually at stake in the effort to change science teaching standards.

Well, this meat patty will clue you in to the awful truth: The people pushing intelligent design are godless interlopers who want our children taught that the Bible got things wrong.

As far as they're concerned, the good book is just a bunch of fairy tales.

The Lord creating the Earth in six days just a few thousand years ago?

Didn't happen.

Adam naming the animals?

Just a myth.

Noah saving Earth's creatures from the flood?

No more than a bedtime story.

Nope, these ID-olators don't have much respect for the holy word. They suggest that the Earth is billions of years old and that animals have evolved pretty much the way Charles Darwin described more than a century ago.

For these folks of little faith, science answers most of the world's mysteries, explaining the history of the universe and the proliferation of life on Earth. The girlie-man God they worship steps in only to fill in small gaps in scientific knowledge and to lend a gentle helping hand in ways that cannot be measured, tested or debunked.

A couple of weeks ago, the Strip watched in dismay as intelligent design backers put on a pitiful display at a state board public hearing at a high school in Kansas City, Kansas.

The speakers took to a microphone, urging a board subcommittee to insert intelligent-design wording into the state's public-school curriculum. But did anyone cite the Bible? Did anyone stick up for God's version of what happened thousands of years ago?

Oh, no. ID wussies stepped up one after another to talk about the "weaknesses" in biological evolution, the "controversies" that they wanted their children to hear about.

The complete surrender of religion to the onslaught of science was a pathetic sight.

The utter defeat was not lost on Celtie Johnson, a God-fearing Johnson County mom who was largely responsible for the last battle over evolution in Kansas schools. Back in 1999, she led an honest fight for biblical truth, attempting to get the Genesis creation story taught to schoolchildren. She's back again, fighting evolution once more, but this time she's standing up for the watered-down ID agenda.

We asked how she really felt about intelligent design's unbiblical assault on the schools.

"It's pitiful. But what can I do?" she told this curious cutlet. "It's not that difficult to understand the Earth being 6,000 years old. But they [the ID crowd] tell me it's an incremental program."

An incremental program. Johnson was referring to people such as lawyer John Calvert and University of Missouri-Kansas City med-school professor William Harris, who have spearheaded the Kansas school effort with a Johnson County organization they call the Intelligent Design Network. Johnson claimed that the ID bigwigs assured her they have the same ultimate goal that she does -- to get religion into science classes -- and that ID allows them to take small, less controversial steps toward that goal.

"With media opposition, you can only go so far," she admitted. And for people like her who still believe in the Bible's origin story, she said, "It's a step back." But the ID people with whom she has allied herself are deluding themselves if they think they're doing heaven a favor with their "incremental" program. "They are not getting the whole picture, and they are not pleasing Jesus Christ, who is God," Johnson reminded us. "If you don't believe parts of the Bible, why are you calling yourself a Christian?"

Well, we wondered the same thing. So we asked Harris why he was so down on the Lord's story of life's origin.

"Some are lukewarm to the ID perspective because they feel that it does not go far enough and hence gives aid and comfort to believers who only want to believe halfway," Harris responded. "That's their privilege. It does not weaken the ID argument for design, though, in my opinion."

OK, so Harris is convinced that there's a "designer" behind the proliferation of life. But what's with the coy act? Isn't he really talking about the Christian God?

"As a Christian, I would equate that designer with the God of the Bible, but I know Muslims who equate that designer with Allah. I also know nontheists who, although agreeing that the evidence points to an intelligence behind nature, simply don't equate it with anybody."

Well, that's a relief. It's nice knowing that we could believe the universe was designed by our pet cat Whiskers and still belong to the ID club.

But, hey, here's what this rump roast really wanted to know. If ID folks like Harris acknowledge that the Bible's big, cinematic opening chapter gets things completely wrong, how can they be sure the rest of it isn't a fairy tale as well? For example, how can Harris be sure the Bible gets the whole "God" thing right?