Evolutionary Alien Design

"[L]et's be clear: This is not evolution versus God," writes David Quammen in The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution. "The existence of God - any sort of god, personal or abstract, immanent or distant - is not what Darwin's evolutionary theory challenges. What it challenges is the supposed godliness of Man - the conviction that we above all other life forms are spiritually elevated, divinely favored, possessed of an immaterial and immortal essence, such that we have special prospects for eternity, special status in the expectations of God, special rights and responsibilities on Earth." Quammen does not flinch from "the horrible challenge" implied by Darwin's idea: "In plain language, a soul or no soul? An afterlife or not? Are humans spiritually immortal in a way that chickens or cows are not, or just another form of temporarily animated meat?"
---)----------- And which one is better? The light or dark meat? What is most horrible about this quote is that I thought Darwin's agenda was strictly the advance of scientific thought. Now I read that he was challenging the "godliness of man." That's philosophical sophistry ain't it?
"[R]eligious fundamentalism is on the rise around the world, and our own virulent domestic version of it, under the rubric of 'intelligent design,' by elbowing its way into the classroom abrogates the divide between church and state that has served this country so well for so long."
---)------------ I agree that "fundamentalism" is a bad, bad, bad, thing; but at least the ID guys aren't "elbowing" there way in with bombs strapped to their lab coats. Just open up the discussion about science instead of examining the agenda. The ANTI - ID guys can be just as "fundamental" about their agenda too. For example: Who says the "classroom" belongs to them?
"Neil H. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, writes of the way living things emerged from the seas and describes the recently discovered fossil specimen of that first terrestrial explorer."
---)------------ HERE'S THE AGENDA OF SCIENCE, AND NO ONE CAN DENY IT! Life on earth came from aliens from outer space (begs the friggin' question doesn't it? Alien faith -- goodness, is that the "wild card line" or what?
"Paleontologist Tim D. White of the University of California, Berkeley, lays out the forensic evidence of pre-human descent."
---)------------ Lay out the evidence, that's great! Just show me the evidence, that's all we're asking -- not faith in alien visitations! And the evidence about descent better be decent!
"Nicholas Humphrey, a professor at the Center for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics, muses on how natural selection might have produced human consciousness."
---)------------ Funny. I thought I read the word "might" right there. "Might," as in -- possible, as in -- perhaps, as in, "I can't say for sure; but it's an idea I like." AS IN FAITH!! The science of evolution depends on the following phrases to complete the theory: ...most likely, ...must have, ...probably, ...seems to, (etc.) Read their texts! And so an ID guy decides to use the phrase, "...providentially," and the materialists go bezerk!
"As Quammen so ably documents, Darwin clearly understood the challenge that natural selection posed to the conventional Victorian Christian faith that sustained his friends and family. No one was more reluctant to espouse it publicly or more distressed by its implications. Indeed, it steadily undermined his own belief in God, drove a wedge into his marriage and nearly broke his health. He brooded privately over his findings for 21 years before making them public. Yet he finally embraced his brainchild, impelled by an unflinching intellectual honesty, the weight of the evidence and the imperative of an undeniable idea. "There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection," Darwin wrote, "than in the course which the wind blows."
---)----------- So Darwin possessed "intellectual honesty." With an honesty to quote John, Chapter 3. Interesting. I wonder if Darwin could meet the offspring of his brainchild. Would he embrace the only hope the materialists have in accounting for this whole world of nature -- visitors from another planet!? Then again, Jesus came from beyond this world too... So much we share in making sense of the world!