Intelligent Designer Revealed!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We thought this title was kickier than "Jesus Is Embarrassed by His Followers."

The bored gods assure us that we need not worry that the Christian Heaven, and only the Christian Heaven, looks like West Virginia. In fact, I have it directly from Tiki of the Marquessa Islands (wherever they are) that even his heaven looks like West Virginia! One hundred bad songs by John Denver can never blunt the beauty of West Virginia. Case closed.

Today's Topic: God, Out of the Closet!

Some of you might have been following the court case in Dover, PA, where religious school board members were trying to have a caveat about "Intelligent Design" read before biology teachers began any unit on evolution. This innocuous little statement was supposed to encourage students to go looking for a book called Of Pandas and People that offers "scientific evidence" that the universe was created by an Intelligent Designer.

Ever looked at these books, gentle reader? Most of them just criticize Darwin's theory, carping on the defects thereof and completely overlooking the many cases of natural selection at work on our Intelligently Designed planet (bird flu being Exhibit #1 for the Defense).

But the big push lately has been to take the God part out of Intelligent Design and just say, "Hey, there was an Intelligent Designer. Whether or not it was God we can't say."

Because to give God the credit would be religion. Right? Right? Right?

Last week the good citizens of Dover mounted a School Board election. Nine out of ten members of the Board were deep-sixed in favor of new candidates. The winning candidates to a man and woman expressed the view that religion should not be taught in science class.

Encouraged, a female wolf spider took up residence on Of Pandas and People and laid a few eggs in its spine. The only kids taught with that daft tome are Rick Santorum's brood, and they're home-schooled. (In Virginia, not Pennsylvania).

Enter Pat Robertson, Grand Poobah of the "Jesus Is Embarrassed" Movement in America. Robertson denounced the citizens of Dover, warning that if a terrible disaster befell their city, they'd better not pray to God about it.

Um, excuse me, Mr. Robertson?

Is the "God" to which you refer the Intelligent Designer that all those Discovery Institute scholars insist isn't necessarily the Intelligent Designer?

Okay, did He ... or didn't He?

If God is NOT the Intelligent Designer of this marvelous universe, then why would the citizens of Dover need to stock quantities of dried beans, antibiotics, spring water, and sand bags? If the Intelligent Designer isn't God, why are the citizens of Dover suddenly "un-Godly?"

Mmmmm.

But if the Intelligent Designer is God, that's religion. Not science. Religion operates on faith, and you don't need Einsteins out there trying to back up your faith with empirical evidence. In fact, it's bad form. Insulting to your deity, if you get my meaning.

I think the good Pastor Robertson "outed" God as the Intelligent Designer of the universe. And not a moment too soon, because don't think for a minute that students in Shanghai are reading Of Pandas and People in science class. Even though pandas are Chinese!

Geez. Another entry on Intelligent Design. Anne is losing her originality.

Stay tuned, Dover. Tomorrow we look at what God did on Day Eight in his Intelligently Designed universe! We have a special guest arriving who will talk about 1500 years of psychotherapy and how he has learned to live with an indifferent dad and a vastly superior younger brother.

Join us, won't you?

WEST VIRGINIA IS FOR THE BYRDS
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS