Flying Spaghetti Monsterism

For those of you confused by this title; go here and here first

Personally, I think that the critique FSM raises is valid, namely, what, ultimately, does the "intelligent design" theory achieve? At best, it points (arguably) to the existence of a distant creative power, who could be either the god of the bible or the flying spaghetti monster, or buddha, or allah, or a nameless mystical force that permeates and unites all things. Who or what "the intelligent designer" is, cannot be answered by I.D. (hmmm I wonder what would Freud say about that acronym?). And incidentally, I don't think we get any closer to an ethical imperative through I.D. Although we may assert that a "force" exists that has created all things, there is no place in the theory for a doctrine of sin, or of a fall, or of a redeemer… and because we don’t know who or what this god is, we cannot positively say that we are created in its/his image. Therefore, there is no place in I.D. for an ethics of human life; no way of saying that evil is an unnatural and unwelcome guest; no way of saying what is right or wrong; no way of arguing for or against anything in particular. The world remains trapped in the modern/postmodern double dissolution of profitable functionality and market defined human worth, while the creation remains reduced, and we are still, as Lyotard said, slaves to the mantra "be operational or disappear".
What, then, will I.D. achieve? Since Intelligent Design does not lead us any closer to a god who is involved in the affairs of the world, all the schools that teach it will do (at best) is raise deists, and not necessarily of the Judeo-Christian tradition (that would depend on who’s teaching). The theory simply makes "god" the "god of the gaps" (wherever there is a "gap" in scientific theory that is not easily explained, well, we simply insert "god". Can't find the missing link? The answer is god. Can't explain Quantum mechanics? God.) I.D. is, therefore, a theory that relies on a posteriori arguments for the existence of god. I.D. cannot achieve what many are hoping it will, and it doesn’t let us out of the “trap” that many of its advocates believe science has “put” god into. In I.D. god is still the handmaiden of science: science remains the rule against which we must argue. By this I mean that science remains the battleground; science will set the agenda; I.D. will always be on the defensive; always in a situation of point counter-point. I can see this going nowhere fast.…