Unintelligent Designs on Power

Intelligent design is splitting the Christian right. The Catholic Church. with millions of members world wide who would love to proclaim intelligent design to be even more than a counter theory to evolution are stuck with more than a few problems. They’ve got scholars, priests, bishops, and other faithful millions of lay people who remember Galileo and the fuss created by him

You remember that poor Galileo made astronomical observations that confirmed the Copernican theory that it was the earth that orbited the sun and not the other way around. That and a lot of other things got our astronomer friend in trouble with the Church and he was forced to recant. It is reported but probably didn’t happen that after his public confession of error he uttered about the heavenly bodies, “But they do move.”

Some three hundred years later during the Pontificate of John Paul II, the Church got around to pardoning the poor bloke. The pardon was based on centuries of reflection on the obvious and irrefutable fact that there are observable scientific results that conflict with various documents of revelation. Many a good theologian in interacting with equally good scientists endowed with equal Christian faith came to the conclusion that neither astronomy nor evolution necessarily conflict with the core beliefs of the Church.

Obviously, Catholics, lay and clerical, believe in the sanctity of life and have found common cause with right wing Protestant Evangelical churches in this. The problem for Catholics is that they pay a heavy price for this alliance and among the heaviest is the relationship of the Church to science. Since the Renaissance, Rome has come to terms with the nature of science and has concluded that, except for certain biological fields including stem cell research and birth control, scientists are pretty much free to go their own way.

Conservative Catholics have been successful in making common cause with their Protestant cousins on evolution, but as scientists, including many Catholic ones, and secularists push back against Creationism and its Teflon coated offspring, Intelligent Design, Rome and leading theologians have found it necessary to retreat from the front lines of the battle.

This has created a fault line in the solid Evangelical front. Add to this intellectual gulf the possibility of a split over illegal immigration and you have the possibility of great Democrat gains in the ’06 Congressional election and in the next presidential race two years later.

Still more strain is placed on the right by the obvious human problems discovered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Main line Protestants, Catholics, and many Evangelicals simply cannot support hard right attitudes toward parsimonious federal spending to aid the battered victims of that powerful storm

Victories in the next two elections are by no means certain, and the Dems must reach out to the center for support. If they come at all of these problems with their left wing bona fides on their lapels, they could lose again.

But the Bush administration, perhaps the most incompetent in the lifetime of virtually all of our citizens, is doing its damnedest to help the outs. Terri Schiavo, presidential call for Intelligent Design in the science classroom, Hurricane Katrina, The Iraq War, the bungling of Social Security reform, gigantic and growing trade and budget deficits, a no win position on illegal immigration, the Republican led race to the lobbying trough, the bumbling explanations of the illegal spying on American citizens, the awkward grasps at greater presidential power, the election victory of Hamas in Palestine, and God knows how many more goof ups gives the Democrats a golden chance.

The less than stellar performance by the Democrats in dealing with a unified position on Iraq and their goofy attempts to derail Sam Alito must give even their dearest friends and most ardent supporters pause.

Oh well, they’ve got to know that if they fail to move to the middle and back centrist candidates it will mean another four years before they get another chance to grab the brass ring. Think about it and organize and win.

Blog on!

Wild Bill