The problem with intelligent design is exactly what H.I.M said. It's a need. But that is a HUMAN need. When we put ourselves into the equation, it is WE who need. We need a Creator to help us make sense of Creation. WE need a Creator who is good so that we can feel that this is all going according to a divine plan that is according to the greater good. WE have a need for salvation based on our own behavior.
WE need.
WE need.
WE need.
WE... need to take ourselves out of the equation. Just because there are gaps in knowledge and experience doesn't mean that we NEED something to fill those gaps. And it doesn't mean that if we don't have a better idea that WE all like then the default must be a ghostly genie type of figure that is adept in magic.
It's funny. We want things to make sense but it is ironic that we most often fill those gaps with magic when in essence, magic is something, that by its nature, defies logic and reason. We simply tell our selves, if something can defy logic and reason it there must be a deity involved because their existence defies logic and reason. So something that also defies logic and reason must be their doing.
But you've never seen a magical deity do anything. And yet how many things have YOU seen in this life, that a person from ancient times would describe as magic? How many things from our time would they consider magic of the highest order. We can drop bombs that could have taken out their whole society at once. And for them... relatively speaking, since they hadn't been all over the world, that would be the end of the world.
If they saw me talking to Alexa... they would say, "he commanded the winds and there was music filling the air with... Jodeci?" I'm adding a bit of humor but the point is serious. Ancient societies would worship us as magical beings for our technology and yet... we: aren't gods at all, have mostly all the same weaknesses they do, have many people who don't understand our own technology, and are still very ignorant in how we treat each other.
I remember considering the possibility that some time in the future, what if someone was able to go back in time, and that person would basically become the Yahweh from biblical legend. Of course, I don't believe that, but it's an interesting thought that would explain some things.
There's also a possibility that we could create a virtual world, using voice commands, very similar to our own creation, and that world then gets created via an AI building artificial life from our specifications. This is entirely possible. And yet, if we did this, even if we were gods to the people born into that world, we're still not gods.
Even though these two possibilities exist that doesn't mean either one is the truth. But if you had to pick one... I think that's what happens with Intelligent Design. It's basically saying, we don't know or having a real theory of how everything came into being so... "if we had to pick something"... That's Intelligent Design. And the idea that we have to pick something is wrong. We don't. We can just say "I don't know" or "I don't know yet". Magical words. Instead, it's "if I had to guess... its probably the idea I was raised to believe", but the idea we were raised to believe is the same idea someone else was raised to believe and so on until someone just cooked up their own theory and someone else used that theory to gain influence and power.
If saw a group of criminals hanging from a spider web I'd be like... "is there actually someone dressed up like spider man, fighting crime?" But if I saw a group of criminals beat up outside the police station I wouldn't assume someone from another planet, a dying planet, came to earth as a baby and is now fighting crime with super powers. That explanation is more outlandish than the thing its trying to explain. And that's what Intelligent Design does. It offers a Creator as an explanation even though it is more outlandish than the things we're saying the Creator is responsible for doing.
I think Selassie's connection to this idea, isn't one of science, but one of hope. It's something he wants to be true in order to help build a better world full of love and peace.
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