Rhetorical Madness

I'm currently working on a major paper for my Community Leadership course. I chose the topic of Intelligent Design and the recent debate in the Dover Area School District in York Country PA. It has turned out to be an intense study, leaving little time for much else.

I have struggled to put myself in the middle of the ID debate. Like Joseph Campbell, who eloquently explores the topic of God in detail in his Transformations of Myth series, I believe that God is a referent to something much grander – something beyond words, and essentially beyond thought (Transformations of Myth, Campbell, p. 96). Having grown up from the outside looking into the Judeo-Christian world view, and having much more in common with Buddhism (see my story 20 Questions and a Turkey), I find much of the debate about intelligent design odd and frivolous. It seems as if no one has the capacity to answer most of the central questions that have taken up so much energy in this debate. Couldn’t the effort expended be put to better use for more humanitarian purposes? However, since there is also a political agenda associated with the ID debate, it is worth studying if only to expose the potential harm it may cause.