Way back when, gods did everything. They made it rain. They made babies grow in tummies. They caused war. They brought famine or harvest. They made us, they killed us, they made us happy or sad. Gods did everything. And, they MADE everything.
Ancient cultures all have their gods, festivals, and rituals. These ancient gods also wanted things from us–or at least we might gain their attention and favor by offering sacrifices or doing things.
Christianity sees itself very much superior to this primitive way of thinking, because Christians have just one God who does everything all those other gods used to do. So, Christianity calls all these other religions and gods “PAGAN.” (Intended to be a pejorative.)
My theory is the common thread among all these pagan gods is their worship and cult was based on ignorance. Just as soon as we figured out what makes rain, the gods stopped doing that. When we figured out what causes disease, it suddenly was no longer gods, spirits, or spells. It was bacteria, viruses, and biology. Floods, harvest, war all were found to have natural causes with natural explanations. Suddenly the gods were disenfranchised.
Ever since the Enlightenment, gods and God have been on a steady retreat. Every time science discovers a means to explain yet another “miracle,” God is forced to step backwards.
Envision if you will, a spherical blob hanging in space. This represents human knowledge. Every day, every moment, the blob expands in some direction, in multiple directions. It started very small, but its size increases exponentially through time. Some even predict its expansion will be infinite. Now, think about everything that is just beyond the outer borders of this “knowledge blob.” That’s where God lives. God is simply what we don’t understand.
God is ignorance. That part of knowledge we do not yet possess is where God is and is what God does. Who started the Big Bang? We don’t know, so Intelligent Design Pagans say “God did.” Who pre-existed the Big Bang? We don’t know. Neither do the Intelligent Design Pagans, so they say it was God. Who “designed” the universe? We don’t know. That knowledge does not exist, so who is it? Of course, it’s God. The God of the Gaps or Ignorance.
Follow the logic. Everything that is unknown is attributed by Intelligent Design advocates as being the purview of God. The Intelligent Design movement has simply taken the ancient pagan notion that gods are the powers greater than us, they have warmed it over by adding a ton of informational pseudo-science and called it “Intelligent Design.”
It’s not intelligent. It’s just ancient ignorance writ new and writ large. And it’s Paganism. They worship what they don’t know. Being ignorant makes them feel small, so God must be out there somewhere, (because certainly God is not anywhere we can see), and that is somehow comforting.
The next time you are bothered by an Intelligent Design argument, pose the question: So, if ancient paganism was simply human beings creating gods to be place-holders for their ignorance, how is that different from your Intelligent Design idea that suggests the great complexity of the Universe we don’t understand or can’t imagine how it came to be is the work of an unseen Designer? Isn’t Intelligent Design simply a fancy new term for Paganism?