Saturday, June 14, 2008

God: Intelligent Designer or Hot Guitar Player?

Is God a Designer?
Designer, Christian Dior ~ photo Richard Avedon
Harpers Bazaar 1957

When I posted the movies showing in town this week and the review links (see the column to your right) at first I thought from the title, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed must be a goofy high-school comedy. It turns out that it is actually a conspiracy-theory infused case for "Intelligent Design". I admit I have not seen the film. I read the New York Times Review and watched the rather provocative movie trailer. In her review Jeannette Catsoulis says, "Mixing physical apples and metaphysical oranges at every turn “Expelled” is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike."

What gets me about the "Intelligent Design" camp is that they paint anyone who acknowledges the theory of evolution as a godless infidel not to mention their deciding that God is a "designer" is just as arbitrary as deciding that God is male. When I was working on my MFA one of my professors used to say that the difference between a designer and an artist is that a designer comes up with a pattern and sticks to it and an artist improvises. If we are going to anthropomorphize the creative and sacred energy of the universe in my world view God is an artist, more like a jazz musician than a designer. Maybe for the "Intelligent Design" contingent the process of improvisation comes too dangerously close to the process of evolution.

Or Is God A Jazz Musician?
John Coltrane ~ Poster Available through Allposters.com

There Are Those Who Have Called Eric Clapton God.
Eric Clapton ~ If I Had Possession On Judgement Day

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