Why I'm afraid of intelligent design.

I imagine this will happen a lot.

EASY BLUDGEON:
I heard this great song. You have to hear it. Have you listened to it yet? It's great. Have you listened to it yet? Look, in the second verse there's this recapitulation of the theme established in the first line. It's awesome. Have you listened to it yet? Okay, I know Nickleback seems to make sense to you right now, but you have to listen to this song. Friends don't let friends listen to Nickleback. Seriously. Okay, here's an example, the diatonic scale establishes beauty and rhythm, right? Well, let's just say they do, trust me. In this song the diatonic is offset with a subtle embrace of a chromatic undertone, and when both resolve, they resolve a third apart! Do you see? A third apart! You must see how important it is! Have you listened to it yet? It's so obvious! But how can you possibly say any song is more logically plausible than this one? I'm really worried about you. No, I do listen to the song. No, I don't just talk about it. Yes, a song is more than just logical. It's just that I'm so frustrated, this is so obvious. Have you listened to it yet? Look, have I told you about the resonant frequencies of the second verse. If you look at it in terms of hertz, following the concert pitch with A1 at 440Hz, you can't see it because it's based on scientific pitch with A1 at 430.54Hz. But, if you look at it in terms of resonant frequencies you can see the correlation of previously established motifs as plain as the nose on your face. The resonant frequencies prove how great this song is, any idiot can see it. What? No! I didn't mean you were an idiot. Obviously I care about you a great deal, so much so that I want to share this song with you. It means so much to me. I just wish you'd see it. Where are you going? Oh. Well—call me.



I imagine this will happen a lot less.

COMMUNAL THEOLOGY INTENDED FOR THE COMMUNITY OF GOD
My friend and I, both love this new song we heard. We were talking to some other people who also love it, and they are musicologists. They were telling us about some fascinating resonant frequencies in the song. It was pretty cool stuff. We all had a much deeper understanding of something we already love.

Ancient Simplicity

"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No ascetisism or excercise of human power can overcome it— only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.

We cannot call Ellul fatalist. He has made a statement and on the basis of this statement we cannot call him fatalist. There is a way to overcome, that is, "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of his statement. If it seems impossible, it must be. Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one, therefore he must be fatalist. We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.

Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling. Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's direction, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.

To use these good things properly we must have some idea of God's direction. To have some idea of His direction we must be close to Him. But, how do we draw close to Him? We draw close to Him through ancient Christian disciplines: Prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fasting, feasting, celebrating, worshiping. We cannot look to our tools and techniques to figure out what God is up to. If we could , we wouldn't need Him, and one thing is sure, we desperately need Him.