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There is a major problem of terminology here. In your chapter 'What should be taught in schools?' you say "the concept of Intelligent Design has been used as a cover for Creationism, which gives the latter an undeserved shade of scientific respectability and the former an undeserved shade of religious fundamentalism. ID is the basis of the case against atheism...." From the earlier chapters in your guide, it would seem that by intelligent design you are referring to whatever created the organism that set the whole process underway. Unfortunately the term does not mean that. It really is, as you say, a cover for Creationism, a "pseudo-science" devised to promote Christian beliefs, and was exposed as such at the Dover Trial (2005). Even some theist evolutionists are opposed to it (like Kenneth Miller, whom you and George Jelliss have referred to under Origin of Light Sensitivity). The moment you use it, people will assume that you are a Creationist. This has also affected the word "designer", which you have used all through. As an agnostic myself, I have learned by experience to avoid all such agent nouns, because both theists and atheists automatically think of "God". The difficulty is to find a term that indicates a conscious creative force (as opposed to chance) but which will be devoid of any other associations. At this point I must beat a hasty retreat, because I haven't found one! Perhaps you could run a competition, with a substantial cash sum as first prize.

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You're absolutely right, and I've already been criticized in exactly the manner you've described. The "concept" of intelligent design goes back centuries, and it's as good a way as any to describe the alternative to chance. Darwin himself used it in a letter (23 May 1861). But in recent years it's been hi-jacked to promote Christianity, which is why I say it's been given an "undeserved shade of religious fundamentalism". The concept in its original sense leads to a wide range of possible scenarios, which I've tried to cover in my various speculations on the nature of a designer. However, since the term has been corrupted, my statement that ID is "the basis of the case against atheism" is a sloppy piece of writing (and thinking). I'll rephrase it during the next revision to show that I mean "disbelief in chance". - We still have to be careful, though. The fact that the new concept of ID has been dismissed as "pseudoscience" should not be an excuse to dismiss all its arguments. There are still fundamental gaps in our knowledge which science can't fill. The new, "corrupted" ID offers just one way of filling them, but who is to say that the Christian way is any more or any less likely than all the others (including chance)? It comes down to individual beliefs or, in the case of an agnostic, disbeliefs. - As for a neutral term to replace "designer", a competition is a great idea. Not so sure about the cash prize, though, unless you're offering...?

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'Demiurge': an autonomous creative force or decisive power. Despite its associations, when capitalised, with the Platonic notion of a subordinate deity who fashions the sensible world in the light of eternal ideas and with the Gnostic subordinate deity who is the creator of the material world, uncapitalised it leaves open the question as to the nature of the decisive power which transformed inorganic into organic matter, whether an intelligent designer or a chemical accident. For those of us who don't know the answer to this question, 'demiurge' thus enables us to remain agnostic or noncommittal in our language.

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Would this "Demiurge" bear any relation to Maxwell's Demon? It seems to me that this Demiurge is supposed able to act on atoms (with his noodly appendages?) to bring about the little biochemical changes that we at present in our ignorance ascribe to errors of transcription or mutations or chance. The problem with Maxwell's Demon I seem to recall was that his operations contravened the laws of thermodynamics.

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I don't think Maxwell's Demon could serve as a demiurge. To qualify as a candidate for demiurge status, Maxwell's Demon would have to be able to serve as the decisive power that transformed inorganic into organic matter, and in Maxwell's thought-experiment it serves only as the agency which decreases the entropy of a system while not violating conservation of energy. A neat trick, but it's hardly going to kick-start life.

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A quick google reveals that in Gnosticism the demi-urge is the creator of the material universe, and as the material universe is evil, the demi-urge is the embodiment of evil. (Unlike Plato's demi-urge, which is benevolent.) The capital D seems to come and go. I thought of numen (= any guiding force or influence), but that has too many religious associations as well.

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How about Thingummy?

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As a current teacher I thought here might be the best place to share some of my onservations from working in both church and non-church schools. - Firstly, it is worth noting that these terms in themselves are misnomers. In England there is no such thing as a non-church/non-religious/secular school. Every school in England is legally required to have ''a daily act of broadly christian worship''. - Those schools that are listed as church schools go far further. Children are expected to pray to the excepted God before lunch and often at the end of the day. Ofcourse, it could be argued that this a matter of parental choice. It is, if you live in a large town. It isn't if you live in an area where the only school in a church school. Again theists would probably argue that children can be withdrawn from these activities. They can. But the social damage that this does to the ''child that doesn't say prayers with us'' or doesnt go to assemblies, is considerable. - In one assembly I have seen a local Christian preacher perform a fantastic magical trick of which any demi-god would have been proud. He folded a piece of paper and made a few small cuts in it. He unfolded it to reveal the word Jesus. Wonderful. Then he used the remaining pieces to make the word HELL. Because if you don't have Jesus, you have HELL. Would any of you really want your five or six year old to be told this? - This can't be healthy or even safe. This is pure indoctination. "We are right. They are wrong." - Although, by no means a total advocate of Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most salient point he makes in his recent writings is that there is no such thing as a Christian child. Or a Jewish child or a Muslim one. There are children of Christian parents but NOT Christian children. Children do not have the capacity to decide what they do and don't believe. To put this into perspective I wonder what those who adovcate religious preaching in schools would say about politics. How would you feel if I told you my 5 year old was a One Nation Conservative or my Year 3 8 year olds were all Marxists. Why not? Is the Communist Manifesto really more complex to read than the Bible? Not that Bible reading or understanding is necessary for describing children as Christian - it can't be given that most 5 year olds struggle to read books with much more than a line or two on a page.
How about a school sponsored by Wig Tories? Or a Socialist Workers Party school?
These are of course rediculous ideas, but how more rediculous that children should be told by their teacher to pray to a God in a religon that they can't possibly begin to understand. - I'm quite happy for different religions to be taught in a school. To understand our world children need to know that different people believe different things. And they need to know that we are really fortuate to live a country where it is ok to have different beliefs. 
The problem with this, is that if following a lesson about Islam the children then have Mass before lunch it gives the children a very clear statement that ''THEY are wrong - WE are right''. - 
How much longer were the problems in Norhtern Ireland maintained because the children of the opposing sides were segregated? I believe that schools should teach about religions but should NOT advocate one over any other. We have a pluralist society in our wondeful country and long may it continue. - 
Now, where is that government-funded Rastafarian school I demand to be able to send my children to?

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Rightarmmover: I totally agree with all that you say about the involvement of the churches in our schools, and what is wrong with this. - However what most alarms me about your message is that you describe yourself as a "current teacher" yet are unable to spell "accepted" and "ridiculous"! I put the other errors down to hasty typing. Spelling happens to be one of my other interests, having just revised my scheme for a simplified phonetic spelling, and become involved in discussions on the Spelling Society's forum.

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First of all, I'd like to welcome "rightarmover" to the website, and thank him for what seems to me to be an immensely important contribution. This is a hot topic at the moment, and I suspect that many of us don't really know what's going on in our schools (my own children left twenty odd years ago). The kind of religious indoctrination you describe is worrying, and in a so-called multicultural society may well be divisive. Should all faith schools be abolished, then? Should religious worship in schools be banned? If comparative religion is to be taught, should atheism also be on the curriculum? You have raised a huge issue here. - I feel I must apologize for George's comments. The forum is not meant to be an exercise in orthography, and I would not like any would-be contributor to be put off by the thought that someone will criticize him in public for any spelling or grammatical blunders. Much as some of us may regret the age of the email, please may we concentrate on the issues and refrain from such personal remarks. By the way, George, the name is "rightarmover", not "rightarmmover".

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Thank you kindly for your response George. Thank you also for taking the time to inquire into the type of teaching in which I am presently engaged. There is so much need to be able to spell perfectly in primary school music and gymnastics instruction. Surely, being able to perform a hand-spring and having an indepth understanding of plyometrics and dynamics is of far greater importance? - I take it the next time a parent takes a school teacher to court because their child was injured in a physical activity, the said teacher should outline their spelling competence as a defence? - Of course, none of this is relevant to the subject in hand. - I'd be intrigued to discover the views on others on the role of religion in our schools.

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rightarmover says "I'd be intrigued to discover the views on others on the role of religion in our schools".
In the US, we have the American Civil Liberties Union as a watchdog to be sure that not the slightest taint of religion enters our public schools, since our Supreme Court has ruled it violates the constitution. If a parent chooses to pay, they can send their child to any private religious school they choose. Then there is no control over religious content at all, but there can also be no public funds spent on the school. This offends parents using religious schools, because they must pay public school taxes, whether they use the schools or not. There is a movement afoot amongst the conservatives to grant vouchers from public funds for parents to use in paying private schools. I was totally unaware of the situation that rightarmover described for UK. Now I understand better some of the comments made by Dawkins and others in this regard. I endorse the US approach.
I reluctantly conclude that the religious education of children should be left to their parents, since the alternative (state dictated religious education) is so repugnant. I sympathize with Dawkins point that religious rearing of children is little short of brainwashing, and that it is difficult to arrive at a secular society with religious dogma inculcated from birth forward. But the alternative of having government dictate religious teaching is unacceptable. I think the best solution is to be sure that reality based information is taught in our schools and trust the common sense of the populace to choose reality.

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Many thanks Carl. It's interesting to hear the solutions other countries have formed. The US model, it appears from your comments, is very similar to that of the French.

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Apologies if I caused offense by my comments on spelling. Spelling reform happens to be a bee in my bonnet at present. - Being a member of Leicester Secular Society I didn't feel it necessary to respond in detail on the issue of religious education, since the policies of secularists and humanists on this subject are obvious and pretty well known. - The views of the BHA and the NSS are summarised on these pages: 
 
http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=1181 - http://www.secularism.org.uk/education.html?CPID=195290476bc552ca7fd83ec1fa4f02c9 - The BHA has a somewhat conciliatory approach, wanting Humanism taught alongside the major Religions in "Religious Education" classes (preferably renamed something like Ethics and Philosophy), while the NSS seeks more radical reform, though I suspect it will have to be step by step evolution.

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An especially worrying development is that is Academies - government funded, but sponsored by groups/individuals - these are often 'Christian' and strongly so. - Check out this link about the process by which one of these organisations is trying to appoint its Headteacher - it made my stomach turn. - http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thread.aspx?story_id=2655107&path=/school+ma...

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Or perhaps check out this advert for a GOVERNMENT FUNDED school. - http://jobs.tes.co.uk/job.aspx?jobId=515536

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"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man." - The Jesuits knew what they were doing. There's a fine line, though, between civil liberties on the one hand and discrimination on the other. It's hard to argue against an organization that pays to set up a school privately to further its own cause ... so long as that cause is not hostile to the general community (e.g. an Al-Qaida Primary School). And if like-minded parents want to pay to send their children there, should we really try to stop them? But for a state-funded school to favour one religious body seems totally wrong, and any kind of discrimination because of sex, colour, disability, sexual orientation or indeed religious belief should always be punishable by law. In fact I thought it was. Do we have any lawyers on this site? - There's just been a vehement campaign by a breakaway Anglican movement to discriminate against homosexuals and women (which I thought was illegal). Rightarmover has now drawn our attention to a Christian-backed sponsor who invited a successful headmaster to take over a school, discovered he was gay, and told him he wasn't suitable. The gay head teacher would seem to me to have a watertight case, though if he can't stand the hassle of suing, who can blame him? - As regards the religious background, though, we do have to be careful here, because half the time the bigots simply use the church as an excuse for their own prejudices. The church lays itself open to this because it bases its principles on ancient, man-made texts that are amenable to whatever interpretation people want to put on them. The head teacher himself kept the religious side of things in perspective. The law too is man-made, but it has a far better chance of unambiguous phrasing, and it has the priceless advantage of being able to move with the times. Ditto any humanistic code of ethics (which surely ought to be the basis of any set of laws). - I was amazed to read in Carl's posting that Americans have far better legal protection built into their educational system than we have here in the UK. Since we tend to tag along in the American wake, maybe we'll get there too eventually, but there would have to be a big public kerfuffle to make our politicians take note. I fear rightarmover is going to endure many more bad decisions before he leaves the field.

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In the US, we have the Mormon (Latter Day Saints or LDS) religion which practiced plural marriage but changed policy and forbade it over a century ago. The Fundamentalist LDS broke away from the LDS and continued the practice of plural marriage. Since bigamy is illegal in the US, their plural marriages are "spiritual" marriages that are not registered with the government. The female offspring are groomed to be future plural wives, and the males are groomed to be husbands of multiple wives. Since the numbers don't balance, males who are not selected to be husbands are ejected from the community. Females as young as fourteen are "married" to forty and fifty year old men. Since the marriage is not official, and adultery or children out of wedlock is not illegal, the law forbidding sex with children is the only one that can be enforced. The FLDS lives in closed communes with no contact permitted with the outside world except for the men and a few trusted women leaders so that child sexual abuse evidence can't be had. 
Child Protective Services in Texas got an anonymous call which they used as justification for a raid on the Yearning for Zion FLDS commune. With an army of law officers, they went in an took custody of several hundred children. Eventually, the Texas courts ruled that CPS did not have authority to take all the children, only a few which could be proven to be in danger of sexual abuse, so the remainder were returned to their mothers. The head of FLDS was already in prison for accomplice to child sexual abuse, but several of the other leaders have since been indicted for sexual abuse of a child using DNA evidence gathered during the raid.
This is a case study in brainwashing and child abuse, and yet I cannot advocate overturning the civil liberties protections that allowed this abuse to occur. The alternative of having the state in the business of approving or disapproving religious practices is unacceptable. Individuals should be allowed freedom to practice any religious beliefs they choose, and, implicit in that, is the freedom to raise their children in their belief as long as they don't violate criminal law. It is imperfect, but I see no way to make it perfect.

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dhw wrote: "I was amazed to read in Carl's posting that Americans have far better legal protection built into their educational system than we have here in the UK." - As I understand it in the USA religion cannot be taught in state schools, not even comparative religion. This means that people only know about the religion of their parents or their local area as a result of private or home schooling. - In the UK "Religious Education" is a subject in all schools as part of the national curriculum, and its purpose is to teach about all the major religions, and also humanism and atheism, with the purpose of maintaining social cohesion. - http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/subjects/religious-education/keystage1/... - So long as this does not become indoctrination, Humanists are generally in favour of it (RE), since it discourages religious separatism. Unfortunately government policy lately has been to encourage religious organisations to "sponsor" new academies, though it seems they now don't have to pay anything for the privilege. - Edit: I added the link to the National Curriculum page on RE in primary schools.

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George: "As I understand it in the USA religion cannot be taught in state schools, not even comparative religion". 
A class on comparative religion would pass constitutional muster in the US if it was presented from a neutral perspective, included all major religions and was elective. This has even been discussed as a way to deal with the desire to teach intelligent design and creationism. Those types of laws are left to individual states and school districts as long as they do not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The US forbids anything that could be construed to be the practice of religion in public schools. I am not familiar with what is currently being taught in different states, and it will vary from state to state.
According to Wikipedia, the term we use in the US, religious education, is referred to in England as religious instruction. Religious education in England refers to more generalized teaching about rather than of religion apparently.

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Since we are in a thread of intelligent design, as a total non sequitor, may I note that mathematicians, as evidenced by the noteworthy Wistar Institute Sypmosium in 1966, "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution", are still very skeptical about current Darwinian thinking. The following website uses the Second Law of Thermodynamics to refute the random mutation, natural selection theory. http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/articles/article.html - I think this approach and discussion shows that there is a great deal to ponder in trying to understand evolution. Read carefully it demonstrates that intelligent design proponents have a great deal to offer in any theoretical discussion, and supression of their objections to current thought borders on intellectually criminal activity to my mind. Open minds lead to important discoveries. - Unfortuntely, grants for research are peer reviewed, and grantees, fearful of the establishment, are afraid to open up new thinking; it might offend and damaged one's liveihood. A la Kuhn: scientists are human and have human foibles.

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David Turell wrote: "The following website uses the Second Law of Thermodynamics to refute the random mutation, natural selection theory." - Here, on the other hand, is an antidote to that article, which claims that evolution is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics: - http://www.physorg.com/news137679868.html - It's surprising what mathematicians can prove! - John Conway and colleagues at Princeton have proved that if we have free will then so do subatomic particles: - http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/35391/title/Do_subatomic_particles_have_free... - The paper, as a pdf, can be downloaded from: Arxiv.org, July 21, (0807.3286v1.pdf). - "It asserts, roughly, that if indeed we humans have free will, then elementary particles already have their own small share of this valuable commodity. More precisely, if the experimenter can freely choose the directions in which to orient his apparatus in a certain measurement, then the particle's response (to be pedantic ... the universe's response near the particle) is not determined by the entire previous history of the universe." - Conway and Kochen. - The idea in fact goes back to the early atomist philosophers: - "If the atoms never swerve so as to originate some new movement that will snap the bonds of fate, the everlasting sequence of cause and effect â what is the source of the free will possessed by living things throughout the earth?" â Titus Lucretius Carus, Roman philosopher and poet, 99...55 BC.

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George: Excellent articles, but the entanglement of quantum sister particles (the Aspect experiments, etc.) would indicate that the particles of the universe are in communication with each other to some degree and the movements (spin) of a primary paricle will dictate what its entangled particles will have to do, which is a degree of determinism. On the other hand, the particles are at random and have free will to stay at random unless instructed thru entanglement. So there is some free will and some determinism in the randomness. - David Bohm may be correct that we will never understand fully the underlying principles.

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David Bohm may be correct that we will never understand fully the underlying principles. - Just an aside about David Bohm:
I consider myself very fortunate, at a place in my life where I was questioning "time" and it's true meaning, to have come across one of David Bohm's books. I hadn't searched anything outside the scriptures and books pertaining to it (because anything outside it was evil and considered taboo) when this book literally fell into my hands. I had already lost faith in the limited knowledge I was allowed to study by my own religious belief. I was starving from lack of knowledge and had grown quite ill. I can say for sure the boundaries of my mind was blown away the day I read it, and I've not seen hide nor hair of those boundaries since! Thank You David Bohm...where ever you are!

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Gj on your comment. A quick browse through this thread showed no sign of a proper agnostic in sight. To so quickly brush off the strong arguments ID makes is to be like the typical evolutionist atheist. ID proponents could make the very same arguments that evolution is simply atheism pretending to be science (which is seemingly is at this point). A good listen to the Intelligentdesign.podomatic.com site and especially to what agnostics and atheists interviewed there have to say, might be enlightening. -Be agnostic pls and true skeptics pls

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Gj on your comment. A quick browse through this thread showed no sign of a proper agnostic in sight. To so quickly brush off the strong arguments ID makes is to be like the typical evolutionist atheist. ID proponents could make the very same arguments that evolution is simply atheism pretending to be science (which is seemingly is at this point). A good listen to the Intelligentdesign.podomatic.com site and especially to what agnostics and atheists interviewed there have to say, might be enlightening. 
> 
> Be agnostic pls and true skeptics pls-Whoa!! I have discussed and supported ID here many times. I have attended a conference with Dembski, Behe, Myers and others. I am an invited resident theist, a panentheist to be exact. An agnostic owns this website, there are at least two others commenting on it, and we have had atheists come and go. Your quick browse was much to quick. Hang around and dig in some more. We are always ready to have some polite and indepth discussions.

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That wasn't sarcastic. I was actually saying good job.

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That wasn't sarcastic. I was actually saying good job.-Thank you. Join in!

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TEMI: Gj on your comment. A quick browse through this thread showed no sign of a proper agnostic in sight. To so quickly brush off the strong arguments ID makes is to be like the typical evolutionist atheist. ID proponents could make the very same arguments that evolution is simply atheism pretending to be science (which is seemingly is at this point). A good listen to the Intelligentdesign.podomatic.com site and especially to what agnostics and atheists interviewed there have to say, might be enlightening. 
Be agnostic pls and true skeptics pls-Welcome to the forum. Atheists tend to brand us agnostics as theists, while theists brand us as atheists. This is because whenever we discuss the relevant topics, we argue the case against their beliefs. However, on this forum we welcome contributors of all persuasions. This often leads to lively and informative discussions, even if the flip side is that many contributors come with fixed ideas, and go away again when they meet opposition. You have glanced at one of our earlier discussions (2008), which began when a retired teacher quite rightly pointed out that the terms "Intelligent Design" and "designer" have been corrupted by creationist and especially Christian associations. In the 3-4 years that have elapsed since then, the subject of design has always been at the forefront of our discussions. Our "resident" theist David constantly feeds us information that highlights the "irreducible complexity" of life, atheists insist that it's all explicable in terms of chance plus the laws of nature (including evolution), while I myself as "resident" agnostic remain unable to believe in chance (one up for design) and equally unable to believe in an eternal and universal intelligence (one down for design). One up + one down = 0, which denotes the degree of belief characteristic of the agnostic and what you call the "true sceptic" (British spelling)!
 
All non-believers are as welcome as all believers and disbelievers, if they are ... as David says ... "ready to have some polite and indepth discussions", so do please join in on any topic that interests you.

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