Albatrossity2
Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007
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I think it is important, as always, not to generalize. The three categories of IDers (guru, proselytizer, and chump, for lack of a better taxonomy) have different motives, and different bases for their "blinkered confidence".
Gurus (e.g. Dembski) don't really believe it; they are the salesmen, just trying to make a buck. The argument about how if he really believed it he would have made sure that he could testify in KvD is pretty convincing, IMHO. A true believer would fight to get to the witness stand; a salesman would retreat as soon as it became obvious there was no sale. As long as he can make a buck from it, he'll exude confidence. He has to; there are no other options. Unless he wants to get a real job and work for a living...
Proselytizers (e.g. FtK) probably do believe that this battle is being won, and that the forces of atheism will be vanquished by the forces of god. That belief comes with a price - cognitive dissonance. Just don't think about it too much and you can maintain a faith that you understand, at some level, to be questionable in the reality-based world you have to inhabit most of the time. But as long as you can retreat to the non-reality-based world, believe in miracles, and the gurus above you remain confident, you can remain confident.
The chumps (e.g. BA77, lots of folks in pews and Sunday Schools every week) believe it because that is what they are told by authority figures. And if there is anything that explains the behavior of those folks, it is deference to authority figures.
So for different categories of IDers, there are different explanations. But if this analysis is correct, the key is the gurus. If they would stop peddling BS, the underlings would have no confidence at all. It is not likely that the gurus will stop, however. They need to make a living, feed their families, etc., and economics will continue to trump ethics for those guys. It can't be fun to face the mirror every morning, but they gotta do what they gotta do.
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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
- Pattiann Rogers
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