So the War on Christmas nonsense is continuing this year, and, as if this wasn't enough, here comes National Review editor Jonah Goldberg with a doozie: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, which sheds light on the intellectual link between modern American progressivism and European fascism.

What do the War on Christmas, Intelligent Design, and Liberal Fascism have in common? A mega "WTF!?" factor. I mean, seriously, i can only scratch my head in wonder at all of this energy being spent tilting at windmills on the Right. There is NO "war on Christmas." Intelligent Design is NOT real science. The white man is NOT the "Jew" of Liberal Fascism. Statements promoting these ideas are hyperbole to the tenth degree and sound like unfunny parodies.

My first response is to breathe a sigh of relief that at least they've taken a pause in dishing out accusations against gays and Mexicans as threats to Western civilization. But its really unsettling. What the hell does it mean that they are flooding our cultural discourse with this boxing at shadows gobbledygook?

It's got me worried, actually. Is this what happens next? The next phase in the war on meaning? Nonsense words get more and more airplay until real discourse and real science have no more room, no more funding, no more political support? Is it "crazy-making" writ large?

This "War on Christmas" crap is all fun and games until people actually start getting beaten. Soon, "liberal fascists" will start getting beaten, too. All in the name of "freedom."

It seems to me that most of the people appalled by this trend are loathe to legitimize this crap by challenging it, trusting people to see it for the crap it is. Unfortunately, i don't think we have the luxury of ignoring it and hoping it will go away.

...[A]mong those celebrating the prominence of these two Darwinians [Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett] on both sides of the Atlantic is an unexpected constituency - the American creationist/intelligent-design lobby. Huh? Dawkins, in particular, has become their top pin-up.

How so? William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"

... Michael Ruse, a prominent Darwinian philosopher (and an agnostic) based in the US, with a string of books on the subject, is exasperated: "Dawkins and Dennett are really dangerous, both at a moral and a legal level." The nub of Ruse's argument is that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism, and to claim that it does (as Dawkins does) provides the intelligent-design lobby with a legal loophole: "If Darwinism equals atheism then it can't be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool."

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins (Thanks to supergee for the link)

Say it with me, now: atheism is not a religion. There is no doctrine, no scripture, no church, no congregation, no priesthood, no tradition, no temple, no ritual, no prayerbook, no dietary restriction, no almsgiving, or any other religious trapping, associated with atheism.

Disbelief in God is not a religious belief. This assertion presumes that "belief in God" is normal and standard, such that disbelief thereof requires maintenance of faith and positive reinforcement. No, "God" is an assertion made by most religions, the burden of proof for which rests on those who promote religion. Not subscribing to someone else's assertion is not an act of faith.

I was going to write a rant on "Intelligent Design," but lady_babalon beat me to it.

In August i explored one reason the ID movement disturbs me so much: it is not science, it is an attack on the scientific method. The idea that ID deserves just as much weight and serious consideration as evolution as a scientific theory is a political fabrication promoted by a Christian group whose agenda parallels in many direct and disturbing ways the Taliban's agenda in Afghanistan -- hence the name "Chaliban."

In academia, people are starting to get furious about what is clearly an attack on them. For example, at the University of Kansas, in the same state where science was recently redefined by a school board in a way that would allow ID to be considered science, one can take a course called "Archaeological Myths and Realities" where ID is put in its rightful place alongside UFOlogy and ESP research. One can also take a class titled "Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." According to the head of the religion department there, "the K.U. faculty has had enough."

Their anger is not arrogance at having "their pet theory" challenged -- it is a response to a blatant attack on academia and on free intellectualism. ID is not a science, it was designed in Chaliban political think-tanks less than 10 years ago, in response to court battles over teaching creationism in school. ID research (such as it is) is funded by a religious cabal with a distinct anti-intellectual agenda.

As lady_babalon put it this weekend, in reference to a completely different topic, sometimes not taking sides makes you biased. In the news media, there's this directive that you have to give equal space to both sides of the story to avoid the appearance of bias. This idea of giving equal voice to both sides of a story has carried over into common discourse. It's a reasonable idea, when both sides of the story have equal legitimacy.

However, in practice, this has given an opening for extremists to use the desire for fairness and open-mindedness to hijack discourse and give voice to ideas that, frankly, haven't earned an equal place in public discourse. Imagine for example if every news story about space exploration included the Flat Earth Society's contention that space exploration is an elaborate government hoax.

The only difference between ID and the flat Earth theory is funding.

In their quest to be "fair and balanced," the news media has played right into the hands of the Chaliban and their prefabricated made-for-prime-time pseudoscience and the political agenda that rides it piggyback.

It wasn't until after reading this essay about "Intelligent Design" that it dawned on me how dangerous and pernicious this ideology is.

It is not a scientific theory, it is a prefabricated ideology designed to fit the needs of a political agenda, in response to court battles where educating students in "Creation Science" was deemed to be promotion of a religious doctrine, and in anger at the atheistic evangelism of some evolutionists like Richard Dawkins. It combines criticism of the specifics of evolutionary theory with an attitude that reifies "what we don't know about how nature works" into "proof of deliberate design."

Intelligent Design is no less than an attack on the scientific method. The method of science involves making observations about patterns in nature, and then attempting to find a consistent explanation that can be repeated by anyone. The conclusions of Intelligent Design cannot be verified by repetition. Therefore promoters of Intelligent Design rely primarily on emotional appeals that equate the complexity of nature with "design." It is an emotional endeavor, and not an intellectual one.

Their favorite example is the eye; they ask, how can the eye have evolved, when it requires the cooperation of several complex parts that "could not" have evolved separately? Never mind that engineers can tell you many obvious improvements that they would make on the design of the eye; eyes were not precision engineered, they are merely adequate to the task of parsing light into images.

"But Sabrina," you might be objecting at this point, "isn't seeking evidence for or against God's existence a valid scientific question?" Sure, it might be. But history shows that most scientists have held religious views which they assumed would be upheld by scientific observation and experimentation. In many cases, scientists had to be dragged unwillingly to conclude that doctrine was wrong. To cite one famous example, Albert Einstein resisted the implication of quantum mechanics that nature contains fundamental uncertainty because of his religious beliefs. Scientists like Richard Dawkins who take glee in trying to disprove God are rare.

ID is designed to stop people from questioning. By giving a pat, reassuring answer to any troubling question that arises, it serves to program the brain to silence its own questions about nature that might possibly (though not necessarily) lead to doubts about the truth of certain brands of religious doctrine.

It is aimed not at convincing people disinclined to believe in God, it is aimed at keeping people within the fold by giving support to the memetic parasite posing as religion. The parasite has been losing people to science because science gives fuel to doubts about literalist doctrine.

"Healthy" religion can handle doubt because it is rooted in genuine faith rather than doublethink-reinforced belief in arbitrary concepts. On the other hand, "religion" which is made up only or primarily of belief in concepts is under continual assault, especially since anyone can at any time have an experience that cannot be reconciled with the set of core memes.