the dark and twisted imagination of William A. Dembski

(I was going to post something about trends in Intelligent Design, but all it's got going recently is some lame, pathetic tripe. Oh, and warning: some quoted material to follow is graphic.)



William A. Dembski, poster boy for Intelligent Design, has some deep Freudian trauma in his past that bubbles up in his academic writing. The most recent, attempting to justify why Christ's suffering is sufficient [pdf]:

Off the top of my head, there are many forms of death, degradation, and torment that are far worse than the few hours that Christ suffered at the hands of the Romans. Here are three:

(1) Locked in syndrome, in which the body is completely without ability to move or respond but the mind remains fully conscious. Imagine your body being in this state, as a living coffin, for decades.

(2) Being a long-term subject of Josef Mengele’s medical experiments at the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz.

(3) Being raped and tortured over a period of months by one of Saddam Hussein’s sons for refusing his advances, and then finally being torn apart by his Doberman Pinschers.

Ask yourself, if you were faced with the horror of such circumstances, what comfort you would find in the Cross if all there were to it was the few hours required for Jesus’ scourging and crucifixion. What comfort would you find in Christ’s words, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” if for all you can tell, Christ’s suffering was markedly less than yours?

This, part of a speech given at a seminary in October of last year, is obviously another cry for help. Someone with a degree in psychotherapy, please contact this man.