It’s certainly possible, but that’s clearly not what’s driving the ID movement. The major proponents are not JUST Christians, but when speaking to their followers, they define their project explicitly as trying to make science comport with their beliefs. Dembski in particular has already concluded that God is responsible for all the design we see in the universe, directly or indirectly, and he’s doing what he does because he wants to make sure god gets all the credit.
As a social phenomenon, ID seems to be almost completely centered around very well educated white men who have a hard time reconcilling their generally fairly hard-core Christian beliefs with their knowledge of evolution and common descent.
Actually, it was simply a shot at the fact that when Behe publishes his books, he is careful to maintain a facade of scientific objectivity, (although he carefully avoids peer review from within the scientific community), but when he engages in public appearances, generally in front of Christian anti-evolutionists, he lets down his guard and rants against the “atheistic” and “secular humanist” establishment. In such a context, I can easily imagine someone coming forward to be saved.
As to the number of non-Christian YEC supporters in the U.S., there may be some, but their number is overwhelmed by the number of Christians who are carrying that banner. The idiots on the school board who first attempted to foist ID on the Ohio school sysytems and were forced to back off, only to return with a sneaky “choice” declaration were, every one of them, associated with conservative Christian groups. markdiscordia’s claim was not strictly accurate, but in the context of “aliens from space,” it was acceptable hyperbole.
My view of Beheism is that it is similar to that cartoon with the complicated equation and “then a miracle happens” in the middle. I wonder what he really thinks. I suspect he’s a second rate professor (though a legitimate one) who struck it rich with an honestly developed though incorrect hypothesis, and who now cannot back off for fear of becoming a laughingstock and the target of attacks from the religious right. I’m sure he’d see his disavowal of ID as helping out atheists. It is kind of like cold fusion, in a way.
I think understanding the distinctions between the different types of creationism is a way of driving a wedge (if I may borrow the term) into it. I see no evidence that Behe believes in a young earth or in a real Eden or in an actual flood. (Anyone have any?) If we tell those wanting to teach ID that part of it is an old earth, and a literally incorrect Bible, they may back off. ID is wrong, but it is a different class of wrong than creation of all species at once.
If you have a counterexample, please produce it. In general, Christianity is the only religion that finds it necessary to resort to subterfuge in order to defend its particular beliefs. There are plenty of Jews, Muslims, etc who believe equally uninformed things about the history of life on Earth, but they generally just come out and say them.
I think the word you’re looking for is “science.” Calling it “neo-Darwinism” is a dishonest way of trying to equate science with religious worship without having to debate your point. This sort of back-door semantic gamesmanship is the exact attitude that produces the false belief that “intelligent design” is something different from Christian creationism, and it’s also an example of the dishonest trickery I am talking about above.
Would you mind giving your definition of both ID and “Christian Creationism” (a term I find so broad as to be meaningless) and letting us know how they are identical? You might also give a cite as to how Behe thinks dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans. Either you misunderstand ID, or you underestimate the looniness of YECs.
I’m not going to back you up on this one. There may be a case for the “-ism” indicating a religious belief, (although I would have to see a pattern, first), but the currently held model of the Theory of Evolution is often called neo-Darwinian. Since Behe claims (at least in print) to accept the Theory of Evolution for “day-to-day” evolution, attacking the specific neo-Darwinian model is very much how a supporter of Behe might phrase it.
Behe is still not doing good science (as his failure to submit his errors to peer review establish), but there are people who have bought into his screed without assuming that neo-Darwinian thouht is “religious” in nature.