By Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher

The religous discussions around intelligent design cropped up during my recent dinner with Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's chief strategist on Linux and all things open-source/industry standard.

I mentioned I had seen that day, a headline that said the Vatican had spoken up against intelligent design, but I did not know on what basis, I hadn't read the article.

We chatted about intelligent design, and the premise that an entity called God, would interfere in the universe in order to create the earth, and mankind. I commented how absurd this is, whether you are religious, believe in God, or not.

In fact, the premise is nothing less than blasphemous. It assumes that God needs to intervene in creation, at various points, to create humanity and the planet's abundance of life.

Intelligent design assumes that God could not get it right the first time: the creation of a universe in which the natural qualities of matter, energy and time result in the emergence of life and ourselves--a perfect manifestation of the original design.

Intervention in the original design could be viewed as devilish rather than divine.

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Related:

The remaking of IBM: A chat with IBM chief strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger