'Intelligent Design' Is a Placeholder for any Religion

Jozsef Ludvig in the Baltimore Sentinel writes

But in reality, by leaving the name and identity of the designer unknown, ID becomes a placeholder for any religion while narrowly escaping the definition of a religion itself. But it can still not pose for science because it starts with the premise that a supernatural force had to be involved in the creation of life from inorganic matter. In order to prove this premise it then invents the non-empirical device of irreducible complexity which is just a typical God-Of-The-Gaps and cannot explain anything by itself. The resulting negative inference of a supernatural force from empirical ignorance is, by definition, neither a scientific subject nor consistent with the scientific method. Thus ID is not science.

Then he addresses the common confusion amongst creationists that evolutionary theory is atheistic or that Darwin was an atheist. A better term would be agnostic.

After having set up such a transparent deception, he continues with with an obvious lie:

“Darwinism begins with a premise of atheism….Darwin began his concept of naturalistic explanations in order to refute religion with atheism.”

There is absolutely no hint of a proof in Darwin’s work or biography for the idea that Darwin used an atheist premise. Maybe Mr. Plyler could point us to his historical evidence?