Intelligent design is the theory that it is possible to detect intelligent intervention, as an explanation for specified complexity. Some use the theory to argue for the existence of God, but there are also atheists like Thomas Nagel who promote the theory. So, the theory itself is orthoginal to religion,and is properly a scientific or philosophical topic. Both science and philosophy are well within the scope of HN discussions.
> there are also atheists like Thomas Nagel who promote the theory.
Well, if there are atheists who do so, they are in that respect specifically not like Thomas Nagel. While Nagel does endorse certain criticisms of the consensus models made by proponents of intelligent design (in the same breath as noting that those criticism have also been made by people not promoting intelligent design), he explicitly does not endorse the alternative explanation provided by intelligent design (and does also explicitly point to intelligent design as being motivated by religion.) So, it's beyond ludicrous to cite Nagel as not only a supporter of ID but support for the idea that ID is independent of religion.
Nagel’s also a philosopher best known for advancing the perspective that materialist objectivity is a limiting perspective, that is, he is a skeptic of the framework in which science operates. So he's even a worse example to use to make the argument (even if he supported ID, which he doesn't) that ID is within the domain of science.
Mind and cosmos is one long argument about why we need some sort of teleological principle to explain our reality. He definitely comes across as an ID proponent in that book. Maybe I missed something...
"This means that the scientific outlook, if it aspires to a more complete understanding of nature, must expand to include theories capable of explaining the appearance in the universe of mental phenomena and the subjective points of view in which they occur – theories of a different type from any we have seen so far."
That is totally ID in a nutshell. One may then go on to make theological inferences, or not, as Nagel does.
In which case, perhaps he thinks the current paradigm of science as methodological naturalism is lacking. This is the same perspective that ID promotes. If correct, then Nagel and ID are on the side of science.
At any rate, I propose the relationship between ID and religion is not quite as you believe it to be. Happy to discuss the topic further if you are interested.
