Hi, Yorkshirelad,
No, that is not what I am saying. Dawkins has on many occasions gone out specifically to knock down religion, and has had TV programs, books, and more to do just that (but no, living in Melbourne, Australia, I haven't seen the ads on London buses). But what I am saying is that that is not what that interview was about. The religious aspects, to me at least, are a minor part of it. I personally don't feel that Wendy Wright is representative of all people of faith, I feel she is representative of ignorance and unwillingness to learn. Her place was not to assist him in debunking religion, but to assist him in pointing out unthinking blind ignorance, and in that she excelled.
His arguments were all skewed towards the evidence of evolution, not attacking her for being religious. In fact, most of her arguments against evolution boiled down to her belief that non-religion (atheism) equals a lack of "respect" for human beings, which I see as completely unrelated to whether or not there is evidence for evolution, which is what Richard was trying to get across to her. She would say that there was no evidence, Richard would present multiple examples, and she would then ask for evidence to be presented (?). This was then punctuated with references to atheists leading to worse societies (and completely ignoring Richards agreement that a Darwinist society would not be a good thing).
In fact, Richard refered to a number of senior clergy members, up to and including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Catholic Church who think the same way you do, with a combination of Creationism and Evolution. And he goes on to state that that, although not his belief, is fine with him. It's the complete uninformed negation of evolution that he is fighting against here. The religion stuff is for other times...
I am glad that you have a positive force in your life in the form of faith. That's what it is for, really. So that's a good thing. As to the interview with O'Reilly, is this the one you're refering to:
? Because I think that Bill is the one coming off badly, not Richard. And as you say, once you get past the question of evolution, the idea of whether or not there is a deity of any form is a matter of faith, not proof, so we leave the realm of science there.
I mean really, we could look at many different things as being that spark of the Divine. It could be an intelligence, deliberately creating and watching. Or it could be found in the laws of nature, hidden in the patterns of DNA, sub-atomic particles dancing around each other. Or it could be the creation itself, the original moment when everything began, sending it all on the pathto where we are now, and beyond. Or none of them. But that's a theological discussion. We could get into that, but I don't know if we really want to, it'll just get messy, and too many people will be unintentionally hurt by different expressions of spirituality.
Hmm, I'm not sure about Galileo re-writing a version of a scientifically acurate Bible, I've never come across that before. Where did you get that information from? He was certainly religious, as we were in the time of the Holy Roman Inquisition it would only be natural, and he certainly had religious friends, but all writings I have seen attributed to him are purely scientific and mathematic in nature.
He was asked by Pope Urban VIII to write both pro- and anti-heliocentric arguments (heavy on the anti...), and include the Pope's personal views in the book. He wrote the book, titling it "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems", and in it he had a character called Simplicio (said in the preface to be a reference to Simplicius, an Aristotelian philosopher) present most of the Pope's geocentric views... whether deliberately or not, Simplicio has the connotation of "simpleton", or "slow-witted" in Italian, so that was not taken well. For the record, it is popularly accepted that Galileo did not act out of malice, and did not intend to embarrass the Pope. However, the fallout resulted in Galileo's house arrest after being brought in to Rome to defend his writings.
Remember that this was the time of the Inquisition, so writings were supposed to be approved by the Papacy, and that was something Galileo had neglected to do, getting neither Papal nor Inquisition approval.
Most people don't know the nuts and bolts of natural phenomena. For instance, I have forgotten a substantial portion of the particle physics I tucked away in college. But it doesn't mean that my acceptance of physical explanations for the way matter and energy behaves is faith. Faith is believing something to be true without evidence. But I know there is evidence for string theory, etc. I just haven't evaluated the evidence firsthand.
I really liked physics in college, but differential equations was too much for me so I didn't take it as far as I was inclined.
