With all due respect David Sugarman, evangelical atheists are just as annoying and unpleasant as evangelical Christians. Indeed, in some ways they are worse. By misappropriating evolutionary biology to push a religious agenda, they end up providing great ammunition to evangelical fundamentalists who can then push the idea that acceptance of evolution is acceptance of atheism. Speaking as an evolutionary biologist, that just makes my job harder when it comes to trying to get the public to accept and learn about evolution. I am not defending the fundamentalists. I think they are morally repugnant. I have been on the receiving end of their vileness (I also have a research advisory committee member who got death threats after testifying at the Dover trial). The thing is, though, that fundamentalism is not all of religion. Indeed, I would say that fundamentalists fundamentally misunderstand religion. Just because they misunderstand religion, however, that is no justification for fundamentalist atheists to misunderstand religion in turn. But I am a fuzzy-minded Unitarian, so what do I know?

So what do you recommend? Execution of all non-atheists, or simply forced re-education and rehabilitation? Burning of all religious texts? Your attitude as expressed on these boards has been pretty Manichean and extreme. Indeed, I can see it as being potentially just as destructive as the hard core attitudes of the religious of any stripe, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or atheist. You may not be like that at all, and I don't mean to imply you are, but that is how you can come off in what you write.

Hypatia was the neoplatonic equivalent of a priestess. Eratosthenes flourished, and the Great Library of Alexandria was founded under absolute monarchs who proclaimed themselves to be living gods in a country where animals were considered divine. The ancient world (an interest of mine, as might be discerned from my user name) was steeped in religion to a degree almost un-imaginable today. As for the dark ages, keep in mind that they never happened in the Byzantine Empire that was more religious than the fallen West. The world is far more complex than you seem to think. Religion and inquiry are not inherently in conflict. Religion and science are not inherently in conflict (indeed, a goodly number of important scientists through the ages and still today are quite religious). Religion of any sort that brooks no dissent and permits no doubt certainly is, but not religion itself. That is what frightens me about the more militant atheists and Christians: they don't doubt much, and most certainly not their own belief that they have it all worked out.

Yeez, Dave. I don't know who you think you are replying to, but it wasn't me. I would be considered by most to be an agnostic or atheist, as well as a sort of secular humanist. I don't believe in any sort of a creator. I most certainly don't think that all ideas are equal. I don't know where you got that. I do believe that there is a difference between mythos and logos. I do believe in doubting one's own beliefs a way of avoiding action without reflection and intolerance. I believe that everyone should be tolerated to the extent that they are willing to extend that same toleration to others. I believe proselytizing is deeply wrong. I believe that blind belief in anything will almost always lead to catastrophe. I believe in Santa Claus, but I don't believe he exists.

I believe you also need to try to be a little less dogmatic and angry. You got really unpleasant there in that last message, and I really don't think it was called for. You certainly didn't read much of what else I had written on the same thread.

Anonymous made a point I didn't disagree with. ID has no place in science, is scientifically invalid, and facts should not be distorted to make it seem scientifically defensible. However, ID is justifiable as a philosophy, as arguments can be made that can allow it to be consonant with the universe as it is observed, even if those arguments are not testable empirically. I also think that ID is perfectly valid as a part of one's mythos. It isn't logos though. Anonymous made it clear that he wasn't trying to argue that it was logos. I am fine with that, and I said so. If his religion includes ID as a position, but his view of science does not invoke ID, as a scientist, that does not bother me at all.

If there is a storming of Alexandria, I will be there with you on the ramparts, but I will not agree with you that all religion is worthless, or that there is not a qualitative difference between Rumi and bin Ladin (as you seem to be saying). I think you also need to keep in mind that passion can easily slip in under the name of reason. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some research to work on that I hope to publish on this lifetime.