Well Dawkins sure debunked that notion of hostility to religion!

"I give Dawkins credit, he did say it was not unreasonable to believe in God"

I think it was the Cardinal who said that or at least that's how I read it.

>>Speaking later on Radio 4, CARDINAL MURPHY-O'CONNOR answered those criticisms. He said: "I think there are a number of people in this country who would like to marginalise religion.

"They would much prefer not to see religion as neutral, but to neutralise it.

"And there are unbelievers who construct their own God in order to demolish him."

Of claims that faith has no basis in reason, he replied: "To believe in God is not unreasonable."<<

Caps added for clarification

"Heck many countries, in a probably well meaning attempt to make everyone equal, have banded religion in many spheres of public life"

And in a diverse society where equality is valued it should be banned.  Let's use the example of prayer in school.  To ensure equality you have two options, have prayer for every concievable religion which would leave no time for learning, or not have it at all.  You can let people pray at school but unless the school is a private institution it cannot and should not place one religion above any other.

"Any1 seen the movie Expelled?"

No and I don't intend to.  My understanding of the film is that it is Ben Stein complaining about ID not being taught as science.  For anyone who shares this opinion I have to clarify something for you.  Intelligent Design is NOT science, there is nothing scientific about it; if someone claimed there was a chemical solution that when applied to the skin rendered you invulnerable yet could not produce any of the chemical or any evidence that it existed and actually worked would it be chemistry?  The only arguments I've heard in favour of ID are simply pointing out what other theories fail to explain, often because it's not part of the theory.  I've heard ID supporters say "Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life so it's wrong." (paraphrasing of course)  Evolution explains the diversity of life and has absolutely nothing to do with the origin of life so of course it's not going to explain it.  And they do the same with other theories as well.  So basically from what I've seen the only argument the greatest minds behind Intelligent Design can come up with is pointing out holes in theories of which they have only a loose, and exceptionally flawed, understanding.  This is not to say Intelligent Design is not a valid theory on the origin of the universe however it belongs in the spheres of philosophy and theology not science.

So? Diversity is a secular value, championing it over faith is intolerance

... DPS, your probably right about Dawkins not saying it.

I saw Expelled and yeah I'm biased but I think he did the best anyone could do on the subject to present both sides with roughly equal time and opportunity to let their views be known.  BUT the problem with Expelled is NOT that Ben wants ID TUAGHT but there were people fired not for preaching about ID but having anything remotely close to saying that there is order in the universe.  I'm not sure how familar you are with the tenure system but pretty much after you have tenure you probably need to commit murder to get fired.  But there were professors that have research that could vauguly be claimed to be pointing towards some structure or order and they were fired.  There was a guy who was an editor or a biology magazine or something.  OTHER PEOPLE criticed an article "supporting" some claims that there are weaknesses in Evolutionary theory.  The Editor did what editors should do, other learned people said it was ok and so he saw no problem with publishing it.  After that he two was fired.  You have no idea how much I agree with you.  ID has no place in the *science classroom.  You want to teach it in religous classes then sure.  But if you are doing research that can and is valid then it should be allowed to continue.  If there are holes in the research then discredit the research from a scientific perspective.  There was a time when ironically the Church was preventing science from progressing.  Now what science is afraid of investigating certain areas?

Also, there is a big difference between schools forcing students to pray and allowing them to pray, and where it currently stamds forbidding them to pray.  That is the problem, it is not PERMITTED in many public places.  If you have an opinion then you should be free to express it.  If I like one political party can't I speak about it in public even if you dislike that party?  Then why is it fair to disallow me to freely speak about my God?  DPS, just read ur last post.  Exactly, I agree no special treatment but if I wish to practice my religion in a way that doesn't actually harm anyone else then why can't I? 

I would suggest you watch the movie, from a perspective of stiffling any alternative view.  One of the funniest scenes was when Dawkins was explainning why it was more probable for some "advanced" alien civilization to have seeded the Earth with life.  Kinda by definition allowing the possibility of ID.  But again, wasn't *supposed to be the point of the movie.  It was about the wrongs done to scilence any contraryian view of how Biology and creation works.

ID isn't a religious argument, it's a philosophical proof; either way, it's not science. just throwing it out there