Dawkins debates Religion

Ruth Gledhill - she is the Times newspaper correspondent for Religion - writes in her blog about a recent debate on Religion organized by the Times. A section that put a smile on my face:

Nigel Spivey, who teaches classical art and archaeology at Cambridge and Rabbi Neuberger were particularly anxious to emphasise their non-religious credentials. Julia repeatedly emphasised that she was so liberal as to be almost near to dropping off the edge, and Spivey likewise was keen to make sure we knew he was not one bit religious himself. Oh no. He was just enormously appreciative of the enormous contribution that religion had made to art and archaeology. The religious instinct was an intrinsic part of human nature, he said. It was either there because it was necessary for survival, in a Darwinian sense, or because it was an ineradicable side-product of some other essential gene. I felt here that I was a bit like a monkey, still in thrall to this strange religious gene, and Spivey was a zoo keeper, observing the phenomenon and its benefits. He had evolved to the point where he was aloof to it all himself, but he was happy to nurture and acknowledge it, especially when usefully caged in the prism of arts and architecture.

There's some Dawkins bashing - she calls him a fundamentalist - but then she does give the numbers that are quite interesting. You can see the fundamentalists hardening (fundamentalists of the religious kind, there are not fundamentalist scientists and atheists) and the unsure folks taking sides.

The motion [for the debate] was: 'We'd be better off without religion.' The first vote was 826 votes for the motion, 681 against and 364 don't knows. By the end, the voting was 1,205 for the motion, 778 against and 100 don't knows.

Ruth points to another blog Why Don't You Blog that balances the above bias and also takes on the "scientists take religion literally" defence used by the religious.