Science may be a self-consistent, pragmatic, testable, framework from within which one can view the world. The same could be said for religion. The problem arises for those of us who generally accept and use scientific knowledge when science decides to pontificate on matters religious - or vice versa!

Dawkins is a respected scientist, but does he have some special knowledge of the science of God that allows him to decide anything authoritatively, about God’s existence or if admitting that God ‘may’ exist, what sort of being or personality or power God may be?

There are many scientists who are believers, perhaps even the majority of scientists would profess faith in God - in one form or another. Most of these scientists do not believe that practising science means a suspension of their belief in God!

I personally do not see that a clash needs to arise between science and God. At the simplest level we can look at scienctific study of the past as an attempt to find out how God has done things. Our general experience convinces us that God has given us a pretty stable universe in the sense that its functioning can be studied and to some extent understood.

Of course, as Peter pointed out, science is constantly in flux, and what is certain today may be fodder for the roundcan tomorrow. on these grounds alone it seems to me to be foolish to pit today’s scientific wisdom against whatever philosophy, religion, culture, may hold true.

As we have ourselves seen that a fresh perspective on hermeneutics can have remarkable effects on our beliefs/doctrine, so religion and human experience, society and culture are not either stable enough for dogmatism to be allowed to reign.

I don’t think that that leaves us in some sort of agnostic limbo, for engagement can and should take place but with a firm understanding of the limits of knowledge on all sides.

To be frank, most of what have been advanced as creationist theories strike me as being based on very poor exegesis of the scriptures. It would be exciting to have the early chapters of Genesis given a fresh look, from a narrative perspective and without too much source critical confusion intruding, to see what the bible really does and doesn’t say about how God created this universe.

Without doing the groundwork on both sides, debate between the scientific and the religious worldviews is not likely to be productive or fruitful for either side.

Live to serve : Serve to live