Have some scientists been too fanatical?

You, like most here, have a very parochial, that is, American view of this subject.It seems that in the USA the religious arguments are extreme and current. For most of Europe the Religion v Science debate was over years ago. There's very little fuss about it now - although here in the UK there has been a resurgent of the evangelical movement - a US import - which baffles most of us.Most religious people here, if asked, would say that they were Christians but they have the vague kind which blends nicely with modern society - i have never yet met a YEC in the UK though they do exist. The concept that science is somehow incompatible with religion is not widely held so we have no real problem teaching evolution in our schools. (With some exceptions - our growing Muslim communities can be a little problematic and we have our share of cults.)I'm not at all sure why the US hasn't moved with the rest of the Western world given its expenditure on science and technology but the more the religious fight against facts, the more unconvincing it becomes and the less influence it carries. I suspect the extremeness of the arguments are an indication that one side feels its losing.The funny thing is that science isn't even aware that there's a fight - it really couldn't care less what religion believes, it's just getting on with its business of finding out how things work.

Yes, it leaves us slighlty puzzled and rather disappointed. Like seeing your child behaving badly at school; we look on rather helplessly and just hope they'll grow out of their juvenile, selfish behaviour.

This is interesting. Most fundamental religious people are happy to call atheists immoral or incapable of morality. And, especially in the US, it seems to me that most religious people have an underlying belief very similar to that despite equivocation.I see your particular equivocation is that I, as an atheist, can only have 'great' moral values if I can respect a person of alternative views. The implication is that the particular alternative view in question is a belief in a particular God.Well, I'm sorry, that isn't the test.You should also know that the assumption, inbuilt but unsaid, that atheists are somehow amoral or sub-moral compared to a religious person is deeply insulting and a nasty form of prejudice equivalent to the racial prejudices openly shown against coloured people until relatively recently.

This is simply not true - the ToE deals with life once it has started, not before. But it's such a universal mis-understanding by creationist that it would be useful if you told us why you think it is the case.

The problem here is that your understanding of science is derived not from science but from cherry picking random googles on the bloody internet.Can't you see how that might get you the wrong answers?

This may seem pedantic but it's important.It's not true that all atheists think that there is a scientific explanation for why we got here. Some may think that science may one day explain how things happened - personally, I'm not one of them - but why? is not necessarily something science can explain, nor is it a necessity for not believing in a god.I think it fair to say that most atheists would say that their primary objection to the god hypothesis is not God but religion. Because we know that religion is a man made invention, it's conventional to throw the God idea out with the religious bathwater.But atheists, being primarily rationalists, would mostly also tell you that they can't rule out a deistic non-interventionist kind of god. So to that extent most atheists are in fact agnostics. But that's mainly playing with words - all it means is that we don't know yet, so we can't rule stuff out.What I find interesting from a European perspective is that religion here has pretty much adopted science into our religions whilst in the US there is this black and white distinction it seems like you're still having the arguments that we had in the 19th century, but with now no hope of success as the science that you're rebelling against has been settled for over 100 years.