"shimrod-certainly science is not dogma,but people come to it with presuppositions.with most evolutionists IMO that equals dogma , that to quote an evolutionist will not"let a divine foot in the door ... "

Yes, in some cases that may be true. But I was introduced to Religion at a very early age, and to a scientific way of thinking much later in life. I've been thinking about Religion a lot lately and trying to remember what the child that I was then thought about it. It's very hard to put myself back into that child's shoes but I now believe that, essentially, he humoured the adults who were trying to teach/indoctrinate him. In 'the core of his being' he believed that all of the stories, prayers, hymns etc. had nothing to do with him and were irrelevant to his life. To be very honest I didn't understand most of what I was taught. I suppose that I assumed that the lack of understanding was some failure of intelligence on my part - but now realise that a lot of it was because the material didn't make much sense.

So, perhaps I am unwilling to "let a divine foot in the door" because I've never really believed in the divine.

I should say, though, that I'm perfectly happy for you to believe in anything you want and I certainly don't want to suppress Religion (even if I was in a position to do so). But what I do object to, and am prepared to fight against if necessary, is any form of religious fundamentalism - because I believe it to be a danger to us all. I'm pretty certain that fundamentalists would try and force me to accept their ludicrous beliefs and abandon my belief in the centrality of science and the scientific method. Let's make no mistake about it: creationism is a central, anti-scientific, fundamentalist position.

If religious fundamentalists want me to take their beliefs seriously they're going to have to come up with something better than picking random quotes from the Bible and elevating them to 'Divine Truth' and jeering every time they think they've found a 'gap' in current scientific knowledge. No wonder some scientists won't let "a divine foot in the door"!