"Can't you get it into your head that 'scientifically' doesn't come into it? I wasn't trying to be 'scientific'""

How condescending, how like Dawkins.

You do not appear to realize that my original point, the one you were countering when you brought up the inquisition, brought science into it. YOU ARE CHANGING THE SUBJECT AND IMPLYING THAT I AM THE STUPID ONE FOR STICKING TO IT.

When Dawkins writes his books he does so as a scientist when he spouts unscientific nonsense in his books, naive, uncritical people take that as science. Or at least as words from a scientist.

"Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong."

Maybe we can get Bill D to parse this sentence. He has the vocabulary to describe convoluted tricks of logic.

Here is what I see. "Faith can be very very dangerous" Has he proved that "faith" is the cause of the atrocities committed in the name of religion? Not to me that is for sure. I don't think that "faith" causes a priest to bugger a child. Do you? The Crusades were a lot more about European politics and treasure than they were about faith. If they were about faith those noble knights might have stayed after the spoils tapered off. The inquisition was about consolidating power.

Can people commit atrocities of the same level without faith? I think you can think of some examples.

"deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong."

I have talked about the emotional words of the second part. He is certainly appealing to your reptile brains rather than your scientific, reasoning parts. Certainly Musket has bought into the idea of religious education = rape, let me say at this time that I am sympathetic to the points made by Jim Carroll about the Irish system. But let me try t say this carefully. What the priests are doing is rape. No one, not even the pedophile priests consider what they "implant" into those kids to be "faith."

Everyone agrees that raping kids is wrong. A friend of mine was raped and abused by "Christian" "brothers" in an orphanage when he was a child in Canada. Now the orphanage and "Brothers" are monitored when dealing with children. That is the way it should be.

But Mr. Dawkins goes far beyond that, doesn't he. He is saying that people like Joe Offer and my Christian cousin when they share their faith with their kids are "Implanting" something evil and doing their own kids a "grievous wrong."

"Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong."

I have to say that if you believe that sentence as written, I don't have time to talk with you. I will take the time to have a serious conversation, or even a lighthearted one, but trying to reprogram that level of delusion is a too daunting a task.