I don't agree with Steve's assertion "[Religious faith] is absolutely in conflict with science".

Disappointing, Stu, coming from an ally, but I still love ya baby. But let's just have another lookee here. I said:

It is absolutely in conflict with science (er, not "scientific beliefs", which don't exist). That is the argument of the pusillanimous religionist who knows at the bottom of his heart that "there must be something in this science malarkey". But you can't have your cake and eat it. If you think that "God" created everything, whether in 4004 BC or billions of years ago, you are insulting the scientific process, which must be predicated on evidence alone, which is what as a God-squadder you have not got. Simple as that.

Actually, I think my argument was well made there. But let me expand a little. First, off, you can believe in God and be a damn good scientist. I've said that a dozen times. A bloke in the lab or in the field who conscientiously applies the scientific process to his work (shit - or her, sorry) can go home that evening and kneel down and pray and that is wonderful. Why not. Has anyone ever said different? Not me, for sure, and I'm a rabid atheist. I don't think that science need not be in conflict with religion.
But read what I said: religion is absolutely in conflict with science. NOT the other way round. Religion has, for millennia, set its face against science. In the most fundamental way, religion refuses to accept evidence whereas science is entirely predicated on it. Every single tenet of every religion is based on refuting evidence. Religion exists only because it sets its face entirely against science. But that is entirely religion's problem (and it's a growing problem as science advances). Science can't put itself in conflict with religion because religion deliberately puts its tenets beyond reason. The two can't communicate with each other even on the most basic level. Religion wants the conflict (I wish we could ask Darwin or Gallileo or Dawkins) but science is uninterested. Yes, Dawkins is interested, but not particularly as an evolutionary biologist, which is what he is. Dawkins' evolutionary biology can't confront religion because there is no common ground, based on reason, for a conversation to be had, but that isn't what Dawkins is really about. Religion seeks conflict with science and always has done, because science is a mortal threat to religion. But science can only concern itself with science. Which is why humanity has done quite well.