I have some sympathy with the former archbishop. I am sometimes struck by how easy it seems to be to dismiss all religion as merely wrong, like Dawkins does.

Religion has as much evidence as Santa Claus does.

It's very easy to dismiss such things.

What does "right" mean in this question?

If you can accept that the bible is true and factual (not metaphorical) then you can believe anything, including that god created the universe and that science is faithfully documenting the behavior of his creation. But does belief (or an openness to belief) in both ideas mean they are both right? that they are both potentially right?

This question stinks of some kind of logical fallacy, something like "if two ideas do not contradict then they must support each other"

The Big Answer:

You'll find out someday.

A bit too short to be upvoted I would say. But they mentioned Terry Pratchett and Discworld. So I say FUCK YEAH, UPVOTE!

MAGIC IS REAL

I guess put my point badly: I don't think there is any literal truth in the bible. I also don't believe in any god; neither do I believe in Santa Claus.

My point is that Dawkins and company seems to discredit everything that has anything to do with religion. The bible and other "sacred" texts contain quite a lot of interesting stuff. I am no expert in this, but I have seen som analyses of Genesis and other texts which reveal quite rich symbolics and philosophy.

Of course, the skewed critisism could just be a result of them having to debunk fundie nonsense all the time.

or you could just read actual philosophy books, by authors who specialise in the field, rather than a bronze age myths book.

"Bronze age" or "Space age", make a choice.

Actually there's more evidence for Santa Claus than God. Santa used to bring me presents; God never did shit.

^schumi_4_ever:
I both can and do.

I agree with Almanildo. While I think you can dismiss all dogmatic thinking and supernatural explanations out of hand, religious texts have played and still plays a major role in literature, arts and philosophy. The texts are also interesting in other aspects.

To dismiss the texts as uninteresting would be wrong, something I don't think people like Dawkins do.

*dead

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