Live and let live
As someone said (can't be bothered to click 'Back' and remind myself who), the problem with the Live and let live philosophy is that a substantial number of religious people of all denominations aren't prepared to reciprocate. Also, his point is that if there *is* no God, then a large number of children are being brough up to believe lies - and certainly in this country (UK) it's almost impossible to choose an atheist upbringing for your child without home-schooling or forcing them to be excluded from a significant portion of school life. (I'm not just talking about 'religious' schools here - my children go to a standard school with no official offiliation to any church)
As for whoever said Dawkins was a hypocrite for speaking on areas he has no expertise, that's nonsense - Dawkins area of expertise is the origin and development of life on this planet - that sounds like a great qualification for speaking about religion to me. Otherwise, the only people qualified to speak about it are religious people themselves, which kind of biases your arguments! He's only arguing against the factual side of religion anyway - creation myths, the idea of a personal deity who can wreak miracles, etc - not against moral teachings, although he does argue persuasively that we're wrong to assume that moral teachings stem from religion; he argues that religious teachings follow trends in moral values, not the other way round (as with the general shift in most churches today towards better attitudes towards women, homosexuality and other traditional areas of religious bigotry).
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 26 Nov 2007, 8:12, Reply)