I made the claim that the religious do not base their objections to science on sound reason, but on purely religious beliefs, which are not open to reason.

This has precisely nothing to do with whether or not there is a rational reason for belief in gods or the supernatural. However, there are very good reasons for stating that the likelihood of there being such a supernatural world are vanishingly small; to the extent that it is both unreasonable to believe in such a world, and utterly ludicrous to ascribe attributes to that world based on no evidence whatsoever.

Science simply finds no basis for argument, in belief, either way. Belief, in a paranormal sense, is based on the existence of God (or a god, or a spiritual world (etc etc), whichever you prefer) and there are *no* grounds for a rational argument in either direction. Agnosticism, I think is the word; but I’m sure that as an atheist you’d find that a little too ’sitting on the fence’ for your liking.

(and drop me an email, your old one doesn’t work!!)

He keeps badgering on about “framing”, and how, if only we could find the right “frame” everyone would suddenly accept science; yet he not only overlooks the assumption that religious objections to science are not based on reason, he can’t even find the right frame for making that argument! If he feels that this kind of rhetoric is going to win over the scientists he’s castigating, then why should we for one minute believe that his approach will win over the hostile religious element?