This one is very interesting to me personally as my university dissertation was precisely on this subject - and I argued that, yes, Richard Dawkins and others are promoting a scientific 'fundementalism' akin to the religious kind.

Now, to clarify, I don't actually believe my argument to be true (call me a cynic, I was playing for marks, and was happy with my 1st...controversy will get you anywhere in the academic world), and nor did I then, for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, your questions sets out that there is an intrinsic dispute between Dawkins and Christianity - this is not the case. Richard Dawkins argues against gnosticism in general, but his attack is towards those closest to him, and those most threatening to reasoned and progressive society - and being British, that means Christianity. He even calls himself a 'cultural Christian'. Furthermore he has little trepidation in refuting the claims of the Islamic faith, in the current public profile the next closest to most of us, and by extension all other gnostic ideologies.

Secondly, Dawkins argues in favour of scientific thought and is therefore dichotomous to the concept of fundamentalism, which has been taken to mean stubborn adherence to an idea or belief system. It does not, fundamentalism is quite specifically a Protestant Christian form that espouses strict and literal interpretation of the Bible. It arose in its modern, recognisable form from American Millenarians in the 19th Century as a direct response to the publication and widespread acceptance of Darwin's Theory. It is, to all intents and purposes, a more recent idea than evolutionary theory, and therein lies the frustration of many clear thinking individuals. The Islamic variation predates the Millenarian by a few years and was a politically motivated change in the 18th Century, which advocated a return to an Islamic power base after the crumbling of the Islamic Empire, resorting to Holy War if neccessary.

Scientific thought cannot be fundementalist by its very nature. It is the antithesis of fundementalism. Dawkins, among others, have little problem with a spiritual nature in humans - there's research that suggests we may have evolved (somewhat ironically) a part of our brains that must in some way have some kind of spiritual understanding, no matter how it manifests itself. I personally would have no issue with a Christian or Muslim who accepted our universal scientific truths, and acknowledged their value to us all, but maintained that there was perhaps in theory an overall 'Creator', perhaps passive, perhaps occasionally active in the context of megatime, perhaps absent since the big bang. I would disagree with them, but I would not be offended. I am offended by Christian and Muslim fundamentalism and ignorance, and I am therefore full of gratitude and admiration for Richard Dawkin's work, and his publicising of scientific (for which read 'atheistic') reasoning.

Science is not fundamentalist. A fundamentalist position (a belief) is held in the face of contradictory evidence. A scientific position (theory) is scrapped wholesale or modified in the face of contradictory evidence. Put another way, science requires evidence while fundamentalism is unconcerned with evidence.

Science is not opposed to the idea of a god. Indeed, if there were empirical evidence for the existence of a god, science would study it with the same relish and eagerness as any other evidence. Most skeptics and scientists remain open to all evidence, as long as it is rigorous. Take for example the $1 Million JREF challenge (among others). If a paranormal claim is ever demonstrated under a strictly controlled experimental paradigm, not only will the claimant receive the money, a brand new, extremely exciting area of research will immediately open. Science, in diametric contradiction to fundamentalism, is open-minded.

Science may not be opposed to the idea of a god, however, neither does science need to posit a god. Science operates according to the law of parsimony. The simplest explanation is accepted. When a god is posited to fill a theoretical or evidentiary gap, the explanation may seem simple (one god explains all gaps); however, envoking a super-natural being adds an entire layer of complexity, extending reality beyond the natural to the super-natural. Science, unlike fundamentalism, can live with incomplete explanation. Indeed, science thrives on and is driven by the unknown, the unexplained. Fundamentalism gives the answers, accepting no substitute, giving no quarter.

"Some people" are, certainly. I wouldn't say Dawkins is one of them. Show him convincing evidence for some religion and I am certain he'll be swayed, but the evidence is simply not there. So what position would you say he is close-minded to, and how is it logically and evidentially supported?

I suspect you're confusing intolerance with fundamentalism (and incidentally healthy skepticism with close-mindedness). Dawkins is not a fundamentalist, but he is intolerant of religious beliefs, and to an extent the religious believers. I admit to being quite sympathetic to his position, although I'm not willing to be as aggressive or intolerant in the pursuit of reasoned approaches to religion. Not only is it against my personality, but I don't think it necessarily persuades as effectively or allows our (atheists') arguments to be heard. But given the level of frustration felt by many atheists at the sheer ignorance of the religious about their own religions, inconsistencies, contradictions, historical origins and innacuracies, logical incompatibilities, and all, it's not that surprising that some atheists are sick of it. It's hard to point out to someone how foolish their position is, when they don't even understand, or care in many cases, what that position really is or why they take it.

What Dawkins HAS done, is talk well to the atheists - give us a kick up the backside about being more outspoken about our position and the dangers of faith - and promote science and rationalism in general.

Personally, although I am happy about the atheist movement, I just want to see critical thought and reason promoted. I am of the opinion that if we have a global population well-versed in critical thought, research skills, and reason, that individuals will then be able to make their own justifiable choices, and that most will ultimately decide atheism makes so much more sense than any of the various religions. Even those who don't will at least have the skills and knowledge to make rational choices about other issues, political, social, etc. I don't mind if someone has their own belief about a god or gods; it's when they start to push to conform society to their religious dogma, which they derive from their faith rather than rational principles, then it becomes a problem for society at large and even the believers.

Your "evolution leaves God with nothing to do (thus, no reason for a god)" stance sounds like a straw man argument. Evolution would certainly reduce the requirement for a God, but Dawkins would be the first to tell you that there are other mysteries that evolution does not cover such as the big bang, and how life on earth got started in the first place.

I cant imagine Dawkins would say evolution alone rules out a God. Evolution does make god redundant as far as the creator of all known life on earth.

"Does it not appear that some people, such as Richard Dawkins, are as fundamental and ungiving and close minded in their belief against God, as some Christians are against science?"

In the case of 'God', yes, he is.

In the case of deities, no, he is quite clear that it is impossible to prove a negative.

The moment you start trying to define any such deities though, or positing 'His' position on whether foreskins need excising, conjuring an image in your mind of Marilyn Monroe naked is committing the sin of adultery in your heart, or the 2007 floods was to punish faggot-lovers (as according to the Bishop of Carlisle) then you cross over into the territory of extraordinary claims, requiring extraordinary evidence.

I do not feel R. Dawkins is in anyway close-minded he states that as a scientist he would happily alter his position if credible, verifiable evidence were presented to him. In fact he also argues that this is the very distinction between science and faith. The scientist is open-minded to the possibility that his/her position, assumptions or methods may be wrong.

Ungiving? Perhaps Prof. Dawkins comes across in that way. A long period of listening to dogmatic and unevidenced religious views probably shortens one's patience. However in his TV shows he clearly listens patiently to the opinions of people of faith to whom he speaks and considers their position, and the evidence for it. The fact that he has so far come across none that he considers sufficient to change his position of the non-existence of God may appear ungiving.

As far as R. Dawkins is fundamental, or is a fundamentalist, I wholeheartedly agree with MGW Lahiffe, that he is not.

However I might interject here a slightly different take on the question posed. Is the recent rise in the profile of atheism, led by R. Dawkins, amongst others, a move to try to purge the beliefs of people of faith and replace them with atheism? It might certainly feel that way to believers who are not used to having their beliefs challenged and it might lead believers to consider this recent rise of atheism akin to their idea or concept of fundamentalism in the religious sense of the word.

If the atheist movement decides that it is right to go on a campaign to change the beliefs of the faithful (hard to see how that might be easily organised given the scattered and quiet nature of the atheists) then perhaps you could then level the charge of fundamentalism in the religious sense, similar in nature to missionary work. However I do not think atheists are attempting a take-over, they are instead challenging the taboo that religion is above all other ideas and cannot be challenged. They are in R. Dawkins own words "raising consciousness" that religion is not sacred, that atheists should get together for the purposes of having their say, being heard and having some coherency, and that the faithful should question their faith for themselves. In this way atheism may spread, not be force, coercion or campaigning but by rationality itself.

To answer the point on evolution my understanding of the premise is this: A belief in evolution, which is a well evidenced, coherent and in many ways beautiful mechanism to explain how we humans came about (as well as all of the rest of nature – see the beauty?) eliminates the need to believe in any of the supernatural means by which we could have come to exist. There is no need for a creation story, as far as nature and people are concerned, evolution takes care of that. I do not think that evolution alone is an argument for the non-existence of God. You could argue, as a Christian who is happy with old earth and evolution that God invented evolution and set it to work, but it is an argument which deals with the question of how we arose, without the need for anything supernatural. Evolution is as Dawkins says is a crane which explains many things in a scientific and rational manner. Does evolution weaken the position of faith, yes in that, how we came about is one of great mysteries that faith exists to help us answer, science has in this case answered that question. I hope with enough time science will answer many of the other fundamental questions and each time it does I hope some of the faithful will see the light of science and be tempted to come over to atheism.

Fundamentalism (non-denominational definition) = "strict adherence to the fundamental principles of any set of beliefs"

By this definition, science is a fundamentalist movement, since it strictly adheres to the principles of the scientific method. Scientists believe that the scientific method is superior to other methods of acquiring knowledge. Science is entirely dependent on observable naturalistic evidence and it explicitly sets out to minimise assumptions. The caveat being that an inherent assumption is made that the universe conforms to logical and observable (natural) criteria.

This makes science unsuitable for testing generic claims of the supernatural (since the supernatural by definition cannot be described by natural means), although it is capable of testing specific claims that require invocation of supernatural agency to be possible (i.e. if the claim can be shown to be possible without invocation of a supernatural agency the claim can be legitimately dismissed). For those who believe in the efficacy of the scientific method (people like me I hasten to add) do tend to assume that the demonstrable power of the method is enough to persuade anyone that science is the most effective route to knowledge, however, there are many people who neither understand nor trust science, so it is unsurprising that there are clashes between fundamentalists who have a different set of fundamental beliefs about the best source of knowledge.

There is no doubt in my mind that science is fundamentalist, the issue should be whether it is appropriate for a scientist to make explicit claims about the non-existence of God, when one of the fundamentals of science precludes us from being able to make such claims. By explicitly stating that there is no God, Dawkins is effectively demonstrating that he is NOT a fundamentalist with regard to science. His conclusions are unscientific because they are untestable. The only opinion a fundamentalist scientist should come to is that the balance of evidence suggests that God does not exist, but there is no method of directly testing that hypothesis.

As to evolution removing the requirement for God, it makes sense in terms of Christianity. If the story of Adam and Eve in Eden is not true then it raises serious questions regarding the origin of the very concept of sin. The sacrifice of Jesus was God's mechanism by which the punishment for sin that was his Law could be carried out by proxy, freeing humanity from the punishment of death. Of course, if the whole episode in Eden never happened then there is no requirement for Jesus' sacrifice, making the whole underlying concept of Christianity utterly redundant. It's hard to see how a Christian God can survive in that context.