No I have no problem with that post because they are your views and you are trying to understand things like the rest of us. I also would never suggest to anyone that they don't read Dawkins books just because I disagree with him. I do that with Dan Brown and Robert Bauval because they have agendas against the church and fabricate their 'facts' to suite their argument. Dawkins is far more sincere and the theory he supports and presents on his books on evolution are mainly about the science, and although many biologists would disagree with the specific theory of the selfish gene, they would not say he is twisting it all around to suite his agenda.

And no there is no need at all to "quote the bible every two minutes" if you are studying the science itself. Thats for the ID/Creationist people and its not science and its not theology. But there is an issue where you say "thats philosophy" and then talk about science as "progress" as if its completely independant from philosophy or religion but can still comment on them. The "Enlightenment" had some great aspects to it, but it was grounded in a change of philosophy that started with people like Decartes. The old Thomastic way of thinking was turned upside down. Rather than human consciousness trying to understand the fundamental concepts of reality, the fundamental concepts became aspects of human consciousness. This is much more subtle than it may seem to us now but was a big deal at the time. The epistemology of science is now based within this ontology, and then this epistemology is applied back onto these fundamental concepts and its no surprise that they then seen as aspects of human consciousness. This is the fundamental heart of why you get creationists. Science has become so specialised that the philosophy behind it has become detached, and the process has become the philosophy and is even (generally unconsciously) considered to be valid as a philosophy.

So its fine (even good) to study the science as science and not want the bible quoted all through it. But its also good to step back from the fundamentals of what I could call decartian empiricism, and realise that science is restricted by its nature to a fairly small element of the whole. After all, what is matter ? What is energy ? What is time ? What is being ? You don't need to step far back from science as a whole to realise its based on some pretty fundamental assumptions on the nature of reality.

Simon