It's really a sad day when an atheist knows the Bible better than someone who is trying to claim that Genesis is anything other than symbolic. 
No, it isn't (a sad day), I'd venture to say that to "know" the bible is a prerequesite for many people to
become atheists.
This is false. Dawkins usually proclaims that "his" truth is truth with a "small t", not with a "capital T". This is the perfect summary of a relativistic take on matters of truth. Don't confuse assertiveness with absolutism.
He still attempts to establish a truth value based off of evidential inquiry, but truth by any means is still relative. That includes the little and large letters.
Of course he does. He and any sane person. Or are you impying that the evidence that the earth orbits the sun is not to be trusted? The relativism of truth is something quickly misunderstood by many people, and many good people think it refers to "moral relativism", which in turn they misunderstand as the attitude of "everyone has the right to believe in their own ethics" and bull**** like that. "Relativism" has a bad rap as a word. But by the words of Dawkins one knows a true relativist. And he is one
.
Most people are "dualists"? Where the hell did you come up with these statistics? Most academics that I know of have a derision towards dualism, and since Damasio's work, it's even seen as an errand's fool, an anachronic thinking.
I probably should go in detail with "watered down versions of dualisms in its thousand forms," but I will concede it goes on a train to "what the hell am I talking about?" as dualism turns into a giant ocean of what do we define as dualism. So for the sake of avoiding mumbo jumbo then I'm actually not going to undertake this part.
I think that you really believe there is some truth to what you are saying, while I don't. The fact that you choose to ignore this part of the conversation doesn't win you any points... but then again I don't think conversations should be about points
. Let's just agree to disagree then.
Truth is a proposition issue, dealt with in logic. The "color" issue is the conscience issue. Surely the last bastion of people that still profit in telling tales to their fellowmen, without any concern for scientific rigor.
The problem of conciousness remains a ***** of a question and deals with a number of things that makes any academic head spin, hence forth why it's called the hard problem. My few attempts at studying it are like being strapped to a Shivan Dragon with Quantum Delta flying in circles.
Mostly because people think "big". It's like building a giant FS campaign. People always start off like "I'm gonna build FS3, with giant perfect ships, rape beams, shivan towns, massive missions, it's gonna be HUGE". And then they start to see what that means in terms of actual work. To work out the "hard" problem, you have to learn so many things about the brain and the rest of the body, and psychology and philosophy and etc.,etc., that you probably give up before even starting, cause just to figure out "where" to begin has lost you a full year.
That's why science progresses in "smaller" questions. It is progressing, btw. We will have an answer.
Well, that's anyone's prerrogative. I think people have the right to be pissed off of what some religion has done to their particular field of interest.
But also a lot of it was poltics as well - a funny example is the persecution of Cantor by Kronecker. I'm not saying this is giving religion a mulligan - but a lot of stuff is intrinsically linked with politics.
Everything social is politics. Even science is political. We are apes, and are condemned to behave as such.
Is reality teleological?
I'm not sure. However, reality doesn't make sense, especially when we face paradoxical situations.
Innit.
