ACB good question regarding the preconditions for the big bang. i see that as the ultimate question and im disappointed it wasnt asked on the show. id be very interested to know Dawkin's ideas on that and i intend to read up to find out. String Theory is interesting here cos it proposes that the big bang was not in fact the "start" but rather the result of the coming together of two three dimensional plains, i think?(gets complicated here and i dont pretend to understand it)
the debate between agnosticism and athiesism is most interesting and i acknowledge that to be an athiest implies that one "knows" definitively that a god doesnt exist, but that could be a little pretentious and begs the question how can one know what was before the big bang without proof, and so maybe athiesm itself must be a matter of "faith" which is a word that most athiests dont like to be associated with. i recall a good definitional discussion of this is on wikipedia
on the other hand there has been research done on the correlation between ones beliefs in this area and ones IQ. from memory on average athiests score approx 2 points more than agnostics who score 2 points more than non denominational believers who score 2 point more than catholics who score 2 points more than christians... which is certainly food for thought.
by the way larlie, my last response was not directed to you and i was talking about Dawkins (not McNab) and he was talking about 10,000 yrs not 100,000yrs.
