On the value of upsetting atheists

There is, perhaps comfortingly, a clockwork predictability to the outrage spilling from some sections of the science community in response to the fact that Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, has accepted this year's Templeton prize. The million-pound award is given annually to those whose work in science has something to say about what the Templeton foundation describes as "the big questions." Lord Rees' life-long efforts "peering into the farthest reaches of the galaxies" have been commended, on this occasion, for raising "questions" about "our nature and existence" and opening "a window on our very humanity." 

This seems fair enough. Many of us - when not flattened by the daily schlep of life - are at least inclined to ponder the mysteries of our existence; to wonder how and why we came to be this particular being, in this particular time, clinging to this particular planet in the vast chasm of space. For those who hail from the intellectual enclave inhabited by Dawkins and his compatriots, this kind of thinking is, however, nothing but the thin end of the wedge. To wonder aloud about what it might all mean - or what our lives might be for - is the start of a slippery-slope; one which leads inevitably, and in short order, to a murky bog of quasi-medieval bible-bashing, spooky superstitions and religious zealotry.