The last ten posts went straight over my head. You guys have completely lost me.
@ Easy_Rider
I think your interpretation of the point Dawkins was making in your last post is correct. As far as I know, he never referred to knowledge of the Bible alone as the reason to say that most of the people identifying as christian on the census are not really christian, but he certainly mentioned it among other things, such as belief that Jesus was the son of God and whatnot. I don’t think this is arrogant though. He was not saying that he knows better than these people, he was just clearing up a confusion that can arise due to the ambiguous use of the term ‘christian’.
The term ‘christian’ can have different meanings. The term ‘christian’ can refer exclusively to somebody who believes in the standard christian beliefs, goes to church, does other standard christian things. The broader use of the term can also refer to people who come from christian families, and identify as christians, even if they don’t really believe any of the christian beliefs, don’t do any of the christian stuff. The point Dawkins was making is that most people who identified as christian on the census were christian by the second definition, and not by the first. This is an important distinction because as soon as the census results came out, it was clear that a lot of people would use the results to justify arguments or political policies that would only make sense if the majority of people in the country were christian by the first definition, and would not make sense if they were in fact chritian by the second definition.