Why debate dogma?

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I think that at the heart at the present debate (or clash, if you will) about faith against atheism is the fundamental premise of the Pat Condell’s (and a lot other atheists’) argument that it is entirely unacceptable that religion claims that to be able to hold a special position: That it cannot be discussed as it is a matter of faith. If you bring this argument to any discussion you are disqualified from the very start. You cannot debate what cannot be questioned!So religious people has to live with that they unless they can bring evidence, logic ans so on to the fore it is as difficult to respect their views (not them as individuals, of course) as it is to respect those of someone who believe in the celestial teacup:.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970).

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