watching q and a, richard dawkins vs the catholic bishop george pell, my expectations were low, i mean one is a fat old catholic who can't accept homosexuals as equals, the other is a fundamentalist rationalist. while i concede dawkins is very intelligent and comes across much smarter than anything pell seemed to be able to throw out, he really seemed to have a myopic understanding of reality including science, in exactly the same way pell is trapped. it was like watching two mirrors standing face to face. we all hoped to see some new refreshing image but instead what we get is an inversion, reflections of the same thing.
the q and a team would have been much better if they left the bishop out and brought in people from other religions, a mystic, a hindu, a kabbalist, a voodoo high priest of love, i just think when you throw catholicism to the rationalistic science of logic your pretty much going to have a winner and a loser.
pell is a tired infant, his mind is weak and sluggish, he was vague and had not got the experience to push anyone's idea of god let alone his own. he couldn't answer questions, dawkins didn't need to work hard, it was like watching a train wreck as religion/spirituality/mysticism all slipped off the tracks and exploded in dawkin's shadow.
pell had a totally ridiculous idea of the old testament, and misrepresented it, when he spoke about science he failed to use it to support his argument scientifically, instead giving us his personal stories of his travels and experiences with little children who asked him questions. he believed in heaven and hell and that the bread becomes the body of christ quite literally, which would indicate some sort of cannibalistic ideal behind catholicism that no one seemed to pick on. if there was one winner on the show it was tony james who held his own ground very well and asked the best questions, often catching pell out in his hypocrisy. now i like a good argument about religion and science but not at the expense of one another, scientists have always had a religious facet to them, often using mysticism as a source for their inspiration, the two cannot be separated and the best example of this is buddhism although there are many more.
i'd like to see something a little more challenging, perhaps dawkins needs to leave his mind for a while, use some lsd or magic mushrooms, experience ayahuscia, drink some mescaline, then he can come back and discuss these experiences. it would be foolish for him not to do this as a scientist, for the brain is what the scientist uses to measure results, and the brain has it's limits unless it can be circumnavigated to investigate other dimensions and intelligences. 
i bet richard dawkins would scoff at the idea a plant can have an intelligence that is far superior to human, because he has no experience of engagement outside his brain. 
any intelligent designer would allow it's creation room to evolve. 
when they spoke about what came before the big bang, the idea of nothing arrives, both completely missed the kabbalistic points here, something which i think would have swung the argument slightly in favour of a belief in god, however you wish to define it.
actually if i was tony james i would have given both my guests mescaline out in the desert in private away from cameras, and then come back and interviewed them about it, but of course neither of them are brave enough to do this, because it means leaving their fixed points of reference behind, and where would either of them be without those. pell may actually do somethings worthy of god, and dawkins may actually escape his prison.