Lexi,
Before accepting the arguments of Dawkins also read the counter arguments to Dawkins ther are many books available including Dawkins public Gaffs and admissions of possibilities God could exist.

"So the Atheist Conference now has government funding too. It continues to amaze me that revenue is wasted on these personal activities and choices - atheists and theists alike."

From :

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/government-comes-to-atheist-party-20110514-1enkv.html

"Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau chief executive Sue Chipchase said the convention would deliver an economic boost to the state of $7.6 million."

Conventions like this bring money into the economy, the government would fund an accounting convention, a toy convention or any other convention that brings money into the state. The funding for the atheist convention is a standard funding any group bringing number into the state can get, to help support this influx of capital.

A 20-year-old man accused of whipping a Sydney man 40 times as part of an alleged sharia law punishment for drinking alcohol has been granted bail. ABC News.
ONE of the nation's top Muslim leaders, Sheik Mohamadu Nawas Saleem, has supported a plan to introduce sharia law in Australia, saying it could operate in the family law system through a new model of Islamic arbitration. But Attorney-General Robert McClelland yesterday killed off any calls for sharia law in Australia, saying there was no place for it in the Gillard government's debate about multicultural policy. ABC News.
I would be interested to hear the Sheik’s slant on the case of the 20-year-old.
However, harsh penal aspects of the law, including stoning and chopping off hands, will never work and aren't being called for, Islamic Friendship Association of Australia president Keysar Trad says.

What kind of law condones chopping off of hands and stonings in the first place. According to Keysar we just embrace the good bits

I guess that could conceivably count as a retraction Paul1405, albeit a pretty weak one.

>>ONE of the nation's top Muslim leaders, Sheik Mohamadu Nawas Saleem, has supported a plan to introduce sharia law in Australia, saying it could operate in the family law system through a new model of Islamic arbitration.<<

You don't seem to have completely embraced the idea, though, that there is a difference between the potential for Islamic arbitration and the "religious demand, Australians should live under Sharia law".

You might also care to acknowledge that being granted bail on an assault charge is not the same as being exonerated. And your speculation...

>>I would be interested to hear the Sheik’s slant on the case of the 20-year-old<<

...can be helped along by the knowledge that "Representatives of Sydney's Muslim community have condemned the alleged lashing attack.", as reported here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-19/sharia-lashing-190711/2799862

Have another go at the apology, why don't you. It's quite simple, you just say "Sorry, I got it all wrong".

You can practice in front of the mirror a few times to get the hang of it if you like.

All the bravura over this liberal-rationalist brand of atheism Dawkins and his mates espouse hyperbolically obviates criticism that ought to be directed at itself.
It is simply not true that "the menace of religious extremism [is]threatening everyone’s quality of life". What bloody nonsense! This might be applicable to a tiny minority, whereas most religious people are both peaceful and either enjoy or aspire to the same kind of "quality of life" alluded to. The kind of "quality of life" Ditchkins and co enjoy and promote is also enjoyed or aspired to by their conservative (religious) allies.
Dawkins and co are not simply espousing "science, reason and secular values in today’s society", they are also implicitly supporting the status quo, that is Western hegemony and the capitalist juggernaut; the real menace is "positivist" extremism, which threatens everybody's very existence!
The "quality of life" supposedly threatened by religious extremism (on what front are these extremists in the ascendency?), that the rational optimists enjoy, is utterly unsustainable en masse and they know it!
Moreover their own religion, of objectivity, and faith in their facile conclusions and breathtaking arrogance, while no doubt a fetish they're all genuinely captivated by (literally captivated by their own populist charisma), is an empty world view for their legions of lay disciples, who are just carried away.
I am an atheist, but I'm also an ethicist, which means all world views are for me properly open to criticism. Dawkins and his mates hide within their empirical specialities and their fixated objectivity, their respectively habitual myopia on their "bit" of the jigsaw, condones them of the surely vital necessity of looking at the "whole picture". They embrace their unbelief as if it was the holy grail rather than a vacuum; one piece of humanity's disillusion.
The positivism, Liberal rationalism, preached by these ideologues is a far more dangerous delusion that is yet to fall!
We are not spiritual nor intellectual, but "material beings" living in a material and imperilled world, and the liberal rationalist constitute by far the greatest threat.

Squeers

It is so-called moderate Christians who have achieved tax payer funding of their schools, chaplains installed in secular schools, tax free ride at the expense of non-religious, patriarchal structures, knocking uninvited on the doors of people's private homes, discrimination against homosexuals, demanding that myth be taught along with science...

You don't have a problem with any of the above?