The Beyond Belief discussion continues at The Edge I particularly enjoyed Carolyn Porco's contribution.

Scott Atran: I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based...

Nicholas Humphrey: Scott Atran's warning against scientific triumphalism is interesting and persuasive — and a wonderful piece to have on Edge...

Sam Harris: Atran makes insupportable claims about religion as though they were self-evident: like "religious beliefs are not false in the usual sense of failing to meet truth conditions"; they are, rather, like "poetic metaphors" which are "literally senseless." How many devout Christians or Muslims would recognize their own faith in this neutered creed ?...

Daniel C. Dennett: Scientists who are atheists — surely a much larger proportion than the general public realizes — have a difficult unsolved problem of how to balance their allegiance to the truth against their appreciation of the social impact of some truths and hence the need for diplomacy and reticence. Not surprisingly, most scientists "solve" this problem with silence, but silence can be just as culpable as lying...

Scott Atran: And while I'm on the subject of religious beliefs and their contents, and how they are transmitted, let me address the view, first proposed by Dawkins and popularized by Dennett, that religions are composed of memes...

Carolyn Porco: Imagine my shock to see my tongue-in-cheek call for a 'Church of Science' taken with utter seriousness by Atran, and publications such as The Boston Herald, i.e., as a call for an organization as dogmatic and as unaccepting of criticism as most formal religions are today....I meant nothing of the kind...