I’m working on the next epistle and I will restrict my arguments entirely to addressing Sam’s. But the debate has spawned a wider debate in the blogosphere, and, while continuing the dialogue, I see no reason not to link to other comments. Here’s one. Send me others and I’ll link. Money quote:
Harris, like so many rational atheists before him, is having a field day because of this gap, between the ineradicable, beautiful (in my opinion, despite even that clip) human impulse to believe in something grand, mysterious, and organizing, and the unfortunate impulse to codify that imagined thing until it becomes shabby, baseless, and arrogant — far less grand and not at all mysterious. In short, because of humanity’s stubborn, misguided insistence that our deepest, most meaningful searches lead to math, not just metaphor.
The Dish 