Dr Dennet's  appearance on a Point of Inquiry podcast to discuss his new book "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon." is rather interesting.  We we're lucky enough to hear him speak at this years Tam4 convention with regards to the book which was just about to hit the shelves. Dennet's posits  that religion is not miraculous or supernatural, but a natural phenomena that has evolved over time.   I also bought  Sam Harris' "the end of faith" after seeing his talk on C-span books relating to the book.   It's about the support mechanism that the "milquetoast"  believers provide for the  fundamentalist nutjobs to flourish and why they really need to look more closely at their enabling of such rather than disputing  the natural conclusion of any ideology that claims it's got all the answers .

So heavy material to.. this joke that passed by me on a newsgroup today.

At  New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual, later discovered
to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight
while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide
rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said
he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement.
The FBI is charging him with carrying weapons of math instruction.
Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Gonzalez said. "They desire average
solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a
search of absolute value.

They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as
'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator
of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the
Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every
triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had
wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have
given us more fingers and toes".