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Perhaps Mad is correct, and it is not simply an uninviting attitude that will keep readers from religious traditions from pursuing his dialogue...but one of epistemological impossibility; i.e., the scientific method won't get you to Mecca or help you hear the Good News or touch the Sacred.

Accepting this doesn't mean the Sacred should be tossed, or the Scientific Method is flawed...but that the two are geared for entirely different purposes. Religious folk won't buy Dennett's argument, because they can't...and it seems the vice/versa is true as well. Even if Dennett worked to avoid pandering and curmudgeonry, the chasm is simply too wide to cross.

Unless, perhaps, Dennett were to actually exhibit evidence of participating in the phenomena he describes. If he is sincere in wanting to dialogue and communicate with Religious folk, why should he be taken seriously (by them) if he apriori avoids any opportunity to share in a sabbath meal, participate in a prayer service, travel with fellow sojourns on pilgrimage, sit quietly in temple and mediate, or join the choir in praise and jubilant song?

Frankly, saying to these people, "Look, I'm very interested in talking with you about these things that are apparently absolutely important to you...things that fill your everyday life and help to mark what is most valuable, meaningful and worth the utmost sacrifice and care...things and and actions that help you express the core of your identity and capture what is intimate and most loving in your action and deeds....I'd like to tell you what's wrong about all of that. Now, I wont bother to actually try any of it myself, or spend any meaningful time with you in the midst of these things, or even really listen to your personal stories and life experiences...no, I can't do any of that. It will keep me from being scientific. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your will to survive and the innate intelligence that fights and struggles to reproduce, even if it has to do so by way of memetic structures that do not accurately or truthful represent reality. But, I know better than you what you are actually doing when you do these things which I, myself, will never try to do."

MA: Your suggestion really has nothing to do with his, because participating in a ritual is not scientific method.

And, apriori, you and he and everyone else knows that? How you and he were able to arrive at that conclusion without any investigation, lacking any elbow grease or time in the field, smacks of sheer prejudice...anything but scientific. Look, if you simply want to dismiss this patently obvious deficiency in his (and it looks like yours as well) approach, fine. But call it what it is: unwillingness to learn. Don't call it a commitment to the scientific method or a desire to understand religion.

This thread asks if his approach will work at bringing religious folk into the disucssion. I've offered what I think most intelligent religious folk would see when approached by Dennett's book: an unwillingness to take seriously those things most important and valuable in their religious lives. By taking seriously, I mean a willingness to engage them on their terms, in settings and contexts where these things happen, and to actually share in the experiences.

I think it is a crucial flaw, one that makes his entire argument suspect and, finally, insulting to those he would like to discuss with.