Chris Nathan, I like your response to McWhorter's essay, but I think you may have misunderstood him on one point: I don't read him as saying that religious believers can't change their minds--just that you/we can't change their minds with our arguments. Can what they (or we) hear over time influence a change in belief? Sure, but nobody can predict that outcome, and there's no direct line from our argument to their belief change.