I think there may be some secret lurkers out there. I hope there are...

I disagree about needing to not believe in the Big Crunch for that. If fact, the Big Crunch is the "reset" method I can most understand, setting up the universal matter for a new Big Bang and another of the Vast possibilities out there.

The biggest problem I have with Dennett's book ("Darwin's Dangerous Idea") is the hostile tone he takes when people want to preserve God and such in their scientific outlook. But I guess that is the purpose of the book, to show that even commited scientist have not fully understood the implications of their theory. He comes down hard on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, for instance.

Curiously, the site I link to mentions Stephen Jay Gould as violently protecting the Darwinian faith against Teilhard, but Dennett spends a whole chapter explaining how Gould in particular doesn't understand the full implications of Darwian thinking.