Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon | Daniel C. Dennett

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon | Daniel C. Dennett | Dennett Does It Again!

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Breaking the Spell...

	Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Daniel C. Dennett Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 146 reviews view larger image
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For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why?and how?it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion?s evolution from ?wild? folk belief to ?domesticated? dogma. Not an antireligious screed but an unblinking look beneath the veil of orthodoxy, Breaking the Spell will be read and debated by believers and skeptics alike.

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A Giant Fight

How's this for a story:

Imagine a giant fight. A giant pillow fight. A giant is battering you back and forth with a giant pillow. Feathers are flying. You can't exactly see. You know you're not really hurt, but he's knocking you half off your feet, you're confused. What's he doing? What in heaven's name is happening? You struggle to regain your senses.

The giant in this case is Daniel C. Dennett, and the big fellow's pillow is his "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon." A staggering book, staggering erudition, staggering research. It's well worth sticking with it.

Dennett does not hesitate to tell you precisely where he stands:
*** He is an atheist. God does not exist.
*** Nature, planet Earth, the cosmos are all material.
*** The supernatural is a fiction of man's devising.
*** Man has no eternal soul. His end is death.
*** Darwinian evolution is a fact, and has broad application.
*** Religion may be emotionally moving and beautiful in aid, music, art, architecture, and ceremony. Nevertheless, it can be dangerous, as all know since 9/11.

Dennett posits that religion is a natural, not a metaphysical, phenomenon. To seek to avoid religion's excesses, he urges all parties to agree to study it scientifically. He hypothesizes that like any other human practice, religion has had an evolutionary development.

"Breaking the Spell" can be tough going, but perilous times demand worldwide focus on the problems that religion engenders. We are engaged in a giant battle, and it's no pillow fight.

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Dennett Does It Again!

I happen to think that Daniel Dennett is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on the planet. In this book he takes a respectful yet incisive look at the roots of religion and its implications for the future if all responsible religious and non-religious people do not get involved in the much needed open minded discourse that must take place if the societies of the world are going to survive the possible tragedies of not having such a discourse. A very salient point that he makes is that moderate religious people are in fact responsible for their not so moderate counterparts. Religion at its most destructive could not exist without tacit acceptance of such fanaticism by the so called moderates. Religions must change from within because outside influences will always be countered by stock dogmatic objections by religious people. Any intelligent open minded person whether they be religious or not will benefit from reading this book.

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The God Delusion and Breaking the Spell

If you're only going to read one of Dawkins' The God Delusion or Dennett's Breaking the Spell :

Read The God Delusion to explore the God existence question and the case that atheists should get out of the closet to advocate for a world without religion.

Read Breaking the Spell to explore using scientific method to understand, validate, and develop ideas about religion and its pervasiveness. Ultimately, to build an understanding on how to exist and progress with religionists.

Here is a brief summary of Breaking the Spell's 11 chapters :

1. Breaking Which Spell? - Religions are among the most powerful phenomena on the planet and it is important for us to better understand them as we move into the 21st century

2. Questions About Science - Makes the case that science is a valid tool for exploring religion. (If you're not willing to accept this, you probably don't want to buy this book.) Dennett uses a comparison between music and religions to draw some interesting parallels.

3. Why Good Things Happen - Why natural selection is relevant to the formation and development of religions.

4. The Roots of Religion - Exploration of how folk religions might have formed in human prehistory.

5. Religion, the Early Days - How did religions survive and the role of the "shaman" in perpetuating them.

6. The Evolution of Stewardship - What are the features that allow religions to become formalized? Especially secrecy, deception and intentional design to resist even the start of a challenge.

7. The Invention of Team Spirit - Exploration of group dynamics and religion

8. Belief in Belief - Makes the case that not just belief, but belief in the value of belief, has become an important part of modern religions and culture. This becomes one of the main reasons that even religious professionals cannot explain what they are professing. He then spends a few pages at the end of this chapter describing why he is an atheist.

9. Toward a Buyer's Guide to Religion - Argues that religion should be considered for its value to people. First several protective barriers need to be penetrated such as love/loyalty blindness and academic territoriality.

10. Morality and Religion - Addresses the common opinion that religion is the basis for morality and concludes that it is "problematic at best". There is a lot of overlap in this chapter with The God Delusion Chapter 6 - The Roots of Morality: Why are we good?.

11. Now What Do We Do - Dennett wraps up his book by advocating that the many questions and theories raised be refined and tested with scientific method. He also makes the case to increase religious education so that children learn about all religions so that they can make informed decisions.

For me, Breaking the Spell is a great book, not so much for its answers, but for its questions:

How much can religion be compared with music as a cultural/evolutionary phenomenon? How is religious loyalty like sports team loyalty? How is being in love with a religion like romantic love? Could it be damaging to society to de-mystify religion? Why do religions often have "father" figures? Could religion, like sweet foods, be a good thing to a moderate extent? Could religion be a parasitical evolutionary phenomenon? How does the evolution of language and religion inter-relate? Memory and religion? Why is there secrecy in religion? Does fundamentalism "market" better? Why is faith for its own sake considered so valuable? Which is more fundamental - morality or religion? How is religion like a swimming pool (attractive nuisance)? Do moderates enable/encourage radicals? Is it really possible to have a society that lets children choose their religion?

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Religious Cristism for the Believer

Unlike many of the religious criticisms published recently, Breaking the Spell is both tame enough to entire the (moderate) believer to finish the book while still being intriguing enough for the "bright." Dennett takes the classical arguments of religious critics and calmly, allegorically explains them for those not well-versed in the philosophy of religion. The arguments are deeply intriguing and well-backed, if a bit long-winded at time. While tame enough for the believer, a certain willpower is needed for long sittings not to turn into impromptu napping sessions.

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A grand pep-talk...

I picked this book up at a Borders as I have recently become interested in discovering a new understanding of the universe (seeing as I have abandoned organized religion for hopes of something more real), and felt myself daunted looking at the page count. I'll be the first to admit, I am not much of an evolutionary biologist or a scientist of any kind... not at all, in fact... but I do enjoy having a base understanding of what I'm made of and what is out there with aspirations of... un-making me. I suppose that is why this book first caught my attention...

The book is MOST informative... Dennett, I have seen, is not afraid in the slightest of citing himself, but at the same time shows tremendous respect for numerous other both contemporary and past scientists (thus, I guess the copious and seemingly self-centered mention of his own work can be forgiven). I suppose what I originally thought this book would provide was a profound, confounding, and enlightening, single statement that would verify my own inner atheism and help me come out, guns a'blaze, into the open air of mainstream "disbelief". I did not find this... but then again, I suppose Dennett never ACTUALLY promises something like this insofar as I originally expected (and hoped?) He seems to be delivering more of a symposium on hypocrisy and the carefully camoflaged persecution and prejudice against those who might have intellectual qualms against mainstream religious behavior... encouraging, of course, but as I said, not more to me than just a pep-talk.

I liked the book, most assuredly, and intend to look for some of the authors he recommends (namely Dawkins)... will this book turn you into an atheist? More than likely, no ... at least not in my opinion. But! It will definitely bore its way into the thinking centers of a intellectually religious brain.

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