Quite an enjoyable and informative listen. Thid book tackles the subject with great sensitivity and accuracy. The book doesn't really talk about wether religion is correct or not but talks about why we should investigate that question in a broad manner. The arguments mentioned in this book should be delivered to all people to seek a better future.

The Fourth Horseman: Daniel Dennett, Philosopher. I finally waded into two of Dennett’s widely acclaimed works, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995) and Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006). I read them concurrently almost by accident, which turned out well, as the earlier work establishes some beachheads on which Dennett relies in Breaking the Spell.

In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Dennett set out to write a book “for those who agree that the only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.” The book’s multitude of ideas is sometimes hard to keep in mind (and seems impossible to summarize effectively), but Dennett’s chapter-end recaps periodically re-orient you to the big picture. Overall, Dennett characterizes natural selection (“the single best idea anyone has ever had”) as an algorithm that “unifies the realm of life, meaning and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law.” Evolution moves the tree of life through the Library of Mendel (the collection of all possible genomes) mindlessly, recursively, and without goals. Dennett allows for and describes the help of “cranes,” subprocesses previously evolved that then speed local evolutionary progress (e.g. sexual reproduction, and the Baldwin effect). But he will not countenance “skyhooks,” unsupported and insupportable mind-first powers or processes, i.e. miracles. Dennett devotes much time to beating back the raft of post-1859 critics who’ve attempted to graft skyhooks of various kinds onto natural selection. Along the way, he exposes the most common misunderstanding of Darwinism: the idea that natural selection is a procedure FOR producing US: “Evolution can be an algorithm, and evolution can have produced us by an algorithmic process, without its being true that evolution is an algorithm FOR producing US.” As Dennett notes, the winner of a coin-flipping tournament is mistaken if he thinks there has to be an explanation for why HE won; there’s merely a reason why SOMEBODY won.

For Dennett, natural selection is a “universal acid” that “eats through just about every traditional concept.” A memeticist, Dennett extends the concept to cultural evolution, and it’s here you can see the seeds that would grow into Breaking the Spell twenty years hence. Memes, or ideas that propagate from person to person and “compete” with one another, allow humans to transcend genetics. Human culture, then, is a “crane-making crane,” not a divinely-provided skyhook. Dennett also casts morality among the objects of evolutionary origin, and he recounts a brief history of moral philosophy (characterizing Hobbes and Nietzsche as early sociobiologists) before opining on cultural evolution’s continuing navigation between Bentham and Kant in search of a useful “Moral First Aid Manual."

As I said, it’s easy to get lost in this book, and I found myself periodically re-reading prior set-up sections I thought I’d understood to make sense of a new idea or argument (a frustrating exercise on a Kindle). But the book is a tower of solid argument that appears to have caused serious rethinking of numerous aspects of philosophy, sociobiology and a host of other disciplines in the quarter-century since its publication. To boot, one critic also suggests it “rivals The Blind Watchmaker as creationists’ most cordially hated text.” Darwin’s Dangerous Idea is well worth the investment.

Breaking the Spell is more approachable but just as ambitious. In it, Dennett uses the tools of evolutionary biology and memetics to describe theories of the origin of religion and development of modern religions, all the while making a plea for the further scientific study of the topic. “Those who are religious and believe religion to be the best hope of humankind cannot reasonably expect those of us who are skeptical to refrain from expressing our doubts if they themselves are unwilling to put their convictions under the microscope.” Although Dennett briefly recounts the traditional arguments about whether God exists (with the customary conclusion), this book isn’t about that exercise: it’s about religion as a practice instead, and “belief in belief.” “It is entirely possible to be an atheist and believe in belief in God.” Dennett advocates rolling up our sleeves and applying the scientific method to the study of religion qua religion, a task currently hindered by the ethical and moral force-field deflecting such efforts. Let’s determine whether the nascent evidence of health benefits accruing to those receiving well-chosen falsehoods is sound, and then we can “confront the ethical question of whether any amount of health benefits could justify such deliberate misrepresentation.”

Dennett’s exposition of the origin and evolution of religion is somewhat truncated—at 339 pages, this is one of his shorter books. But the hundred-page appendix provides more depth if you’re unsatisfied with Dennett’s recitations of the main themes, and the effort is a far cry from the prosaic one-sentence explanation: homo sapiens and their bipedal forebears were naturally selected to attribute agency to anything they didn’t or couldn’t understand.

Dennett describes early folk religions as offering several benefits including (1) divination, which reduced responsibility for decision-making and thereby reduced acrimony resulting from bad decisions, (2) shamanistic healing rituals which, even if their success were limited to the extent of the placebo effect, were still the only health care available. True belief seemed de rigueur: in folk religions, religious “practices” are a seamless part of participants’ practical lives, alongside hunting and gathering or tilling and harvesting. “One way to tell that they really believe in the deities to which they make their sacrifices is that they aren’t forever talking about how much they believe in their deities – any more than you and I go around assuring each other that we believe in germs and atoms. Where there is no ambient doubt to speak of, there is no need to speak of faith.”

As folk religions matured with the advent of agriculture, the “transition from folk religion to organized religion is marked by a shift in beliefs from those with very clear, concrete consequences to those with systematically elusive consequences.” Humans had more time to reflect, and religions responded, generally by “sequestering a special subset of cultural items behind the veil of systematic invulnerability to disproof—a pattern found just about everywhere in human society.” The faithful began an expensive trade of time and/or money for access to those selling God’s gifts. Reverting to his Darwin’s Dangerous Idea lexicon, Dennett suggests that in the marketplace of ideas, practitioners “uncovered whatever Good Tricks are in the nearest neighborhoods in the Design Space of possible religions.” Dennett acknowledges that this “deliberately cold-blooded rational analysis of the marketplace for religious goods deeply offends many religious people. They don’t want to see themselves as cannily making a sound investment in the most effective purveyor of supernatural benefits.” But religions quickly became memes that fostered human solidarity in groups larger than extended family, and, citing Stark and Finke’s 2000 study, Dennett suggests that religious behavior is, in the long run, no exception to the rule that human behavior is loosely governed by cost-benefit calculations.

Lots has been written about the historic processes by which polytheism morphed into monotheism (and, not mentioned by Dennett, left telltale signs, my favorite of which is that “Elohim” is plural), but Dennett’s focus is more on the theory that “belief in God joined forces with the belief in belief of God to motivate the migration of the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions away from concrete anthropomorphism to ever more abstract and depersonalized concepts.” The concept of God has transformed dramatically in the last several thousand years, and continues to do so, but we continue to use the same word. This is easily explained: “The believers in the belief in God have appreciated that the continuity of professing requires continuity of nomenclature, that brand loyalty is a feature so valuable that it would be foolish to tamper with.” As an aside, for Dennett, the rise in “belief in belief” may be contributing to the demonstrable flight from Catholicism: the doctrinal emphasis of the Catholic Church (i.e. legislating what you must believe) cannot withstand the appeal of laissez faire “non-credal” evangelical offerings (where “more attention is paid to free parking and babysitting than to the proper interpretation of scripture”).

Dennett ultimately wrestles with two important questions: (1) is religion, all things considered, a good thing? and (2) does religion drive morality? Religion grew as a method of providing social infrastructure for creating and maintaining moral teamwork. But today, “when patterns of mutual trust are quite securely established in modern democratic states independently of any shared religious belief, the bristling defenses of religions against corrosive doubt begin to look vestigial, like fossil traces of an earlier epoch. We no longer need God the Policeman to create a climate in which we can make promises and conduct human affairs on their basis.” Yes, there’s a long list of positive accomplishments attributable to religious people, but let’s not forget Weinberg’s maxim: “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion.” Religion remains the “most prolific source of the ‘moral certainties’ and ‘absolutes’ that [] zealotry depends on,” and religious moderates do precious little to “keep the cloak of religious respectability from being used to shelter the lunatic excesses.”

So what’s to be done? Dennett concludes with the analysis of a particularly urgent quandary: how do we research and evaluate the effect of religious upbringing and education on children? At worst, children in the U.S. and elsewhere routinely die directly as a result of the religious views of their parents, through lack of medical care and otherwise. So too, research performed since Dennett published the book suggests religious indoctrination in children stunts critical thinking skills (duh). As Dawkins said, “We’d be aghast to be told of a Leninist child or a neo-conservative child. So isn’t it a kind of child abuse to speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child?” Yes, of course it is; these identifications prejudge decisions not properly considered. Dennett has some specific proposals to consider on this front and others, but, he warns, they will require research that will not be easy to come by.

In the meantime, he suggests, “if we start holding religious organizations accountable for their claims—not by taking them to court but just by pointing out, often and in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, that of course these claims are ludicrous—perhaps we can slowly get the culture of credulity to evaporate.” Amen.

Interesting read, but not the most compelling polemic.

An extremely fascinating idea of religion as a human symbiote that was inculcated into our consciousness as a meme in prehistory. Subsequently as human evolution progressed, the meme evolved into organized religion. This would have been a far better book if written by someone with a background in evolutionary biology since the great idea that the book is famous for is lost in mandering arguments looking at a concept from every possible angle even after the reader 'gets' the point and would like to move to the crux of the matter. A major chunk of the book is written to explain why the book has been written in the first place. Although the author mentions that the philosopher's job is to ask the right questions rather than answer them, the book suffers from an overt attention to detail justifying the right questions to ask rather than discussing the fascinating ideas they lead to. A detailed discussion of the Attachment theory within the psychology of religion and how it compares with the meme idea would have made this book even better.

It was certainly interesting, and its chief thesis is worth contemplating. I think that were it less philosophical (i.e. speculative b.s.) and more empirical, I would have found it more persuasive--or at least a more enjoyable read. I sound like my students now in saying that I think it could have been written with the same (or greater) effectiveness in about a third of the pages, but in this case it's true. He elaborates in a way that seems more self-indulgent than illuminating. I don't know, I didn't read the book in the best way. I set it down for too long, and rather than starting over (as I should have) I picked up where I left off, and that discontinuity diminished my impression of the book, I think.

One thing that IS interesting, though, is he differs greatly from the othr New Atheists in his lack of confidence that religious propositions can be tested, though he's all about testing scientifically-framed religious questions. But whereas most of the other New Atheists seem to think that religion is at least understandable and therefore subject to falsification, Dennett's view, rather, is that most religious propositions mean almost literally nothing. That they are pronouncements very much in the vein of a non-latin speaker reciting a verse of Latin. Just sounds. Comforting sounds. And he argues, more, that most people don't believe in God, but they believe in belief in God. Hmm.....perhaps, though hard to tell (which is his point, actually).

Torn between 3 and 4 stars. Overall I think this is worth a read if you’re interested in exploring religion from a more academic perspective, particularly with a focus on how certain characteristics make religion more likely to spread/ disappear over time. This just scratches the surface on questions of morality and ethical reasoning, so I’d recommend a different book if you want to dig into those topics.

The spirit of this book is essentially “ask questions for others to ponder” so don’t expect any answers. That being said, it is an interesting read.

The tone was mostly casual, with some academic language mixed in that was at times difficult to parse. I also found it a bit odd that although the author claimed to want the book to be inclusive for religious readers, sections addressing them felt a bit disparaging

The American philosopher Daniel Dennett, those ethos goes beyond philosophy 'per se' to also embrace science (from neurosciences to evolutionary biology) claims to attacks here a taboo: that according to which religion on the one hand, and the beliefs flowing out of religions on the other, are to be sheltered from scientifical, critical enquiry.

Mmh?

At this point, of course, we need to press the 'pause' button. It's been a long while (at least since David Hume!) that religion has been considered as a natural phenomenon, and, so, subjected to all sorts of rational, critical outlooks rooted in sciences to try and understand it as much as to explain it. Philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, biologists and else -that he quotes at will- all had a contribution to make. Yes, but...

Yes but, the author targets here American readers. And in the USA indeed, a far more religious country than others even in the Western world, there seems to be a 'taboo' in seeing religious beliefs being put under a microscope to be analysed. It's a ridiculous mindset, of course, but that Dennett needs to demolish outright first and foremost. As such, the first few chapters will read, well, like door breaching an open door for those not in the US!

Once this out of the way, though, the book truly picks up, especially since its endeavour is to try and explain why such taboo is in the first place. For that, he goes back to the origins of religious beliefs, a product of evolutionary biology through natural selection. He, indeed, sees it as a necessity, born out of our need to understand our environment so as to better adapt ourselves to it. Religion, then, is like a meme, which has evolved to morph, over centuries, into the institutions we all know. Why, then, such a staunch defensive attitude when such outlook is being brought up? This is where he introduces his concept of 'belief in the belief'.

Being American, Dennett uses Christianity as an example. He constates, indeed, two things:

1- believers themselves struggle to define what they mean by 'God'; from the anthropomorphic God of the Old Testament to a vague, abstract concept influenced by pantheism and where even evolution can be accommodated,

2- believers are not only contradicting each other about what is 'God' but they, also, adhere to various churches of all sorts of denominations which, all, regardless of their differences, insist upon the benefits of faith.

He sees here something crucial: to him, it's not the belief or not in God, whatever one thinks of God, which matter. To him, what matters is the idea that believing is essential. Why? Well, according to those preaching it, because it is a source of morale, a weapon against nihilism, the roots to strong communities, a link between individuals, and a scaffold to social network. To preach faith, then, is perceived as a virtue, while to challenge faith is perceived as a threat to social order and morale. Put bluntly: beliefs are secondary; what matters is the belief in the belief that faith is good.

Now, of course, if religion really was the source from which flows our ethics and morale, our sense of right and wrong, then, yes, such taboo would be justified. The thing is: it isn't. Dennett, here, rightly reminds us that empathy is as natural as cruelty. The taboo, then, is absurd.

All in all, here's a book slow to start, and it will seem blatantly obvious to many readers not based in the USA. Yet, its core argument -'belief in the belief'- is striking indeed, and, I suspect, will get the approval even of many religious believers themselves. A must read.

70 - 2021

I think I finally figured out that I shouldn’t read books written by philosophers, as this one is. Something author Daniel Bennett said early on finally made sense of it for me - to the effect that philosophy is about asking the right questions in the right order. And so he does, for nearly 400 pages. If I had any affinity at all for the discipline (I don’t), I would probably love the prospect of spending months or years or whatever it takes with this jovial Socrates, who obviously has lots of answers (presumably the right ones, given in the right order) to match his uncanny knowledge of all sorts of natural biological/evolutionary shit (I think that’s the technical term), but my nonfiction tastes run much more to 100-200 pages and please keep it simple for me. So I’d say if philosophy is your thing, you’d probably love this book and give it 5 stars. As for me, I lasted about 75 pages and skimmed the rest, and mostly came away with one terrific, useable idea, which in retrospect I could have gotten from reading the title: if we want new thoughts, we need to break the spell of the old ones, and easier said than doen. For that much, I am grateful. I can use it.

Daniel Dennet presenta a la religion desde un punto de vista mas natural. contrario a las formas en las que filosofos abordan el tema, Dennet plantea estudiar este fenomeno bajo las mismas condiciones de cualquier otro fenomeno natural en la naturleza. la gran mayoria del libro trata de explicar sobre como se pudieron haber originado los primeros sistemas de creencias, como estos pudieron tener alguna influencia en la seleccion natural y su consecuente evolucion hacia sistemas de creencias organizados. una obra mas filosofica, no trata de atacar directamente hacia ningun sistema de creencias. pero desea dejar en claro que estos fenomenos en nuestros dias ya no son de la importancia de la que alguna vez fueron.

An important book with interesting insights into why people believe the unbelievable, but at times I felt like I was reading a text book. I'd recommend this book to anyone who want to better understand why bronze age religions still have such a strong hold on the minds of a large portion of their families and friends.

First off, this might be obvious, but if you're not fairly interested in the subject, this is likely to be a pretty dull experience.

Now for the actual book. I think Dennett did a very fine job dissecting all his reasoning, and then come to his final verdicts, perhaps, too good a job. While reading I felt a bit bored for the first 250 or so pages, which is quite a chunk of the book, and only then, do the more interesting stuff start. I could use a little more conclusions and opinions in the first part of the book, even if he would put something forward, and then explain himself after, just to make the blood boil or raise the heartbeat.

Apart from that I think a lot of what he said seems pretty natural and self explanatory, but that might just be me (I'm not raised religious, and I live in one of the most secular countries in the world, which might be why).

My rating on the book is based on these things and on the fact that I can't help but compare it a little bit to The God delusion (R. Dawkins), God is not great (C. Hitchens) and The end of fate (S. Harris), which I've all read within the last two years. I feel the four books cover a lot of the same ground, perhaps not in the conclusions they make, but in the reasons they present. And with this in mind I feel this is the least interesting of the four.

If however, you're religious and want to know more about the whole atheist deal and why a lot of people think like that, without having someone yell and halfway insult you, this is likely to be a better choice than Hitchens or Dawkins, since this have a fairly gentle feel to it, and it doesn't put out provocative statements without explaining itself in a decent manner first. This however, is my take on it, of cause.