Dennett seems like he'd be one of the nicest people you would ever meet. He is not polarizing like, say Dawkins, but that also gives him the ability to reach a broader audience. That, unfortunately, may be where he lost some steam with me in this book. I felt like his detailing his argument parameters left me often saying, "I know, let's get to it." Therein lies the problem I had with this book, I wasn't the target audience. The book really seemed to be geared to those who have not really examined their position on faith and belief or are just starting to. I did so long ago so this book only added nuggets of supporting information for my convictions.

As a philosopher, he is stunningly detailed in his mapping an argument and his approach is very even handed. This makes him accessible to those who are intellectual and also wanting to take an honest look at the arguments on faith, etc. Dennett doesn't demonize or mock peoples beliefs but rather just lays the arguments out for reasonable discussion. However, Dennett is so thorough he comes off as a bit meandering and boring if you already know where he's going. But, if you are new to the arguments or material then you will probably enjoy this hard work.

I didn't like the idea of grouping "freethinkers" as "brights" for two reasons: 1. It simply seems a little corny; 2. It implicitly suggests those who believe are "dims." Again, where ND Tyson and Dennett shine (as did Sagan so perfectly) is their non-offensive approach which allows people to process the information without tuning out due to perceived insult. This is the role of the educator.

In the end, I think I prefer listening to Dennett in a lecture setting more than his writing as the time constraints force him to be quicker to the point. But again, for those who enjoy philosophy or simply want a robust, yet unoffensive, argument on faith and belief this book will likely serve them well.

Dennett is among the nicest scholars I've encountered. He is just eminently reasonable, kind-hearted, and eloquent throughout. The argument he makes in "Breaking the Spell" is almost tamely reasonable: "my central policy recommendation is that we gently, firmly educate the people of the world, so that they can make truly informed choices about their lives." OK, of course, no arguments there, from nearly any quarter.

The bulk of the book is occupied with a much different argument, perhaps an example of this broader philosophy. Dennett wants scientists to embark upon a massive project to understand religions - their origins, their impacts (good and bad), their psychology, sociology, economics, etc - in short, everything about them that can be addressed scientifically. He makes the argument for two reasons: science on religion has been hampered by a sort of veil of politeness, in which it might be considered offensive to take the often overly forward tools of science to something so dear to so many people; and because religion will play such a large role in large-scale future societal issues that we can't afford to not understand it. These arguments are straightforward and compelling and it's hard to imagine anyone even half-way reasonable objecting to them.

Dennett, I'd like to think correctly, goes on to assume that the reservations of his audience have melted away in the face of his overwhelmingly reasonableness. He spend the bulk of the book fleshing out a popularly-oriented review of theories on the evolution and social impacts of religion, making liberal use of the meme concept he finds so useful. While it is primarily a summary of prior research and an identification of the key open questions in the debate, Dennett doesn't hesitate to flesh the picture out with a starting hypothesis: the one he considers the most persuasive.

This is interesting, but not the sort of thing I'd normally go out of my way to read. Yet it was a true joy to read, for many reasons. Dennett is just a really clear thinker, a wonderful writer who has many nice turns of phrase (half the pages I dog-eared are just for some clever way of articulating a thought I've had or might use). His thoughts on science - what it is, why it is, and how it can be used in social and cultural contexts, are particularly clear and exciting.

This is an overwhelmingly pithy and substantive book. At least for me. I can’t really summarize it in a way that does it justice or even feels adequate. I certainly will be processing it for some time to come. Here’s just one tiny take on the first chapter (or so) which sets up the premise of the book.

When I first encountered the original (read: evolutionary, Dawkinsian) idea of a meme it spread through my mind cascading down to even the smallest idea and reshaping everything with this new understanding. All of my critical thinking began revolving around the idea of memes as an analogy to to genes. It became my way of unlocking a deeper layer of what was happening and thus helping me begin to make sense of the confusing world of culture in the USA circa 2020. In Breaking the Spell Daniel Dennett relies heavily on the idea of memes (not in the funny internet photo/video/caption sense but as a bit of information that spreads itself through cultural means similarly to how a gene is a bit of information that spreads itself through biological means) as a way of examining various aspects of religion (including its benefits, history, possible origins, etc) and his extensive philosophical understanding of the process of Darwinian evolution is indispensable here; it provides the penetrating lens (with necessary depth and scope) to thinking about and understanding religion as something as natural in the physical world as an apple falling from a tree.

Dennett says in the initial chapter that, “religion is too important for us to remain ignorant about.” My only previous knowledge of Daniel Dennett was that he was one of the (self-defined) “four atheists of the apocalypse” and my preconceived notion that he had it out to get any and all theists. This is not the case. Dennett seeks to pull everyone into the conversation in order to better understand religion as a natural phenomenon. Playing devil’s advocate (or something of that ilk) he asks, “Wouldn’t such an exhaustive and invasive examination damage the phenomenon itself? Mightn’t it break the spell? That is a good question, and I don’t know the answer. Nobody knows the answer.” He later argues that religion offers many people legitimate benefits but it also causes several severe detriments to those same (or other) people and society. We owe it to ourselves —our collective and individual health (mental, physical, etc)— and to society to at least try to understand religion as a natural phenomenon. Not examining it (because of taboo or other reasons) will not be helpful for us as we move into the future.

We examine “sports as a natural phenomenon or cancer as a natural phenomenon. Both… are widely recognized as [such]…” Yet, humans have been mostly unwilling to examine religion in such a manner. Dennett begins by explaining why this might be the case and calls theists and apologists to try to demonstrate their reasons scientifically. “If [religion] isn’t entirely natural, if there really are miracles involved, the best way—indeed, the only way—to show that to doubters would be to demonstrate it scientifically. Refusing to play by these rules only creates suspicion that one doesn’t really believe that religion is supernatural after all.” In other words, a lot of non-religious people (a majority?) will scoff at short-circuited answers to questions they find deeply curious; they want theists to at least try as hard as they can to apply the scientific process to try to answer curious questions like what causes “miracles.” Refusing to try only delegitimizes their religion as uncourageous and/or unethical in regards to humanity.

Instead of stooping (intellectually) to untestable claims and simple adherence to deep-rooted religious ideas that disincentive critical examination of that religion as legitimately supernatural (such as sacrilege, taboo, guilt, shame, sin, or eternal punishment) theists should be willing and active in pursuing the explanation of their religion’s tenets and miracles. Theists who rest on (read: hide behind) their certainty of supernatural ideas without willingness to critically examine them only demonstrate one of Dennett’s main points: their unwillingness to question what they believe has opened them up to certain memes. Memes which can “act” like viruses— blurring the line between agency and non-agency— and “act” in ways in which are beneficial to themselves. Through selective process (both intentional and unintentional) the ideas that are good at spreading and defending themselves tend to persist. This persistence, spreading, and evolving of an idea is the life of a meme. In the case of religion, the unwillingness to critically examine itself and its origins as anything but supernatural evolved as a meme through the help of buttressing ideas like sacrilege, taboo, guilt, shame, sin, and eternal punishment all of which disincentivize the participating humans (hosts) from critically examining those ideas. It is an adapted (evolved) protection mechanism for the sake of the meme. Basically, a meme evolves over time, in this case, developing (through selection) into a specific idea that disincentivizes a person from critically examining that very idea in order to continue to exist and benefit the greater/bigger meme of that specific religion. In other words, ideas like sacrilege and taboo within religion can act as a protective spell to keep theists from joining in such an honest and humble examination. They are, then, unwittingly acting on behalf of the meme much the same as a creature can unwittingly act on behalf of a parasite.

Like I said, this is really just the first chapter or so. The book covers so much (and yet not nearly enough). It is not without its flaws. But the analogy of memes and the idea of memetic evolution in everything cultural, specifically religion, acts as a fascinating lens and gives the reader much to chew on throughout this fascinating, provocative, and honest book.

Like I said initially, for me this is an overwhelmingly pithy and substantive book. If you have a curiosity for (and interest in) religion’s existence and you also tend to think about things in terms of cause and effect, cost-benefit analyst, slow and incremental change, the reasons why things are the way they are— that is, in terms of evolution as a process (not simply restricted to biology)— you, too, will probably find this book to be overwhelmingly pithy and substantive. Perhaps even monumental.

I've had a personal project for a while which was to read work by each of the 'Four Horsemen' of new atheism. I'm not an atheist, I'm an evangelical Christian, but I value truth and intellectual integrity so it didn't seem right to ignore them. I'll admit that I left Daniel Dennett til last, simply because I didn't know anything about him. Having read the (recently publish in a nice hardback edition) transcript of the conversation between the 'Four Horsemen' (I'm not sure they particularly like that title), I thought he seemed like a pretty reasonable and quite nice guy. This book has led me to consider that I may have been wrong.

Before even touching on the arguments raised and whether I agree/disagree with them, I want to mention the tone of this book. Apologies for the incoming rant. Please feel free to skip the next paragraph.

Dennett is unbearably condescending and insulting all the way through. No, this doesn't make him wrong, but it does make this book tedious to read. He constantly punctuates arguments with statements along the lines of 'of course, you'll be very offended by this and probably want to stop reading, but have you considered you might be wrong?' Yes, Dennet, I have. Once or twice, this is completely innocuous. Delivered constantly, it becomes patronising. He also rather wonderfully gives himself a get-out-of-jail-free card in one of his final notes by stating that angry people will play the 'I'm offended' card but the only reason this could happen is because they've misunderstood him. Between his condescending attitude and his constant use of strawmen (he creates a character called 'Professor Faith' whose arguments he can deftly counter), I think people might actually be offended because he's a smug sod.

Now down to the actual content. Daniel Dennett makes an interesting case at the beginning of this book for the fact that science should be able to investigate religious belief. This is a good point, and one that I fully agree with. However, he then proceeds to ignore any other forms of investigation such as history, archaeology etc. This means we are left with a very long discussion about how certain ideas (not necessarily just religious ideas) could have developed naturally, but without any consideration as to whether any of the claims could actually be measured. I can't speak for all religious believers, I can only respond in my capacity as a Christian, but this seem bizarre to me as someone who actually tries to investigate the truth of my faith. Though of course, as Dennett conveniently explains, religious believers who make investigations are usually only doing so to 'scratch an itch' and convince themselves they're being open minded. Which is convenient.

We could make a pretty good case, using Dennett's method, that the idea of King Henry VIII was a useful myth that evolved over time. This would make perfect sense until we looked at evidence as to whether or not he existed. When I say 'science should be used in its rightful place', I don't mean that it has nothing to say about religion. What I mean is that a purely scientific analysis leaves out useful ideas. Though it could, of course, be argued that good history uses the scientific method anyway.

Another thing about this book that makes me slightly wary is that the 'explanation' of religious belief developing naturally is a complete hypothetical. Not only that, but it's a multi-layered hypothetical with hypotheticals evolving from previous hypotheticals until we reach the ultimate hypothetical theory for religion, taking no account of reality. No doubt, theories have to be theorised before they can be investigated and proven or disproved, but if the unique selling point of your book is an explanation of religion as a natural phenomenon, shouldn't you have an explanation ready? Or shouldn't you be honest about the fact that it's actually just a pet theory?

Dennett asks excellent questions that I think, in a different context, would make a compelling and deeply challenging book. Does religion make you a good person? Or does it (as a paraphrase of Dennett's own unbearably self-righteous statement) merely bring ordinary people up to the same level of morality and citizenship as him and his fellow 'brights'? How much tolerance should we really show to 'dangerous' beliefs? Just what should we allow a parent to teach their children? Unfortunately, the application of these questions in Breaking The Spell appears to be related to the actual truth of religions. But none of them actually relate to truth. Like Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins, Dennett seems to think that things he finds unsavoury are signs of falsehood.

I could go on but I'm not the best at writing reviews and I tend to get a bit bitter. I was really disappointed with this book. I thought it would be a challenging, insightful read by a respectful author. Instead I found it to be a dull, uninspired diatribe disguised as modesty and understanding. I have a fairly long list of other books by the 'Four Horsemen' that I would like to read but, for the first time, I find myself quite put off.

Dennett says the following about people who reject the idea of objective truth, but I think it summarises my feelings about the new atheists pretty well:

'It is hard to convey how boring this relentless barrage of defensive sneering is, so it is not surprising that some investigators have stopped trying to rebut it, and settle for poking fun at it instead'.

Pretty disappointed, especially considering Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" is one of my all time favorites. His critiques against religion were tepid compared to the polemics of his contemporaries (especially Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins). The book offered no new insight into the evolution of religion, and served merely as an encyclopedia of theories and academic sources.

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

An interesting book that dives into religion: how it started, is it crock, does it have merit, and do people actually believe in it or are they just following the narrative.

"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" is a book by philosopher Daniel Dennett, in which he argues that religion should be studied as a natural phenomenon, and that it can be explained through scientific and evolutionary means. He also suggests that understanding religion in this way can help to reduce religious conflict and promote more rational and peaceful societies. The book received both praise and criticism upon its release, with some reviewers praising its arguments and others criticizing its approach to the study of religion.

Overall, I found the book was good, but I also think that the 2nd half of the book was better, which dived into more concrete ideas. However, I still prefer Richard Dawkins book “The God Delusion.”

If I understood it, the basic thesis of Dennett's arrogantly titled Consciousness Explained was that consciousness is a phenomenon that emerges from the harmonious orchestration of many smaller, dumber subsystems in the brain. Among the good ideas in Breaking the Spell is the claim that one of these little modules is an "agent detector," and that it's "over-active," so that people experience the wind as the breath of a God; the rain as the God's gift, disease as the presence of exorcisable unclean spirits, and so on. If you do believe in a God or Gods, this is a strong enough book to make it worth your while outmaneouvering it; if you don't, this is a strong enough book to take on as an ally. It has little or none of the hysteria you find in Dawkins and Hitchens.

As a former evangelical Christian,now a new atheist(Naturalist-believing nothing exists outside the Natural World), this is one of my three new favorite nonfiction books December 11, 2012
Along with Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary and The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C.Dennett are the top three books that I feel every skeptic/new atheist/Naturalist, needs to have in their personal library.

I read my library's copy of this book,but I just ordered my own copy as I know that I will want to re-read these books,as much as I used to study my Bible!They are a joy to read,since they make so much sense and are not full of contradictions like the Bible is.

Breaking the spell did an awesome job of showing the similarities of religion to mythology and superstition,in easy to understand language,and that is where I found the greatest enlightenment and value.

Very highly recommended!

Not likely to break the spell!

Professor Dennett is a philosopher and an expert on consciousness who writes from the perspective of a Darwinian. He is an atheist and calls himself a "bright," an unfortunate coinage from the redoubtable Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine. I say unfortunate because those who do not identify themselves similarly might feel that they should be thought of as--shall we say--less than bright. Such self-designating and flattering terminology, however agreeable to those using it, only serves to isolate them from others--but perhaps that is the point.

Putting that aside, I also need to put aside another of Dennett's mostly irrelevant preoccupations in this otherwise carefully considered and nearly exhaustive examination of religion, namely that of the power of memes. Coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976), a meme is, on the one hand, a fancy word for "idea" and the results of ideas, and on the other hand, a kind of cultural gene or virus that replicates itself through the activities of living things, especially humans. Here's the way Dennett expresses it: "The idea of memes promises...to unify under a single perspective such diverse cultural phenomena as deliberate, foresighted scientific and cultural inventions (memetic engineering), such authorless productions as folklore, and even such unwittingly redesigned phenomena as languages and social customs themselves." (p. 355)

In other words, Dennett believes the term "meme" can be extremely useful by helping us to understand cultural evolution. And, yes, religion can be seen as a meme. However I think his purpose in this book would have been better served if he had narrowed his focus and concentrated exclusively on religion as a natural phenomenon.

And it is that, and Dennett makes a convincing case for scientists to respect something so natural to humans. What he doesn't do is make the case for an end to religion. What he wants is for those in our various religions to have the courage to openly examine their beliefs, tenets and practices and the effect they have on society as a whole. The question, is religion a good or a bad thing? is asked throughout the book, both explicitly and implicitly; however for the life of me I am not sure what Dennett's answer was!--although I can guess. At any rate, its clear that he believes if such an examination were conducted there would be fewer true believers in the world and less pain and suffering.

But religion is not going to go away because religion and humans are as intermixed as the yoke and white of a scrambled egg. For most people a religion is like a thought in your mind. You cannot long be without one. Dennett doesn't care for this idea, I suspect, since he declares that his beliefs do not constitute a religion. A "religion" is a way of life. Tracing the derivation in Webster's International Dictionary (the venerable and highly respected Second Edition) one has to wade through several hundred words before arriving at "8b Acceptance and devotion to such an ideal as a standard for one's own life." For the most part Dennett is using earlier, more exclusive definitions. Of course some people do not have a religion since they live willy-nilly, from one impulse to the next without much foresight or appreciation for past events. But such people are in the minority; indeed they are, in a sense, children.

Dennett calls the reader's attention to the evils and dangers of religion at length while at the same time giving religion its due as a sometime force for good in this world. But much of the good that religion does is seen by Dennett as the result of something like a placebo effect, and would benefit humankind regardless of the "truth" of the religion. He acknowledges studies that show that "regular churchgoers live longer, are less likely to have heart attacks, and so forth...," but adds that many of us "haven't stopped to consider how independent [these results]...are from whether or not any religious beliefs are true." (p. 272) Yes, it would be better--and such a day may come--when our religious beliefs are more in line with reality than they are today, taken as most of them are from the primitive science and psychology of long ago.

Religion also has utility, Dennett allows, because it strengthens people psychologically in some circumstances by giving them resolution and confidence, regardless of the fact that their confidence is based on nothing real. (p. 178) Sometimes any plan or belief--even one that is clearly wrong--is better than no plan or belief. Religion may also help people by creating or strengthening "bonds of trust that permit groups of individuals to act together much more effectively." (p. 178)

Dennett does not add at this point, but very well might have, that the cohesiveness of the tribe under the spell of a charismatic leader of the endemic religion strengthens the tribe in warfare. Indeed my contention is that this is the major reason that those of us living today have a built-in propensity to believe without evidence, because those that didn't died out because they were defeated by tribes that got their warriors to die for the cause in the name of their God. Dennett doesn't explore this path--although he does mention it--probably because he finds "group selection" troublesome.

I wish I had the space to go into more of the many interesting points that Dennett makes or to quibble with some of his conclusions. The book is fascinating and--even though Dennett, as usual, is intent on leaving nothing out--it is readable and lively, more so than some of his other books.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

Working through history, science, sociology, anthropology and evolution Dennett makes a gentle, clear argument as to why religion exists, has become so powerful in all cultures and is, potentially, dangerous. For the first time I understand the difference between belief in god [which some people genuinely have] and belief in the belief of god [which far more people have]. It has given me LOTS to think about.

As people who read books on evolutionary theory will know, mice sometimes exhibit bizarre behavior, fearlessly walking into the waiting jaws of cats. They do this because they have been infected by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which can only reproduce in a cat's digestive tract; the mouse's behavior is thus adaptive, not for the mouse, but rather for the parasite. Dennett uses this as his starting point when discussing the nature of religion. Maybe religions are like T. gondii: they are self-reproducing patterns of human behavior ("memes"), which take over their hosts and make them carry out acts whose main purpose is to further spread the meme. To Dennett, the religious martyr is like a mouse whose brain has been modified by T. gondii.

If you are yourself religious, the above may leave you feeling angry and disappointed with the author. This is perhaps not the best reaction, since Dennett (I think, anyway) is genuinely trying to understand the nature of religion without judging it. To him, the meme theory is the only one that makes scientific sense, and throughout the book he stresses that it in no way implies that religion-memes would necessarily harm their hosts. As he says, our bodies contain trillions of non-human cells, many of which are essential to our survival. Religions may be deadly parasites like T. gondii; but they could equally well be as vital to human well-being as our intestinal flora, without which we would be unable to digest our food. And although a Christian will probably be unhappy to hear Christianity called a mind-virus, she may be more willing to stick that label on Scientology or one of the Pacific cargo cults. As long as it isn't a religion you feel any personal affinity with, it does rather seem to make sense; once you're prepared to agree with that, you may reluctantly admit that the distaste and anger you feel when the reasoning is applied to your own religion could just be the meme defending itself. Evidently, an adaptation which discouraged believers from even considering arguments against their religion would be fitness-increasing.

Dennett's basic thesis seems perfectly reasonable to me as a starting point for further investigation, but I was disappointed that the greater part of the book was extremely speculative; as evolutionary theorists like to say, it mostly consisted of "just-so stories". Yes, religious ceremonies may have evolved because they improved fidelity of meme-copying, and religions may initially have increased the fitness of the populations that practiced them by helping people make difficult decisions or making them more receptive to medicinal hypnosis; but it seemed to me that these ideas created almost as many difficulties as they resolved, and were not well-supported by empirical data. On the other hand, Dennett is a philosopher, not a scientist, and his business is more to ask questions than to answer them. If he's managed to get people thinking about these issues, maybe he's done all that can be reasonably expected of him.

I could end here, but there is one point I kept thinking about that I just have to mention. Dennett discusses religion from a scientific point of view, and cannot avoid the obvious question: maybe science is just another religion? He claims that it isn't, since science is based on empirical analysis of data while religion is not, but I was not entirely satisfied with his response. A scientist's attachment to any particular theory may not be religious; but what about the scientific world-view itself? Why, exactly, should we use facts and rational debate to resolve disagreements? I've just been reading through the Dialogues of Plato, which (at least in my view) constitute one of the important founding documents for the modern scientific outlook. Socrates, a highly sympathetic character, takes nothing for granted and questions everything. He duly dies for his beliefs, and it is hard not to think of him as a kind of martyr to rationality. Why, exactly, is he different in kind from other religious martyrs, except that he is supporting the belief system that I personally happen to like?

Aaaargh, Dennett's somehow got me playing his game... I think I've been infected by the religion-as-meme meme! Didn't he say something about welcoming a response? These philosophers are so damn tricky...
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It's hard to stop thinking about this book. If Dennett is on the right track, I wondered what other memes there might be that propagated in ways similar to those for religions; to me, the ones that seem to fit best are language, music and poetry. They're all things that spread well and demand extremely faithful copying: as Dennett says, pretty much a sine qua non for a successful meme. But how are these different patterns related? How did the meme-copying adaptation arise, and what memes was it originally being used to transmit? Is it possible that all of these memes started off as the same thing, and only split apart later?

It would be nice to come up with some way to find empirical data...
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People curious about T. gondii may find this article interesting.