Dennett made a point in the beginning that this book is mainly for american readers so others may find it making obvious statements and he was absolutely correct. The book was unnecessarily long; taking sections and chapters to explain the most basic arguments as if they were not simple enough for common sense to comprehend.

Breaking the spell, as opposed to "The god delusion", is written by a philosopher and not a biologist in the sense that after reading it nothing new is learned about hard sciences. Maybe that's what the targeted audience needs but that is definitely not what I expected.

This was a challenge. I kept putting it aside after reading a few pages, picking it up and digesting a bit more, until about six years ago when I tucked it in my night stand for what I thought would only be a little while. Well...nearly five years ago we had a fire. This was one of maybe 19-20 books I salvaged out of our 5,800 books in our library that were damaged severely due to smoke and soot. After a couple of years of airing out, I let it sit still longer until I picked it up again last year. I had to start over, having most of the thoughts and memories shoved aside, though I kept my flags and my margin notes were intact.

I like Dennett. I think he made a lot of sense, but I also get the sense that this was not as rigorous as his other offerings. Still, I adjusted my perspective on religion years ago because of it (and another book by Pascal Boyer). While I still consider religions and associated beliefs irrational, I have come to an understanding that such is genetically encoded - humans are primed to believe in that which makes no rational sense. That helps me sleep better at night (cliche...I still suck at sleeping) - even if I still don't get it.

This is not a "review". Just a short observation of something that will take much more thought. I owe Dennett a full review, but I admit I'm not up to it right now.

There are lots of different kinds of atheist books out there, and contrary to popular (mis)conception, they are not all angry, nor are all they all written by scientists with an axe to grind against the creationists. I have read some of the angry books, and while I enjoyed them, I certainly wouldn't recommend them to a religious believer, because they would only succeed in raising the believer's hackles and putting them in such a defensive position that all debate would be stonewalled. It's not an issue of "respect" (because the primary point of being an atheist is that religious beliefs don't deserve respect) but rather one of intention and the tone that goes along with that intention. If your intention – like Christopher Hitchens' – is to rock the boat and make complacent atheists or noncommital agnostics realize all the work that needs to be done, then your tone should rightfully be impassioned and indignant. Dennett's intention in Breaking the Spell is different. His goal is to assuage believers' fears about conversing with an atheist, put them at their ease, and talk about a few specific issues calmly and rationally with the goal of getting people to think more clearly about several unspoken and traditionally taboo subjects. No histrionics, no hyperbole, no accusations – just letting the facts speak for themselves. Needless to say, there are atheists (like me) who find this approach refreshing and more approachable than the writings of people like Hitchens, which, while still important and necessary, are not the kinds of books you can necessarily give to a religious person unless you are intending to piss them off.

Dennett's book is so well-reasoned, well-argued, and well-written that you could give it to your doddering old grandmother, who has followed Jesus her entire life, and chances are she would not feel unduly scandalized by what the book says (especially if she already accepts evolution as a fact of life, which Dennett chooses not to convince people of in this book, since he has an entire other book devoted to that topic). Dennett is not ambiguous about his stance as an atheist or his belief that religion is not a prerequisite for moral behavior, but he is open-minded about so many issues and trusts so much in the scientific method and reasoned debate to resolve problems that you can't help but respect and like him and his common sense approach. True, if you are a real dyed-in-the-wool Bible-beater, you will find the entire premise of this book – that religion has evolved naturally (as opposed to supernaturally) over the course of recent human history under specific circumstances and its evolution and appeal through the ages can be explained through understanding human psychology and sociology – offensive and disrespectful. But finding something disrespectful is not the same as proving something wrong, and it also doesn't do away with your ability (obligation, even) to confront the evidence that the other side has assembled. The surest way to support your point of view and convince people of its validity, after all, is to allow it to stand on its own in the full light of inquiry. And even if you are afraid of the results, you cannot deny more courageous minds the right to discover them. Dennett does an excellent job of not setting up a straw-man argument – he lets the religious point of view shine through in each chapter and even goes to some length to show how these viewpoints could be right, while ultimately showing that they are not all that persuasive when examined more carefully from a wider perspective on human history.

I am a huge fan of Dennett's other work, but not really this one. He spends most of the book talking about why it's worthwhile for scientists to debunk religion and for religious folks to put their faith through a scientific test (which is fine), but he spends much less time actually debunking religion through science. I don't mean debunking a "God created the world" theory, which other books have done, but the idea that religion is good for people and good for society. He seems to take for granted that it is not and yet most cultures have created religion over time and again and again. It must have served some function that is not deleterious. He seemed unwilling to probe that. I would suggest Robert Wright's work as a better explication of evolution and religion (it's not a defense of religion at all--but more of an evolutionary view of religion).

While I agree with Dennett's approach and conclusions, a more tedious book about the origins and purpose of religion doesn't exist.

I grew up in the Christian world. My wife in the Muslim world. We both had given up on our respective faiths just in time to find each other. Praise God we did, and life got great. How that happened for both of us would be a very long book. It would probably be very similar to this one. The culture that best represents my wife and I is freedom. Which is to say we don't need walls around us to "defend our culture." Toward the end of Dennett's book you might get my point.

Perfectly argued and a balanced perspective. What a wonderful read!

An admirable intellectual, Dennett spends the first several chapters carefully establishing the parameters of his discussion. His book addresses the adherents of organized religion: more specifically, those who believe that God is a "who" rather than a "what", and who hold certain sets of beliefs without making them available for rational critique. The title of Dennett's book, "Breaking the Spell," refers his insistence that religious beliefs should be examined logically and scientifically to investigate whether they are true. Beliefs should not be eligible for a cloak of mystery simply because they are religious in nature; furthermore, such a cloak does not enhance the real value of these beliefs.

This is a slow read that requires a good background in philosophy, but it is worth the time and effort. It is full of fascinating ideas, many of them old philosophical standbys with a modern scientific twist. For example, when Dennett compares love for God with romantic love, he looks at the evolutionary basis of romantic feelings and behaviors. He asks how religion benefits our fitness for survival, given that it requires so much of our energy. He notes that some neurologists have postulated a "god center" in the brain, and he clarifies that we may have culturally perpetuated the idea of God only because the idea happens to stimulate the pre-existing "whatsis center," and furthermore, that not every individual may even have such a center.

Dennett's tone is one of cheerful optimism. He thinks religious people often mean well, and he believes that they succeed in living good, moral lives just as often as non-believers do. But he insists that religion is not necessary for moral behavior, and he demands that religious people desist from harming atheists and skeptics. He wants a healthy climate for honest debate and a world where people do not injure each other over such topics. It is a fair and diplomatic book that makes an apparently sound argument. Of the various books I've read by atheists, this is the one of which I'd be most surprised to see a successful refutation.

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 disappointing book. It started off decent, hypothesizing some evolutionary origins of religious thought, and the introduction of the concept of memes, which allowed the development and propagation of religious ideas. However, it didn't add much to that. It was more concerned about disproving supernatural claims about religion itself, rather than explaining religion as such. It's a rather understandable endeavor considering how religion is applied for a significant portion of the population. But nevertheless, it's quite pointless for anyone that isn't a religious fundamentalist.

If the goal of the book was to convince anyone of the possibility of not being a supernatural God, I don't know why Dennett bothered. His most compelling arguments are borrowed from either Sam Harris or Dawkins, if not quoted directly. He offers nothing original with substantial value.

I'm not sure why I expected otherwise, considering it's a rather consistent phenomenon in what some call the "new atheists", but it's quite embarrassing writing a book about religion and not understanding it the slightest. In almost 400 pages, Dennet never even touched on anything philosophical ideas behind specific religious stories. His narrow-mindedness can't see anything but literal claims about the material world. It's not super unreasonable considering that is indeed what many religious people claim, but nevertheless, he should know better.

If you're looking for the typical atheist case around religion, Dawkins or Sam Harris are much better picks. If you're looking for a deeper understanding of religious thought and origin, then this offers very little insight.

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.

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!