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.

In Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, author Daniel C. Dennett's main objective seems to be recommending that society undertake a formal, methodical, and overall scientific study of religion to figure out why so many people hold it so dear. Dennet is an atheist and makes it pretty clear that he thinks most religious beliefs are fantasies, but acknowledges that these fantasies appear to provide believers with some benefits and to motivate people to perform good works. Dennet's premise is that believers have a taboo or "spell" about studying religion scientifically, and he wants to break that spell. He doesn't say it explicitly, but it's pretty clear that Dennet expects rigorous examination to show that religion is, by and large, not worth the effort people put into it.

Dennet argues that for religion to have persisted, it must provide some competitive advantage that some other cultural ideas didn't. The middle section of the book is a hypothetical history of how religion might have evolved out of our earliest tendencies to assume that someone or something was responsible for almost everything that happened in the world, from the rising and setting of the sun, to illness and recovery, to weather, to crop failure or success, and so on. A key point in his theory is that religion evolves, much like biological organisms, and is not set in stone or in sacred writings. Dennet isn't necessarily saying his hypothesis is correct, but he feels it gives rise to questions that can be tested and validated.

The book concludes with a few chapters on issues in modern religion, including whether religion is essential for morality, and suggestions for further experiments and studies.

Dennet is a professional philosopher, but claims that this particular book is written for the average reader, not for other philosophers. I think the average reader is going to find this a difficult read, with some rather abstract ideas being presented. There are also copious end notes, three appendices with more detailed material on certain topics, and an index. This is not a light, summer read.

I think a scientific study of religion is a reasonable idea, in the same way we have scientific studies of art, music, and other human cultural behaviours. I don't think, however, it was necessary to take 339 pages (plus appendices and notes) to say that.

Mr. Dennett is one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, and a personal hero of mine. In this book, he discusses the need for science to study religion. He points to "an absence of information" about religion. We need to find out why people believe in the supernatural and what the results of those beliefs are. I agree. He presents his case in an easy to read book meant to reach out to a large audience.

Philosophers of religion get very little attention in the world of philosophy.

He points out how the scientific study of music has just begun to figure out why we love it. We need the same kind of study for religion.

"If you were God, would you have invented laughter?"--Christopher Frye in The Lady's Not for Burning. What a great question. I think I would have invented it just to deal with this incredible mess that a supposedly perfect being created.

Dealing with a corpse plays a central role in religions everywhere. Something must be done with it. Therefore, we create an elaborate ceremony of either burning or burial.

"Ancestor worship must be an appealing idea to those who are about to become ancestors."--Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works. So we old folks preserve these traditions that help us to deal with the end of our lives.

Evolution has designed us to love babies as being cute. It's important to our survival. All mammals have that within them. But it works the opposite way as well. Babies are hardwired to trust their parents. Those parents pass on memes like religion to the trusting children.

There is a profusion of ways that ancient people delegated important decisions to uncontrollable externalities. Instead of flipping a coin, you could flip arrows (belomancy) or rods (rhabdomancy) or bones or cards (sortilege), and instead of looking at tea leaves (tasseography), you can examine the livers of sacrificed animals (hepatoscopy) or other entrails (haruspicy) or melted wax poured into water (ceroscopy), Then there is moleosophy (divination by blemishes), myomancy (divination by rodent behavior), nephomancy (divination by clouds), and of course the old favorites, numerology and astrology, among others.

Divination memes may just make people feel like they are receiving divine assistance. It makes them feel good. Thus they go on.

"Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined."--Samuel Goldwyn. People went to shamans because they had no one else to go to. It provided them with some sense of relief. Folk religion turned into organized religion just the same way folk music turned into professional music.

"Among the Nuer it is particularly auspicious to sacrifice a bull, but since bulls are particularly valuable, a cucumber will do just fine most of the time."--E. Thomas Lawson.

Anthropologists find people deeply believe in their gods. "Everyone knows they exist!"

"Those to whom his word was revealed were always alone in some remote place, like Moses. There wasn't anyone around when Mohammed got the word, either. Mormon Joseph Smith and Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, had exclusive audiences with God. We have to trust them as reporters--and you know how reporters are. They'll do anything for a story."--Andy Rooney, in his book Sincerely, Andy Rooney.

In the film Marjoe, Marjoe Gotner explains how he got people to faint, make passionate displays of love for Jesus, and empty their wallets. The film won an oscar for best documentary in 1972.

Some of the many Christian sources were later excluded and banned as heresy. Why? What made them so dangerous?

"Religions exist primarily for people to achieve together what they cannot achieve alone."--David Sloane Wilson, Darwin's Cathedral.

"But what are the benefits? Why do people want religion at all? They want it because religion is the only plausible source of certain rewards of which there is a general and inexhaustible demand."--Rodney Stark, Acts of Faith.

"The Pope traditionally prays for peace every Easter and the fact that it has never had any effect whatsoever in preventing or ending a war never deters him. What goes through the Pope's mind about being rejected all the time? Does God have it in for him?"--Andy Rooney, Sincerely, Andy Rooney.

"When I was a child, I used to pray to God for a bicycle. But then I realized that God doesn't work in that way--so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness!"--Emo Phillips.

A key marketing problem for religions is to entice the customer to wait.

The physicist Paul Davies has recently defended the view that free will may be "a fiction worth maintaining."

Many people know about the change from polytheism to monotheism. Fewer understand the change from concrete anthropomorphism to ever more abstract and depersonalized concepts.

"You're basically killing each other to see whose got the better imaginary friend."--Rich Jeni

Theists resist having a specific definition of God. It makes the concept easier to refute.

"God is so great that the greatness precludes existence."--Raimundo Panikkar, The Silence of God.

"It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us."--Peter De Vries.

"There are people who believe, often passionately, in God, even though they cannot tell others all that much about the God in which they believe."--Alan Wolfe

"It is very easy not to murder people. Very easy. It is a little bit harder not to steal because one is tempted occasionally. So that is not great proof that I believe in God. But, if he tells me not to have a cup of coffee with milk in it with my mincemeat and peas at lunchtime, that is a test."--

"It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally, hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."--Thomas Nagel, The Last Word.

Our salvation may depend on evolutionary theory. If we continue to ignore its lessons, we endanger the earth and ourselves.

Only evolution gets hit with the "just a theory" bullshit. Nothing else in science gets that treatment. The proposition that God exists is not even a theory.

"It was the schoolboy who said, 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so.'"--Mark Twain.

Children are subject to religious practices that would send any other practitioner to jail. Why do we say a kid is a "Catholic child" or a "Muslim child" or any other. Let's do more religious education, not less. Let them see the truths.

Instead of trying to destroy the madrassahs that corrupt young Muslim minds, why don't we provide more alternatives? We do, and they get attacked.

There is a secretive Christian organization that believes in the End Times scenarios. It includes such famous politicians, mostly Republican, as Grassley, Dominici, Inhofe, Nelson, Ensign, Stupak, and De Mint.

"The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide."--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

There was some good information and concepts in this book, but they were often very difficult to discover. Dennett is extremely wordy - often needlessly so. And after finishing the book, I'm still struggling to understand exactly what many of his points were. Ultimately he falls short of living up to the title. I had been looking forward to reading Dennett for some time, and I can honestly say that, after this book, I won't pick up another of his. Finally, I really find it pompous when someone quotes their previous works and cites them as reference.

This was my fourth attempt at reading Breaking the Spell. Back when I first got interested in nonbelief, it was one of four books I purchased physical copies of at the bookstore, along with The God Delusion, God is Not Great, and The End of Faith. In fact, it was the first of those four books I decided to read, because I was struggling with my own dwindling faith, and the title seemed the least confrontational so I figured it would be the best to ease myself into things. I quickly got tired of the book and abandoned it. In fact, I abandoned the whole effort, and it wasn't until a few years later that I resumed my journey by reading The End of Faith, which I really enjoyed and then plowed through the other two books.

I felt guilty that I had skipped over this book, the only one of the "Four Horsemen" books I hadn't read. I wondered if I had perhaps been unfair, and disliked it only because of where I was, and not what the book was. So I picked up the same paperback copy I had purchased years earlier, and again tried to read it. Again, I quickly found myself losing interest, and it was never a book that I "stopped reading", it was just one that I never reached for when I felt like reading.

The third time was shortly after I'd gotten an ebook reader. I figured, with a huge library of books at my fingertips, I'd be more likely to read this one, so I tried once again. I got the ebook version of Breaking the Spell, and for the third time found myself losing interest. I had officially moved this book to my 'will-never-read' shelf on Goodreads, and had resigned myself to simply never bother reading this book. I was bummed about it, and I couldn't quite figure out why I disliked it so much, but there are so many great books out there, I decided I couldn't bother caring any more.

Then, out of nowhere, I was logging into Audible.com one day and noticed that Breaking the Spell had been released on audiobook format. Audiobook! This was the key! I could listen at the gym, on the bus, in the car, and walking around downtown. This was how I was going to get this book read, I thought.

Well, I'm happy to say, I did actually manage to get all the way through Breaking the Spell this time. I am, however, unhappy to say I still hated it, and largely forced myself to complete it out of a weird sense of obligation and completion. Less because I enjoyed the book, and more because I knew this was my last chance.

After getting all the way through it, I finally figured out what it was I hated so much about it, and sharing that will be the entirety of my review of it, aside from the personal historical lesson above.

I've read a lot of these "atheist screed" type books in the past few years. What is interesting is that the background of the authors of each of these books is directly reflected in the content and style of the book itself. Richard Dawkins is a world-renowned scientist and professor, so it's no surprise that "The God Delusion" is written very scientifically, citing as many studies as possible and outlying arguments in a clear, logical way. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, but also has a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy, so The End of Faith is a little less scientific than Dawkins's work, and a bit more meandering. Carl Sagan was a scientist and educator, so The Demon-Haunted World is extremely scientific, but also very approachable and friendly. Christopher Hitchens was a debator, a journalist, so God is Not Great draws upon a lot of current events and political angles, and reads like a very long OpEd piece.

So what's Daniel Dennett? He's a philosopher. If this fact doesn't give you pause, you probably haven't read a lot written by philosophers, or you are one. Philosophers have a tendency to ramble forever, carefully mapping out their argument in excruciating detail. There's a point in the argument where a normal reader might say "alright, I get it" only to discover they are approximately 40% through the entire argument, and must now eye-roll their way through the remaining 60%. Philosopher's seem to like questions more than answers, and like to pose tons and tons of questions, and consider every possible angle about a particular point, including purely hypothetical ones with little to no basis in reality. The short way of saying this is: a lot of philosophers love the sound of their own voices. This is obviously a mean generalization, but I have to admit I've found it to hold true surprisingly often.

Dennett's Breaking the Spell is no exception to this. It is exactly what one might expect from a philosopher, illustrating every negative aspect of stereotypical philosopher writings. Case in point: the first third of the book is spent merely justifying the existence of the rest of the book. What would be a normal author's introductory chapter is, instead, nearly 100 pages of droning about the need for his book. Can science study religion? SHOULD science study religion? Ugh.

In fact, the TITLE of the book, "Breaking the Spell" seems to indicate that the book will be about what we can do to break society free of the cycle of religiosity. The only chapter that even remotely deals with that, "Now What Do We Do?" is the final chapter, a mere 32 pages of the book's 340 (non-appendix) pages. Another (mild) irritation is Dennett's constant citations of his own previous work. I understand if an author wants to point readers to his previous work because it might be interesting, or help articulate a point, but it seems almost comically frequent in Breaking the Spell. There's a palpable sense of pretentiousness.

I don't want to give the wrong impression. It's not that the book contains nothing of value. On the contrary, there are some really enjoyable bits to the book, some really interesting points, and a lot of food for thought. The problem is that of padding: an interesting point that should take up a merel paragraph to be accurately conveyed to a reader might instead consist of a few dozen pages instead. Every moment reading the book feels like wading through haystack after haystack looking for needles. They are nice needles, but you can't help but ask why Dennett couldn't be bothered to simply edit the haystacks out.

There are lots of similar books that are more informative, or more interesting out there, so it's tough to recommend this book. I know a lot of people love it, so I think a big part of the issue is my own general distaste for this particular kind of writing.

Because of the rather cumbersome first part, clearly addressed to an American public, I almost gave up reading this book. Fortunately, I did not, because in the second part Dennett gives an overview of some interesting theories on the origin of religions. It is not surprising that he prefers evolutionary biology ones, which always focus on the question of the evolutionary utility (cui bono?) of a certain development. That's the big difference with Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion: Dawkin's focus is on the truth question, Dennett's on whether religion is good for man or not.

I did miss the directness of Dawkins in this book, and the speculative nature of the many theories and hypotheses Dennett unleashes on the reader surprised me. But certainly the second part convinced me that Dennett is definitely the more intelligent thinker of the two. I especially found the distinction he makes between "believing in a God" and "believing in believing in a God" an eye-opener that should be developed further. But you can clearly see Dennett hopping on 2 legs in this book: he has an eye for the good sides of religion, but at the same time he regularly hints at what nonsense religions sell and how much evil they do, and that it comes down to 'breaking the spell'. Certainly in his last chapters you see the pendulum swinging back and forth in his text, and that gives the book a rather tousled undertone (although his stance as a combative atheist is very clear).

Ultimately, I especially remember this book's strong plea to subject religions to scientific research. And I think that is a good thing: everything must and may undergo the careful screening by science. I can absolutely follow Dennett in his outline of how cautious science should be in this, step by step and with a lot of empathy, critical and also open to self-criticism. “I would like nothing better than for this book to provoke a challenge — a reasoned and evidence-rich scientific challenge — from researchers with opposing viewpoints”. But at the same time, Dennett is a child of his time, with a rock-solid belief in the ultimate truth through science. Unfortunately, in my opinion, such scientism will never succeed in bringing out what’s really valuable in life.
(rating 2.5 stars)

Can my faith survive the scrutiny of a critical analysis made in the name of science?  Is my christian experience of the same stripe or specie as that of the adherents of other world religions that no honest inquiry would discover it uniquely an indispensable contributor to my well-being and a witness to the realities that are found only in God?
Will such an investigation into my spirituality show that my religion and my faith are simply part of my culture or my upbringing, that is to say, my christian experience is reducible to a ritual, the value of which, is only as a coping mechanism against hardship and pain?  Am I somehow culturally conditioned, like Topol in Fiddler on the Roof remarked about the value of traditions: Each one knows who he is and what is expected of him ... and in that spirit, life is stable, we accept our condition with reserved hope, and we live peaceably with one another.

Is my belief in God nothing more than part of the human condition or is faith to me much more than all of this?  ... much, much more!

 

n  Escapen
Daniel Dennett in his work, Breaking the Spell intends to find out, by subjecting my belief—or at least my belief in belief—to the rigors of scientific discovery as one might study... say, music.  Music has been dissected as a series of sounds (notes and tones) produced in arrangements intended to stir certain feelings or encourage certain types of behavior in the listener.

Why do I enjoy Sirius/XM's Escape channel when I am in a quiet mood or wish for background music accompanying my reading?  Why does the Enlighten channel stir thoughts of praise to God?  Why do I get romantic listening to the Love channel?  Why do I tend to react in more or less predictable ways emotionally while listening to selective genre of music?  And why are some my favorites and others I never listen to?    Why do Vivaldi's violins or a romantic saxophone send me into a glazed over mood, daydreaming of love?

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure. -- Albert Einstein

n  Worried?n
Can my faith be analyzed in this manner?  Why do I believe in God?  Why do I maintain He answers prayer, or at least, He hears me when I pray?  And is this nothing more than my being religious?

It is well known that the parent-offspring link  is the major pathway of transmission of religion. Dennett, pg. 86 [Proverbs 22:6]

Dennett adds:

Some concepts happen to trigger our emotional programs in particular ways.  Some ... happen to connect to our social mind.  Some.. become plausible and direct behavior.  The ones that do all this are the religious ones we actually observe .... " Dennett. pg. 107.

But even Dennett admits: It will take decades of research to secure any of this theory. pg. 108.

He proposes to explain in natural, no-god-needed, terms why I am religious.  And admittedly in mock sensitivity he wonders:  Will such an up close look at my religion damage my faith in God?  If the cloak of mysticism and the miraculous is removed, will what is discoverable underneath be nothing more than generations of attending church, synagogue, temple or mosque?  And I will fail to see any emotional connection worth keeping and attending?  

"It is time to confront the worry."  he marches on.

Many of Generation X are now confronted with a need to re-evaluate their faith and their religious experience.  Dennett appeals to their understanding, and in large part to their education.  While the older generation seeks to rest secure in their lifelong convictions and traditions, the younger generations struggle to discover what those convictions and traditions should be for them—if at all.

And what about me!?  How secure is my faith in the reality of God in my life to make all Dennett's nice sounding words nothing more than—to use his own phrase with my spin on it: a GOOD TRICK.

n  Wineskinsn
"What explains religion?" Dennett asks (pg. 92).

Early in his book he underscores the importance of the theory of evolution—not creationism—in understanding where religion came from.

A social historian or an anthropologist who knows a great deal about the beliefs and practices of people all around the world but is naive about evolution is ... unlikely to frame issues well.  Dennett, pg. 104.

...religion is a social phenomenon designed (by evolution).... Ibid. pg. 106d

...to explain the hold various religious ideas and practices have on people, we need to understand the evolution of the human mind. Ibid. pg. 106ff.

He refers to the evolutionary underpinnings of religion calling it a cultural evolution.

Admittedly, culture is something that evolves or develops through generations of social change.  Some of what we do, we do because it just feels or seems right although we have no rationale to explain why.  The Christmas tree is one that currently comes to mind.  I am reminded of a story.

The story is told of a young girl inquiring of her mother why she cut the shank end of a roast off before putting it into the roaster.  Her mother didn't know and redirected the youth to ask grandma.  Grandma drew a blank as well but since great grandma was still alive, the young lady went to her for an answer?

"You see, sweetheart, back in our day the pots were too small for the roast and we had to cut the end off to get it to fit."

In like manner we do carry over cultural practices and even rituals that may have no further practical value.  The present generation of the faithful may merely be going through the motions and receiving nothing of value in it.  Luke 5:37  - Old wine in new wineskins?

n  Religionn
Dennett, then, is analyzing religious practice and ritual in evolutionary terms.

Everything we value—[including] religion—we value for reasons.  Lying behind, and distinct from, our [Dennett's emphasis] reasons  are evolutionary reasons, free-floating rationales that have been endorsed by natural selection. ...  The apparent extravagance of religious practices can be accounted for in the austere terms of evolutionary biology -- Dennett, pg. 93.

But can my faith in God be spoken of separate from my religion?  Do I know that regardless of which religious ritual I practice, my trust in God is not dependent on these outward expressions of worship?  Do I know that if the electricity went out and the sound system went dead, the stores ran out of incense and wine and the choir didn't practice this week (half of them have the flu including the orchestra) I could still worship God within the sanctuary of my own heart?  [Habakkuk 3:17]

And what if some of the doctrines I believed as important turned out in the light of new archeological discoveries to be wrong and discardable?  Can I limit my need to know [Deuteronomy 29:29] to a child's understanding of the message of Calvary?  Can I sense the love of God toward me and let that be sufficient until all things are revealed?  This would make Dennett's theory—though he might be correct about religion (and that's a 'might'), nonetheless—mute as regards faith.

What might such a test show if somehow my faith brought comfort in suffering, peacefulness in death (we wait on this one), no need for explanations for the unanswerable mysteries of life, and fellowship with those of like heart regardless of circumstances or denomination ties?   What if my worship of God didn't need any particular ritual or form to be alive and well?

Dennett is correct about church ritual and practice: We should resist the... temptation to postulate some sort of ... genius ...to explain [it]."  (pg 79ff)  But that is not where my devotion to God lies.  To confuse my faith with some religious practice is comparable to explaining the value of an egg in terms of the shell or the value of a person by the clothes they wear.

Christians should not be known by their church affiliations but their faith in and love for God.

n  Faithn
This is not to make our worship styles and expressions meaningless but we must be worshipping God in spirit and truth and not just form. [John 4:24]  This we already know.
My faith cannot depend on the preacher.  After all, his or her display of faith might be tied, in part, to a paycheck or popularity or a tradition and not just the bare necessity of trusting God.   I don't say that to accuse him or her of false motives but even the preacher needs to strip away all other provisions that support what they believe and leave them with raw reliance on God.  And this fact is so private it isn't always evident in their message. Some might accuse me here of describing a blind faith, being brain-washed, or compartmentalizing my beliefs separate from my realities.  Argue that point with Shadrach, Meshach or Abednego.  [Daniel 3:16-18]

I do not intend to resign my faith to accusation or the twist of a phrase.  My faith cannot depend on my ability to out argue my critics.  I have the Veritas Forum and Dr. Willian Lane Craig for that if I need them.  Faith should need not depend solely on post-graduate degrees or high I.Q.'s of proponents for support.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

The lure of criticism is to pull us into discussions we cannot possibly win, points of debate they can argue fluently but which we are unacquainted with.  For most christians, the spider's web of discussions intent on persuading us that there is no God is made of strands of impressive ideas and assumptions.  These are made of an alluring, imprisoning logic we never before imagined.  Entangled, we begin to find reasonable a rational so foreign to the biblical message we may have once held sacred.

I am not saying don't study atheistic thought.  I am enjoying Dennett's book.  Taking a closer look at the purity of my faith is a worth while study in introspection [James 1:23-24]—grading the effectiveness of my religious experience against the answer sheet Christ Himself gave [Matthew 25:35-36].

Only if I can see through the assumptions being made in the name of science which are yet to be proven and I carefully consider the bias all writers write in—the spin being put on the use of statistics as well as non-relevant points of interests that do not bear at all on the question of my faith and salvation—can I approach an accurate appraisal of my christian experience?

If my faith is real.

Also my faith shouldn't need a daily dose of miracles to survive.  Like Elijah, one meal (one unforgettable encounter with God ) can last a life time and provide strength for the journey.... as it should. [I Kings 19:7-8]

This book has attracted many thoughtful and nuanced reviews, written by people with a far better grounding in philosophy than me. Rather than just repeat their points I decided to try something different. While reading Breaking the Spell I kept thinking back to Will and Ariel Durant’s 1965 book The Age of Voltaire, volume nine of their eleven volume Story of Civilization. That book ends with a chapter titled Epilogue in Elysium, which is an imaginary dialog between Voltaire and Pope Benedict XIV. The dialog is ahistorical, containing references to West Germany and the atomic bomb, but its focus is on religion and philosophy, not history, and the points made by both men helped me add context to Daniel Dennett’s book.

What I decided to do was to look at some of the arguments Breaking the Spell made and weave into them parts of Durant’s dialog, because they seemed to address many of the same issues from different perspectives. For instance, Dennett examines religion from a scientific point of view, and then pauses to consider whether there are deeper human needs which religion can address but science cannot. Durant touches on this same question, writing:

BENEDICT. You are mistaken if you think that our birth rate is the secret of our success; something far profounder is involved. Shall I tell you why intelligent people all over the world are returning to religion?
VOLTAIRE. Because they are tired of thinking.
BENEDICT. Not quite. They have discovered that your philosophy has no answer but ignorance and despair. And wise men perceive that all attempts at what your brethren called a natural ethic have failed. You and I probably agree that man is born with individualistic instincts formed in thousands of years of primitive conditions; that his social instincts are relatively weak; and that a strong code of morals and laws is needed to tame this natural anarchist into a normally peaceful citizen. Our theologians called those individualistic instincts original sin, inherited from our “first parents”—that is, from those harassed, lawless men, ever endangered hunters, who had always to be ready to fight and kill for food or mates; who had to be violently acquisitive, and pugnacious, and cruel, because whatever social organization they had was still weak, and they had to depend upon themselves for security in their lives and possessions.

Dennett looks at religion as a meme (a word coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene), and then wonders if perhaps it is something even deeper, a survival trait etched into the genome that was selected for and enhanced over countless generations because it promoted group unity. That is an interesting thought, but it has forced believers to accept a lot of absurdities, and as Voltaire himself said, in another context, “Ceux qui peuvent vous faire croire en des absurdités, peuvent vous faire commettre des atrocités. (Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.)”

BENEDICT. So I feel justified in rejecting materialism, atheism, and determinism. Each of us is a soul. Religion builds on that fact.
VOLTAIRE. Suppose all that; how does it warrant the mass of absurdities that were added, century after century, to the creed of the Church?
BENEDICT. There were many absurdities, I know. Many incredibilities. But the people cry out for them, and in several instances the Church, in accepting such marvels into her creed, yielded to persistent and widespread popular demand. If you take from the people the beliefs we allow them to hold, they will adopt legends and superstitions beyond control. Organized religion does not invent superstition, it checks it. Destroy an organized faith, and it will be replaced by that wilderness of disorderly superstitions that are now arising like maggots in the wounds of Christianity.

Breaking the Spell draws a worthwhile distinction between those who believe in god, those who believe that belief itself has benefits from the point of view of social cohesion, and those who feel an emptiness where belief used to be but cannot bring themselves to accept what reason cries out against, probably an oblique reference to Saint Augustine’s idea that there is a god-shaped hole in the heart of every man.

BENEDICT. Meanwhile consider the spiritual devastation that your propaganda has spread, perhaps more tragic than any ruin of cities. Is not atheism the prelude to a profounder pessimism than believers have ever known? And you, rich and famous, did you not often think of suicide?
VOLTAIRE. Yes. I tried to believe in God, but I confess to you that God meant nothing in my life, and that in my secret heart I too felt a void where my childhood faith had been. But probably this feeling belongs only to individuals and generations in transition; the grandchildren of these pessimists will frolic in the freedom of their lives, and have more happiness than poor Christians darkened with fear of hell.
BENEDICT. That fear played only a minor role in the lives of the great majority of the faithful. What inspired them was the feeling that the agony of death was not a meaningless obscenity but the prelude to a larger life, in which all earthly injustices and cruelties would be righted and healed, and they would be united in happiness and peace with those whom they had loved and lost.

Whatever its origins, religion is so deeply embedded in the human psyche that it would be hard to discard, and perhaps dangerous as well. Many people today live hard lives whose only solace is their belief that something better awaits them beyond this veil of tears.

VOLTAIRE. Tradition, then, is capable of being wrong and oppressive, and an impediment to the advancement of understanding. How can man progress if he is forbidden to question tradition?
BENEDICT. Perhaps we should question progress too, but let us put that problem aside for the present. I believe that we should be allowed to question traditions and institutions, but with care that we do not destroy more than we can build, and with caution that the stone that we dislodge shall not prove to be a necessary support to what we wish to preserve, and always with a modest consciousness that the experience of generations may be wiser than the reason of a transitory individual.
VOLTAIRE. And yet reason is the noblest gift that God has given us.
BENEDICT. No; love is. I do not wish to belittle reason, but it should be the servant of love, not of pride.
VOLTAIRE. I often admitted the frailty of reason, I know that it tends to prove anything suggested by our desires; and my distant friend Diderot wrote somewhere that the truths of feeling are more unshakable than the truths of logical demonstration. The true skeptic will doubt reason too. Perhaps I exaggerated reason because that madman Rousseau exaggerated feeling. To subordinate reason to feeling is, to my mind, more disastrous than to subordinate feeling to reason.

Religion is comfort and strength to many people, and reminded me of the old saying that it makes a good man better, and a bad man worse. But secular society is certainly not lacking in evil men and evil deeds. Sometimes all that our progress does is allow us to kill each other more efficiently. Still, in a slow and halting fashion civilization seems to be moving forward.

BENEDICT. And yet you are so hard to convince! Sometimes I despair of winning back brilliant men like you, whose pens move a million souls for evil or for good. But some of your followers are opening their eyes to the awful reality. The bubble of progress has exploded in a century that has seen more wholesale murder of men and women, more devastation of cities and desolation of hearts, than any other century in history. Progress in knowledge, science, comforts, and power is only progress in means; if there is no improvement in ends, purposes, or desires, progress is a delusion. Reason improves the instrumentalities, but the ends are determined by instincts formed before birth and established before reason can grow.
VOLTAIRE. I still have faith in human intelligence; we shall improve ends as well as means as we become more secure in our lives.

And what of the children? If we take impressionable young people and pound religion into them are we helping or hurting them? There is a (disputed) quote by Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, to the effect of “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” Are children harmed by religious education? Does early exposure to it warp their thinking for the rest of their lives, or is it important for their growth as responsible, caring human beings?

BENEDICT. Are children capable of philosophy? Can children reason? Society is based upon morality, morality is based upon character, character is formed in childhood and youth long before reason can be a guide. We must infuse morality into the individual when he is young and malleable; then it may be strong enough to withstand his individualistic impulses, even his individualistic reasoning. I’m afraid you began to think too soon. The intellect is a constitutional individualist, and when it is uncontrolled by morality it can tear a society to pieces.
VOLTAIRE. Some of the finest men of my time found reason a sufficient morality.
BENEDICT. There is no doubt that thousands of people orthodox in faith—even people who attend to all the observances of religion—can become great sinners and passionate criminals. Religion is no infallible cure for crime, it is only a help in the great task of civilizing mankind; we believe that without it men would be far worse than they are.
VOLTAIRE. But that awful doctrine of hell turned God into an ogre more cruel than any despot in history.
BENEDICT. You resent that doctrine, but if you knew men better you would understand that they must be frightened with fears as well as encouraged with hopes. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. When your followers lost that fear they began to deteriorate.

Breaking the Spell is one of those books that I spent a lot of time thinking about, and keep coming back to for context about current events. I was reminded of the self-destructive forces religion can unleash as I read a collection of internet posts from people who refused the Covid vaccine only to die slowly and horribly from the virus, many of them buttressing their decisions with a touching but toxic form of Christian faith: when first hospitalized they told their followers not to worry, that god would save them; then, as they got sicker a note of desperation would creep in: surely god would save his faithful and devoted servant; and finally a sad announcement from the family that heaven had gained a new angel. Daniel Dennett’s book does not provide answers, but it asks the right questions, and those questions can help illuminate our path as we sort out what we believe, why we believe it, and why it matters.

70 - 2021

Not a review-

It is easy to defy religion and it sounds fancy also in some sense these days. But what I wanted to get into exactly by touching this aspect was to understand something like religion which is an important aspect of majority of people in this world. Being a nonbeliever myself and have worked with some time with political group affiliated to left ideology was not convinced by the idea how religion is dealt by them in context of thinking about society as a whole. "Religion is an opium of the society" as Marx says, but do we really think that the religious state is by far worst than the market oriented state of mind. How to decide ? how to go about understanding religion so that we don't fall into that small privileged position of just not believing it , at least in their fancy dinning discourses. This book provides some idea to start thinking about this aspect.

On the whole, a good book, and he makes some great points, but I don't think at all that the book accomplishes much that he set out to accomplish with it. This kind of philosophical argument doesn't go over well with most religious types, so it's hard to think of giving this book to, say, my mother, to convince her that maybe I'm not horrible for raising my kids without religion.

In this book, Daniel Dennett pleads for intensifying scientific research into religion as a natural phenomenon. We have waited too long to do this and nowadays we see ourselves confronted with issues of which we lack the essential insights to make informed decisions. For example, in combating islamic terrorism, we are awfully short on scientific facts to base our policies on.

This book is in essence a two-sided project. First and foremost Dennett wants to break the spell of religion. Religions have shrouded themselves in mysticism/obscurantism and have immunized themselves of critique. Believers all over the world claim to be offended by critical probing into their convictions and the effects of those convictions on society as a whole. This is what Dennett sees as the spell that has to be broken. Another spell that has to be broken is the timeless (and tiresome) linkage between belief and goodness (this is the origin of religious hatred against atheism) and the association between spiritualism and morality (only spirituality - of which religion is perceived to be only one form - can offer you a good and meaningful life). The 'belief in belief' and the 'belief in spiritualism' are claimed to be moral and good, but in reality both of those beliefs are selfish and childish. It's time to break this spell as well!

The second goal of Breaking the Spell (2005) is to synthesize the different strands of scientific theories on religion and to offer a preliminary model of religion, to be investigated further - via the scientific method.

In part 1 of the book Dennett explains why the spell needs to be broken (21st century problems), how science can offer help in making informed policies and decisions regarding religion and how our investigations should proceed. Basically, we should ask ourselves Cui Bono? - who benefits? Dennett shows (convincingly) that religion doesn't have to offer benefits to its believers, it can either be a parasitic, symbiont or neutral complex of memes.

In part 2, Dennett gives an oversight of the current science of religion and synthesizes this into an explanation how it is that religion is a universal cultural trait. Human beings use the 'intentional stance' to attribute agency to other humans and all sorts of natural objects that move. We seem to have 'hyperactive agent detection devices' - the continued mental triggering of alarms signalling agents wherever we look. Some of these imaginary agents can be used as decision aids (divination), others can be used as shaman's tools (health maintenance). Because these mental constructs are memes, they have been subjected to - conscious as well as unconscious - revision and design, i.e. thus ultimatly based on memetic fitness). Rituals, music and storytelling - in our eyes extravagant religious displays - were tools to transmit information (we are talking about times before the invention of writing). Shamanic traditions were possibly helpful interventions, playing on our natural dispositions. For example, there's evidence that the presence of hope in a sick person triggers fierce immunological responses, thereby increasing the chances of recovery (we are talking about times before the invention of pills or surgery).

The next step in Dennett's explanation of religion is that people became stewards of the (religious) ideas that entered them, domesticating these ideas and thereby bringing a new dimension to the Cui Bono? question. Some of the features that emerged from this religious design are secrecy, deception and systematic invulnerability to disconfirmation (thereby giving these stewards powers they wouldn't otherwise be able to wield). This stage in the evolution of religion is tightly connected to the adaption of agricultural practices ca. 10.000 year ago; due to specialization and bigger communities there was room for castes of priests to originate (for the first time in human history).

The last stage in the evolution of religion is the interplay between religious memes and our human need for group forming: because of language and culture, religion could serve as a marker for in-group friendliness and out-group hostility. Because of trade networks and the dispersion of knowledge, a marketplace for religious ideas originated. Different designed systems competing for adherents with different needs and tastes. This is why rationalistic economic theories, in combination with memetics, are our best shots at explaining the existence of so many different creeds.

The result of this evolution of religion is that we ended up with a 'belief in belief'. Even though most people might not be religious anymore (in any way that makes sense), the consensus is still that belief is associated with morality and goodness. This makes it hard for atheists to combat religion, because 'belief in belief' ensures immunity to religious creeds, even though the defendants in question might not even be religious themselves. We have to break the spell that belief is necessary, or indeed sufficient, for an intellectually fulfilled and meaningful life.

In part 3, Dennett offers his comments on some loose ends. We should chart the pros and cons of religion in an honest attempt to develop a (metaphorical) Buyer's Guide to Religions. He argues that the academic smokescreen, upholded by postmodern, neo-Marxist social scientists, has to be annihilated first. After this, there are two questions to ask: (1) Is religion beneficial to people? There's no evidence in favour for this. There are some health benefits, but other studies show that prayer for patients created higher levels of stress, leading to lower recovery rates. (If there would be evidence to the claim that religion offers health benefits, we would know them by now, since religious organizations would be the first to bring the news). (2) Is religion the foundation of morality? This simply can be answered with 'no'. Descriptively speaking, morality has biological and cultural roots, and prescriptively speaking, religion has no claim to the moral high ground. If morals are just prudence (I do as god tells me, because I will get a heavenly reward), then religion is dangerous. If morals are good in and of itself, then religion is simply not necessary; at best it hinders our efforts to get to universal human moral (and rights).

In the final chapter, Dennett asks us to use his model and predictions as a stepping stone to scientific knowledge on religion as a natural phenomenon, in order to create well-guided policies to combat the religious delusions that endanger the entire world in the 21st century. One of Dennett's building blocks is education on all (!) religions, thereby creating an environment in which children can make informed decisions as adults. Another building block is to get the religious moderates to speak out against the fanatics in their midst, and destroying the barrier that they have built around their ideas: only constantly critizing ideas can combat extremism - religious moderates stand in the way, always claiming they're offended.

I re-read this book, after reading it some years ago. I can remember I found it a dull book, but on my second reading it offered me some gems of insight. Maybe I just wasn't open-minded enough back then. In any case, this is a decent book (not one his best) that conveys a very important message. I found that most if his predictions and claims have withstood the test of time and that some of them seem even more urgent now as back in 2005 when this book was published.