Breaking The Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon

Daniel C. Dennett “Breaking The Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon”  Viking., 2006, 412 pp.

About one month ago, during my walks, I began listening on my iPod to podcast episodes titled “The Partially Examined Life. ”  One of the episodes mentioned books written by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as well as this book by Dennett.  I had already read the other three authors so it was no stretch to add this Dennett’s book.

“Breaking the Spell”: argues for a scientific analysis of religion and therefore breaking the taboo that religion is off-limits to scientific inquiry and that any questioning of religious doctrines is disrespectful and not allowed.  Dennett explains religion as a natural Darwinian phenomenon and proposes that the effects of religion can be determined, scientifically, as good or bad for humans.  He forecasts that such a study would find evidence that believers live happier or even longer lives and there may be greater altruism among believers; however, he also thinks these effects may be explained in other ways.  Additionally, religion has almost never been about choice: faith tends to be the product of childhood indoctrination. We are expected to take the word of god(s) without any satisfactory evidence and heed (generally unquestioningly) the interpretations of essentially self-appointed gate-keepers (popes, priests, imams, rabbis, etc.).  Yet, most of us (if not all) are in fact atheists in regard to almost all the gods and religions, except…of course…our own.  A true atheist just goes one religion further.

My Notes:

Pg. xiii:  It is commonly observed—both in America and abroad—that America is strikingly different from other First World nations in its attitudes to religion; this book is, among other things, a sounding device intended to measure the depths of those differences (and the focus of the book is American religion). 

Pg. 15:  For many people, probably a majority of the people on Earth, nothing matters more than religion.  The spell Dennett says must be broken is the taboo against a forthright scientific, no-holds-barred investigation of religion as one natural phenomenon among many.  If this examination is not carried out now, we will pass on a legacy of ever more toxic forms of religion to our descendants.  Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.  –Anonymous.    

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. –Psalms 14:1 (also 53:1).

In a dangerous world there will always be more people around whose prayers for their own safety have been answered than those whose prayers have not.—Nicholas Humphrey.

Pg. 60:  According to a recent survey, only about a quarter of the population of the U.S. understands that evolution is about as well established as the fact that water is H₂O.  Other scientifically advanced nations don’t show this same pattern. 

Pg. 102:  The three main reasons given for the existence of religions are:

·        to comfort us in our suffering and allay our fear of death

·        to explain things we can’t otherwise explain

·        to encourage group cooperation in the face of trials and enemies

Pg. 107: We now understand that the mind is not in communication with the brain in some miraculous way (Descartes); it is the brain, or more specifically a system or organization within the brain that has evolved in much the way our immune system or respiratory system or digestive system has evolved.  Like many other natural wonders, the human mind is something of a bag of tricks, cobbled together over the eons by the foresightless process of evolution by natural selection.  Driven by the demands of a dangerous world, it is deeply biased in favor of noticing the things that mattered most to the reproductive success of our ancestors.

Pg. 120:  (Evolution is all about processes that almost never happen.  Every birth in every lineage is a potential speciation event, but speciation almost never happens, not once in a million births.  Mutation in DNA almost never happens—not once in a trillion copyings—but evolution depends on it.  Take the set of infrequent accidents—things that almost never happen—and sort them into the happy accidents, the neutral accidents, and the fatal accidents; amplify the effects of the happy accidents—which happens automatically when you have replication and competition—and you get evolution.)

Pg. 345:  Meme: an element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means.  So we may conveniently settle on it as the general term for any culturally based replicator.

Pg. 367:  A human infant’s intense interest in speech sounds may in fact be one of the most important genetic differences between us and chimpanzees.  Once language evolved we became not just curious but inquisitive: we actually asked questions aloud, in articulated language.