Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Book Review: A Partial Vision
Summary: 3 Stars
If you are pressed for time, you could skip the first and last 100 pages of this book. The first 100 are too much tease - like nightly news promos. Dennett keeps promising interesting insights - to follow. He also apologizes and justifies a lot. He later explains the academic and religious rifts that he feels make it necessary for him to ease into his subject. But the average reader wouldn't be privy to all the ivy tower turf wars that lead Dennett to such prolonged hedging and postponement. Also, his attempts to induce more fanatically devout readers to temporarily suspend belief in order to give the logic of his arguments a chance - is probably all wasted breath. He would have done better to just get on with it.
Then his last 100 pages are just some general calls for more research, some rather abstruse appendices that chart the passage of various religious memes through a culture, and some pretty wishful predictions of eventual rapprochement between the religious and the "bright." (Yes, he uses that annoying term that skeptic writer Michael Shermer advanced in place of "atheist." I think like me, most readers will trip over that usage of "bright" every time they come to it.)
In between though, Dennett does have some interesting things to say about how religious thinking may have gained a foothold in the human psyche. However, he completely discounts the influence of genes or intruding chemicals, except for hypnosis. Dennett concedes that there might be a genetic component to peoples' differing susceptibility to hypnosis, and consequently to certain forms of religious credulity. Other than that though, Dennett believes that all the strands of adherence that make up organized religion caught on and spread as "memes," those cultural/mental counterparts to genes, subject to the same evolutionary forces of mutation and selection.
I think Dennett weakens his exploration by being so summarily dismissive of genes and all influences other than meme propagation. What about the concordance of religious belief between twins separated at birth? What about the fact that some people seem to experience a break with their former personalities and acquire obsessive-compulsive attachments to quasi-religious thinking and ritual after they suffer from encephalitis? (Read Oliver Sack's fascinating "Awakenings" or find various journal articles linking community exposure to ergot with waves of religious hysteria.)
Neither does Dennett give any consideration to how organized religion may have become a powerful cultural constant as a way of establishing group identity and forcing conformity to group standards. No, Dennett uses only one tool here - the hammer of the meme concept. And so he nails all religious conviction with it.
But this book is better than Dennett's "Consciousness Explained," which snowed me into a near unconscious state. It isn't as good as his "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," which convincingly traces all things, animate and inanimate, to evolutionary processes. "Breaking the Spell" is somewhere in between. In between those padded first and last sections, it's a pretty good book.
Book Review: A Powerful Book
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a fantastic book, which really grapples with belief and why people believe what they do. Of the four major works on atheism out there (Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens) this was the most thought provoking and nuanced (although Dawkins was the most forceful and clearest.) Dennett's chapter on the strength of the belief that "a belief in God" is a good thing and therefore people choose to believe in God even if it makes no sense to them is just a magnificent insight, and useful in reading other books that argue for the existence of God. So many arguments are actually arguments about "Why it would be great if God did exist" rather than whether he actually does.
The text can get just a little dense at times, but generally it's pretty easy going for a book as philosophical and thoughtful as this.
Book Review: A Very Human Book
Summary: 5 Stars
What to add to the many excellent reviews already posted?
Not long before I read BREAKING THE SPELL I had lunch with a couple of friends who were exercised about the utter irrationality of some of the religious types they knew. They just couldn't "get" what religious belief and affiliation was giving these folks.
After reading BREAKING THE SPELL I felt I "got it." Religion is a "natural phenomena." Irrational belief structures make sense in the right context. And it's the context Daniel Dennett provides, the most important aspect of which is how our brains are put together. (Be sure to read Stephen Pinker's HOW THE BRAIN WORKS too.)
So despite the fact Dennett gets thrown in with the most radical of religion attackers, I believe BREAKING THE SPELL comes across with a far more compassionate approach.
I believe, too, that accepting why human brains "naturally" create folk and organized religions is a better platform for curtailing the many and obvious problems with religion -- especially the institutionalized lack of compassion for others -- than outright antipathy.
I've already sent copies to friends who've been deeply hurt by religion, especially American fundamentalist "Christianity." It's been healing for them.
Dr. Kirtland C Peterson
Book Review: A Welcome and Engaging Call to Inquiry
Summary: 5 Stars
Dennett's message is clear, and he practically shouts it from every page: The taboo of subjecting religious dogma to rational evaluation and investigation has outlived its welcome. I have never read a more compelling argument in favor of stripping away the veneer of presumed sanctity that shields religion from public scrutiny than the one Dennett exerts so brilliantly in this thoughtful, incisive work. Even if you feel, after reading "Breaking the Spell", that Dennett fails to prove a natural/evolutionary basis for religious tradition and practice, you must at least concede that he passionately advocates taking off the kid gloves. He writes, "...scientific inquiry is needed to inform our most momentous political decisions. There is risk and even pain involved, but it would be irresponsible to use that as an excuse for ignorance." (p.53, paperback ed.)
Having been raised in a Christian tradition (evangelical, no less), I recently came to terms with the sheer absurdity of what I had been raised to believe -not to mention the utter fortuity of being raised in that particular tradition as opposed to any other- and I decided to part ways with superstition and dogma. It wasn't easy -throwing away the crutches never is. I put that down to my own reflexive sentimentality, without which, it should have taken precisely five seconds to flush my system of the decades of unchallenged hogwash I was brought up to regard as "received wisdom". It was the kind of examined, brutally honest, informed decision-making that Dennett says we ought to grant the "sacred" status so many currently reserve for orthodoxy.
Now, somewhat disgusted at having been duped by religion in the first place, I picked this book up out of sheer curiosity. What could explain the phenomenon of religion, and why do we insist on perpetuating it in spite of its attendant (and abundant) contradictions, biases, and prejudices? Are we gluttons for strife and social discord? Is it genetic? Is our tendency toward religious devotion merely an evolutionary byproduct of some other survival mechanism? It should be obvious that religious devotion is expensive in terms of the time, energy and personal sacrifice people the world over have to pour into its upkeep, so who or what benefits from the expenditure? ("cui bono?" as the Darwinist must constantly ask.) These are the kinds of questions Dennett tables in this book, and they deserve serious consideration, because the answers could have profound implications for the high esteem in which so many presently hold matters of "faith".
Book Review: A bit of a dissapointment.
Summary: 3 Stars
This work has a lot of interesting information, and is a very resourceful piece. Certain chapters make for an incisive reading, and the analysis of religion today in the States is fascinating. Overall though, it's a bit of a cluttered presentation of the material- it doesn't quite fit nicely into a coherent or engaging piece. Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion is a more clear cut and arresting piece.