Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Religion is Like A Frog; It Doesn't Survive Dissection 2010-09-04

Reviewer: D. Ashal

I'll cop immediately to being a fan in general of the "New Atheism"; however, I've also had my problems with many of the works that were part of this recent trend. I don't have a particular problem with Hitchens and Dawkins rather ruthless treatment of religion; they're simply asking some obvious questions that religion has managed to obfuscate or bully people away from for far too long. My problem is that they do sometimes descend into bad philosophy and have a tendency to take cheap shots when they could be asking some more productive questions. Dennett, however, takes a different tack. A philosopher, not a biologist like Dawkins or a polemicist like Hitchens, Dennett starts by asking two questions; is religion a phenomenon we can understand prosaically? And should we want to?

These are, as it turns out, not easy questions, and Dennett's treatment of them reflects this. He explores various hypotheses for religion's existence and desirability slowly and carefully, but with incredible skill and precision. What religion is at base, and what function it serves, are necessary to determining our attitude towards it, and some of the answers Dennett has come up with are shocking and counterintuitive, but supported by a lot of evidence (some of it admittedly circumstantial). This book was not intended to be the last word on the subject; it was intended to foster inquiry, and I hope it's just the first of its kind. However, while Dennett's tone is mild, and his respect and compassion for religious believers is evident, his logic and methods are in their way more destructive to religion than those fostered by the other "four horsemen". Their work has been more like a broad swipe with a cleaver, while Dennett is much more like a surgeon expertly wielding a scalpel. They've been questioning Oz's orders while Dennett has shown us the first glimpse of the man behind the curtain.

Besides its fantastic and mind-opening exploration of the roots of religious sentiment, and how it affects us today, Dennett's book is a wealth of small details and strangely interconnected accounts of various human and natural phenomena. Music, art, religion, language, history, and yes, evolution, are all mightily entangled and far from removing the wonder of this tapestry, Dennett's exploration has only whetted my thirst for knowledge about it. While the ideas presented are not simple, Dennett has written the book as clearly as possible to make it readable by a large audience. As a result of course, the usual postmodernist and theologician suspects will claim that Dennett doesn't really get the vast complexity of the nonsense they regularly spout; which may be correct since I'm fairly sure they don't get it either. He gives such arguments a fair hearing in the book before disposing handily of them.

Ultimately, you either care what's true, or you don't. This book is for those that do, and are willing to ask some tough questions that may take a while to answer accurately. It's also highly readable and fascinating.

an interesting read 2010-08-03

Reviewer: J. Robert Ewbank

I do not agree with much of the book, particularly the thesis of the book which is that religion should be studied by science and if studied by science it will be found to be a natural phenomena explainable by scientific principles.

However, it was very interesting and well written, making for enjoyable reading.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

the wrong spell 2010-07-20

Reviewer: humanorganism

Dennett is right about having to break a spell. He just doesn't locate it precisely.

Revonsuo diagnoses the problem more accurately in Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon especially pages 118-119.

tedious drivel 2010-07-12

Reviewer: Peter Klevberg

Dennett is clearly blind to his religious committment (evolutionism) as well as the frequent contradictions in his reasoning. The book could easily have been condensed to a tenth the size, and would have been much less tedious as a result. Read it if you want to find out how Dennett thinks. Read something else if you want scholarship.

What a ghastly book! 2010-07-09

Reviewer: I. Jamieson

I can only echo other reviewers - verbose, dreary and with enough errors to destroy any shred of credibility. "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." if I may (mis)quote Dorothy Parker...