Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Review

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Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon ReviewReading these reviews, it's fascinating how many people attack Dennett for things that aren't in this book.
- "Science can explain everything". But the book isn't about everything: it's about psychology and sociology, which are sciences.
- "Dennett's an atheist". Well, yes, but he acknowledges that religion is pervasive; the book is about trying to understand why people act and think the way they do, not to change what they believe. (Unless you think that to understand religious belief is to destroy it - but you'd better be able to justify that.)
- "Dennett doesn't understand philosophy". A silly accusation to make of a distinguished professor of philosophy. Yes, Dennett dismisses traditional phil.of.relig. for this debate, but that's because it has nothing to say about the phenomenon of belief.
- "Dennett's account of religion is about as reliable as a Nazi's account of Judaism". I don't understand: the definition he uses is remarkably mainstream, and owes a lot to William James.
The comon thread running through these critics is one of taboo: Dennett ought not to be investigating this stuff. Nobody offers an alternative theory, and in that respect the attacks feel a bit like Intelligent Design wedgies. The criticism is not of the idea, but the person. And (of course) nobody tries to justify the taboo.
As I wrote in the review on my blog at geoffarnold.com, the book has three sections:
- a careful definition and justification (over-cautious to an atheist like myself)
- a sample explanatory narrative, synthesizing much of the state of the art in this field, acknowledged to probably be mostly wrong, but comprehensively indicating the areas that future, better researched theories should address
- an optimistic but unconvincing plea for future dialogue.
Overall it is a solid step in the right direction.Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Overview

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