Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

BREAKING THE SPELL

ALSO BY DANIEL C. DENNETT

Content and Consciousness

Brainstorms

The Mind’s I

(with Douglas Hofstadter)

Elbow Room

The Intentional Stance

Consciousness Explained

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

Kinds of Minds

Brainchildren

Freedom Evolves

Sweet Dreams

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2006 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Daniel C. Dennett, 2006

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Dennett, Daniel Clement.

Breaking the spelclass="underline" religion as a natural phenomenon / Daniel C. Dennett.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-1012-1886-0

Religion—Controversial literature. I. Title.

BL2775.3.D46 2006

200—dc22 2005042415

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FOR SUSAN

Contents

Preface

PART I OPENING PANDORA’S BOX

1 Breaking Which Spell?

1 What’s going on?

2 A working definition of religion

3 To break or not to break

4 Peering into the abyss

5 Religion as a natural phenomenon

2 Some Questions About Science

1 Can science study religion?

2 Should science study religion?

3 Might music be bad for you?

4 Would neglect be more benign?

3 Why Good Things Happen

1 Bringing out the best

2 Cui bono?

3 Asking what pays for religion

4 A Martian’s list of theories

PART II THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION

4 The Roots of Religion

1 The births of religions

2 The raw materials of religion

3 How Nature deals with the problem of other minds

5 Religion, the Early Days

1 Too many agents: competition for rehearsal space

2 Gods as interested parties

3 Getting the gods to speak to us

4 Shamans as hypnotists

5 Memory-engineering devices in oral cultures

6 The Evolution of Stewardship

1 The music of religion

2 Folk religion as practical know-how

3 Creeping reflection and the birth of secrecy in religion

4 The domestication of religions

7 The Invention of Team Spirit

1 A path paved with good intentions

2 The ant colony and the corporation

3 The growth market in religion

4 A God you can talk to

8 Belief in Belief

1 You better believe it

2 God as intentional object

3 The division of doxastic labor

4 The lowest common denominator?

5 Beliefs designed to be professed

6 Lessons from Lebanon: the strange cases of the Druze and Kim Philby

7 Does God exist?

PART III RELIGION TODAY

9 Toward a Buyer’s Guide to Religions

1 For the love of God

2 The academic smoke screen

3 Why does it matter what you believe?

4 What can your religion do for you?

10 Morality and Religion

1 Does religion make us moral?

2 Is religion what gives meaning to your life?

3 What can we say about sacred values?

4 Bless my souclass="underline" spirituality and selfishness

11 Now What Do We Do?

1 Just a theory

2 Some avenues to explore: how can we home in on religious conviction?

3 What shall we tell the children?

4 Toxic memes

5 Patience and politics

Appendixes

A The New Replicators

B Some More Questions About Science

C The Bellboy and the Lady Named Tuck

D Kim Philby as a Real Case of Indeterminacy of Radical Interpretation

Notes

Bibliography

Preface

Let me begin with an obvious fact: I am an American author, and this book is addressed in the first place to American readers. I shared drafts of this book with many readers, and most of my non-American readers found this fact not just obvious but distracting—even objectionable in some cases. Couldn’t I make the book less provincial in outlook? Shouldn’t I strive, as a philosopher, for the most universal target audience I could muster? No. Not in this case, and my non-American readers should consider what they can learn about the situation in America from what they find in this book. More compelling to me than the reaction of my non-American readers was the fact that so few of my American readers had any inkling of this bias—or, if they did, they didn’t object. That is a pattern to ponder. It is commonly observed—both in America and abroad—that America is strikingly different from other First World nations in its attitudes to religion, and this book is, among other things, a sounding device intended to measure the depths of those differences. I decided I had to express the emphases found here if I was to have any hope of reaching my intended audience: the curious and conscientious citizens of my native land—as many as possible, not just the academics. (I saw no point in preaching to the choir.) This is an experiment, a departure from my aims in earlier books, and those who are disoriented or disappointed by the departure now know that I had my reasons, good or bad. Of course I may have missed my target. We shall see.