Originally this was going to be a simple review of Dan Dennett’s book but as I wrote and re-wrote the piece, it became clear, with the many references to Sam Harris’s work that I kept making, that the two works were conjoined in my head and so I’ve joined them into one review here. The reason for this will become clear as this piece progresses. Both works stand on their own and deserve to be treated independently and that is a task for another time and another writer. The two books, taken together, are an exquisite example of, if one can forgive the term, “secular apologetics.” Harris’s work plays the bad cop to Dennett’s good cop.

The End of Faith is a courageous, yet difficult book. Even if one is a relatively hard-headed naturalist, as I am, one is not used to such a long and sustained argument against irrational belief. It is simply one of those things that is not done, at least not in the West. Harris ‘breaks the spell’, to borrow from Dennett, of our thrall to social niceties that dictate that a economic libertarian and a economic socialist/social libertarian can go for one another’s jugular but the moment that either wraps their opinions in the in the cloak of religion their positions are off-limits for no better reason than that suddenly one or the other ‘believes’ this to be true by dint of some supernatural pipeline or another. Harris argues, quite convincingly (over 300 pages in the trade-paperback edition), that not only is the irrational beliefs of religion a delusion we can no longer afford but that the social sanction against saying so is something we can ill-afford given current events. Again, what Harris says is largely true and that is part of what makes his work so uncomfortable to read (even as one might be given to cheering him on).

Breaking the Spell, on the other hand, is a much more scholarly piece of work and not nearly as polemical. What Dennett argues, (for over 400 pages), is almost a jumping off point from Harris’s work. If Harris argues ‘we must take a good, long honest look at religion’ then Dennett takes up the challenge and says “yes, and we must do so using the best scientific tools at our disposal”. He spends the first quarter of the book laying out why this is both such a touchy subject matter, the types of objections that believers might raise and why it is an important area to look into despite all the pitfalls. He expresses a sympathy for the position of the religious believer, even as he makes it clear that if one truly believes that your beliefs are, in fact, the One Real Truth then one has nothing to fear from an honest investigation of the matter. This is an argument that would mostly fall on deaf ears should it be put to a believer.

Dennett then goes on to lay out some of the arenas for investigation. He examines, for instance, the arguments for and against religion as an evolutionary adaptation. Having made such arguments myself, it was interesting to note how thin the group adaptation argument really is when one takes a look at it slowly. (In general, I am very suspicious of evolutionary explanations that postulate some group selection but this is one where, on the surface, it seems reasonable.) Dennett then goes on and makes one of the more interesting conjectures of what kind of answer we might find about the near-ubiquity of religious belief. He hypothesizes that this might be what Gould called a ‘spandrel’ (my characterization, not his) brought about by an over-active intentional stance wherein humans almost cannot help but anthropomorphizing the world around them. There’s a very heavy dose of memetics in the book and while it is almost cliché to say this in naturalistic circles, religion is one place where the memetic model may very well work exceptionally well.

Dennett takes on, in a way that Harris doesn’t, the idea of religion as a font of ethics (a subject matter I took on in the last issue of Skepchick) and it is here that he makes some of his most powerful observations. Of particular strength, such that I would want it posted on the doorway of every church, mosque and synagogue is this idea:

“That's why those who have an unquestioning faith in the correctness of the moral teachings of their religion are a problem: if they themselves haven't conscientiously considered, on their own, whether their pastors or priests or rabbis or imams are worthy of this delegated authority over their own lives, then they are in fact taking a profoundly immoral stand.” (Emphasis original)

Having treated the two books somewhat separately, let me now conjoin them. One of the strengths of Harris’s writing is that he’s angry. It is clear that the terrorist attacks on the United States really shocked him into action and his concern for the grave situation he sees us facing is clear. It is sobering when one invokes, not in the Bushian way but in a far more sober way, the specter of a nuclear armed Islamist fundamentalist state. If the thought of nineteen enterprising young men from Saudi Arabia flying planes into buildings as an act of murder and martyrdom gives you a moment of pause, imagine a society, drunk on the idea of martyrdom armed with a nuclear weapon. What would deter them? If the retail martyrdom of the suicide bomber is worthy of praise, what about the wholesale, ‘big box’ martyrdom that would be the inevitable result of a nuclear attack on the United States? (And make no mistake, if this or any other nuclear armed nation is attacked they will have no choice but to retaliate in kind and if one has the arsenal available to the US then that retaliation will be massive.)

This should give those of us who have a naturalistic world view (call yourself bright, naturalist, humanist, rationalist, what-have-you), a moment of extreme pause. In fact, we are faced with the problem that Harris, unapologetically and quite succinctly addresses here:

“Our situation is this: most of the people in this world believe that the Creator of the universe has written a book. We have the misfortune of having many such books on hand, each making an exclusive claim to its infallibility.”

Both authors are strong in their conviction that the situation is far more uncomfortable and undesirable than many, who are of a more secular or religiously liberal, mindset are aware of. The value of the two books, taken together is that they frame the debate. Sam Harris is the brash young turk, angry (justifiably so) and concerned (even more justifiably) that the two largest monotheistic religions are about to drag the rest of us who are, after all, non-participants, into their eschatology regardless of the cost or body count. Dan Dennett is the hopeful scholar believing, as I do, that perhaps it is not too late to begin an inquiry into the nature of religious belief, exploring why it is such a persistent feature of human culture, regardless of which humans living in which time. As an evolutionist whenever I see something that we, as humans, are doing to the point of it being ubiquitous, my own bias is to look at it as species specific behavior.

On the Skepchick forums, a heated discussion erupted around whether or not religion itself, and monotheistic religions specifically, could be held culpable for violence done in their name. In wanting to make sure that I had something I could point to as backing for my own hypothesis that in fact monotheistic religion does encourage violence against unbelievers, I found no studies available on the web that seemed solid and well done. Not that I found evidence to disconfirm my hypothesis simply that I found nothing compelling either for or against. If for no other reason than that, Dennett's book is worthwhile because it eloquently frames the terms under which such necessary investigation could take place.

Aj Davis lives in an intentional community of meditative geeks in Portland, OR. Her avocations are open-source/free software projects, digital divide issues, writing and the public understanding of science. She cycles to work and does regular Zen meditation. Her writing assistants are the five cats that allow the humans to live in the house.

ISSUE 4 CREDITS

Skepchick-in-Chief
Rebecca Watson

Managing Editor
Diane Perry

News Editor
Chani Overli

Contributing Writers
Darcie Hodgkins Langone, Lynette Davidson, Aj Davis, Risa Beckwith, Matthew Armstrong, Donna Druchunas

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