Breaking the Spell

During the last ten years there have been several books written antagonistically on the subject of human belief aka religion.Richard Dawkins' God Delusion,Sam Harris End of Faith,Hitchens'God is not Great" etc are some among them. What differentiates Daniel Dennet's "Breaking the Spell" from the above mentioned is its evolutionary philosophy perspective.
Dennet begins the book with an interesting analogy.He asks if we have noticed an ant trying to climb a blade of grass laboriously ,falling down ,then climbing up again and again....What is the purpose of this act?The ant is driven by a parasite called Dicrocelium dendriticum whose ultimate aim is to reach into the stomach of a cow in-order to complete its reproductive cycle.Does anything like this happens to human beings? He says some beliefs ,especially religious ones ,are indeed like this parasite that urges man to devote his life to something he deems more important than his personal welfare.
One of the main arguments of Dennet in this book is the necessity of a scientific scrutiny of the phenomenon of religion .He urges to perceive religion as just another natural phenomenon which needs to be examined scientifically.The benefits and costs of religious faith must be studied scientifically.He writes,
"Ever since the Enlightenment in the 18th century many quite well-informed and brilliant people have confidently thought that religion would soon vanish,the object of a human taste that could be satisfied by other means.Many are still waiting,somewhat less confidently.Whatever religion provides for us,it is something many think they can not live without.Lets take them seriously this time,for they might be right.But there is only one way to take them seriously:we need to study them scientifically'".
Dennet thinks that we may be too close to religion to see it clearly.Inoder to get a clearer vision ,Dennet suggests us to take a Martians view on religion;how it would be if Martians attempt to study this unfamiliar phenomenon called religion.He says"what they see today is a population of over six billion people,almost all of whom devote a significant fraction of their time and energy to some sort of religious activity:rituals such as daily prayer or frequent attendance at ceremonies ,deliberately destroying valuable property in lavish ceremonies and abiding by a host of strenuously observed prohibitions and requirements,including not eating certain foods,wearing veils ,and so forth'.The Martian could come up with different theories for the existence of religion among humans.Dennet labels them as ,
Sweet-tooth theories:We ingest our bodies with variety of things ,like ,fat ,alcohol,nicotine,chocolate etc.The body has a receptor system designed to detect substances that these favourites have high in concentration.over the millennia of trail and error ,our species has managed to discover ways of gathering and concentrating these special substances so that we can use them to over-stimulate our innate systems. Likewise could there be genetically evolved systems in our bodies that are designed to respond to something that religions provide in intensified form?Might we have a god centre in our brains along with our sweet tooth ?
symbiont theories:Religions might turn out to be species of cultural symbiont that manage to thrive by leaping from human host to human host.They could be mutalists,commensals or even be paraistes....Dennet then elaborates these points in his usual intelligent ,witty manner .
Another interesting quote from the book.'"We got ourselves caught ina hypocricy trap,and there is no clear path out.Are we like families in which adults got trough all the motions of believing in Santa Claus for the sake of the kids,and the kids all pretend still to believe so as not to spoil the adults fun?If only our current predicament were as innocuous and even comical as that !In the adult world of religion ,people are dying and killing,with the moderates cowed into silence by the intransigence of the radicals in their own faith,and many afraid to acknowledge for fear of breaking Granny's heart,or offending their neighbours to the point of getting run out of town,or worse".
This book is a must read for those who want to understand the phenomenon of religion.Its grave ,at the same time written with brio and humor.

Pale blue Dot

"Look again at that dot.That's here.That's home .That's us .On it everyone you love,everyone you know,everyone you ever heard of,every human being who ever was ,lived out their lives.The aggregate of our joy and suffering,thousands of confident religions,ideologies,and economic doctrines,every hunter and forager,every hero and coward,every creator and destroyer of civilization,every king and peasant,every young couple in love,every mother and father,hopeful child ,inventor and explorer,every teacher of morals,every corrupt politician,every 'superstar'every supreme leader,every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that ,in glory and triumph,they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of the one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner,hoe frequent their misunderstandings,how eager they are to kill one another,how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings,our imagined self-importance,the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe,are challenged by this point of pale light.Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.In our obscurity,in all this vastness,there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.There is nowhere else,at least in the near future,to which our species could migrate.Vist,yes.Settle ,not yet.Like it or not,for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.To me it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another,and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot,the only home we have ever known".
Carl Sagan,Pale Blue Dot.

I read Dr Sagan's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors in 1994.And it became my Bible !!