Breaking the Spell: Daniel Dennett on religionBreaking the Spell: Daniel Dennett on religion
All In The Mind
As the world wages war over geographical, religious and historical turf - a growing number of big note scientists want religious faith put under the microscope. Uber-philosopher of mind and popular provocateur, Daniel Dennett, author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, is one of them. He joins Natasha Mitchell to discuss his latest controversial offering, Breaking the Spell. Be provoked...
30:17•20 Jan 2007
Breaking the Spell: Daniel Dennett Puts Religion Under the Microscope
Episode Overview
- Religion is framed as a young, evolved feature of human culture that can be studied scientifically rather than treated as untouchable.
- Dennett challenges claims that only believers can study religion and rejects strict separation between scientific and religious questions.
- He uses memes to explain how religious ideas spread and become entrenched, independent of deliberate design or truth.
- The concept of ‘belief in belief’ highlights people who publicly uphold faith because they see it as socially valuable, even if they don’t personally accept its doctrines.
- Dennett warns about the dangers of theocracy and argues for protecting secular democracies from religious control of public life.
“We shouldn’t fly blind into the 21st century. We should get a good grip on this. And that means asking the tough questions.”
What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction? While this conversation isn’t about substances, it digs into another powerful human habit: religious belief. On All In The Mind, philosopher Daniel Dennett sits down with host Natasha Mitchell to talk about his book *Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon*, asking whether faith should be examined like any other feature of human behaviour. Dennett argues that religion is “not a supernatural phenomenon.
It evolved,” and suggests that if we can understand how belief systems change over time, “we’ll be in a better position to plan for the future.” He questions the old idea that only believers can study religion, calling that view “transparent nonsense”, and compares it to saying only great musicians are allowed to study music.
You’ll hear him challenge Stephen Jay Gould’s attempt to keep science and religion in separate “magisteria”, and instead push for tough questions many avoid: “Does religion make people better morally? … Is there any evidence that that’s true?” He notes, for instance, that divorce rates are higher among some vocal Christian groups than among atheists.
The chat also covers the search for a “God spot” in the brain, the idea that humans may vary in their susceptibility to ritual and hypnosis, and Dennett’s view of the mind as a “fiction-generating contraption” that spins up gods, spirits and talking trees which then spread as cultural “memes”.
Things get spicier when he tackles “belief in belief” – people who “don’t believe a word of it” yet devote their lives to religious institutions because they think faith itself is socially vital. He criticises what he calls a “gauzy curtain of sanctity” that keeps science away from religion and warns about modern moves toward theocracy.
If you’re curious about how big ideas shape behaviour, morality and community, this conversation might leave you asking: which beliefs in your own life are actually doing the driving?
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