Something about Belief Systems: Daniel Dennett & Sam Harris
Joe: Hey J, Below is the book and the author that I mentioned…
“Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon”
by Daniel C. Dennett
He is being taken as a darling by the Skeptic crowd…, which makes me more than a little skeptical…. Since I have not, in fact, read his book I don’t really know which way he runs his approach to “Religion as a Natural Phenomenon,” but the topic area, especially if approached with a certain amount of respect, would be both interesting and valid I should think…. Perhaps I’m more interested in the “Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” portion, while it may be that
he is more interested in the “Breaking the Spell” aspect…. It is always revealing to see where people get their jollies…
John: It does sound like Dennett is doing something similar
to Sam Harris, “The End of Faith.” …he’s a powerful speaker.
Joe: I find myself left wondering, J., if either of the two authors has the spaciousness of mind to consider the function of belief systems in human consciousness and, even, evolution; it appears that both may be playing to “Gasp, how dare they!” audience….
Using a somewhat different language, John Bleibtreu in the introduction to his book “The Parable of the Beast” says,
“… metaphysical systems allow [human]kind the means to abide with mystery. Without a mythology we must deny mystery, and with this denial we can live only at great cost to ourselves.
It seems to me that we are in the process of creating a mythology out of the raw materials science in much the same way that the Greeks and Jews created their mythologies out of the raw materials of history. I feel strongly that this is not only legitimate, but a necessary process.”
(As a parenthetical observation, it may be worthwhile noting that with quantum theory there appears to be a certain amount of mystery, of indeterminablity, built into the system….)
So, perhaps both Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett are a part of the process of destroying some hithertofore (and perhaps no longer appropriate, at least in their hithertofore form…) mythologies / belief systems / religions and it will be yet awhile before anything like a popular writer can open a discourse upon the best - or even merely some “good” - use of the “belief system function” that is so widely distributed in human beings as to appear to be a property intrinsic to the species.
