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An ant climbs a blade of grass, over and over, seemingly without purpose, seeking neither nourishment nor home. It persists in its futile climb, explains Daniel C. Dennett at the opening of his new book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" (Viking), because its brain has been taken over by a parasite, a lancet fluke, which, over the course of evolution, has found this to be a particularly efficient way to get into the stomach of a grazing sheep or cow where it can flourish and reproduce. The ant is controlled by the worm, which, equally unconscious of purpose, maneuvers the ant into place.
Mr. Dennett, anticipating the outrage his comparison will make, suggests that this how religion works. People will sacrifice their interests, their health, their reason, their family, all in service to an idea "that has lodged in their brains." That idea, he argues, is like a virus or a worm, and it inspires bizarre forms of behavior in order to propagate itself. Islam, he points out, means "submission," and submission is what religious believers practice. In Mr. Dennett's view, they do so despite all evidence, and in thrall to biological and social forces they barely comprehend.
-- Edward Rothstein for The NY Times
This excerpt raising Mr. Dennett's new book is from an article that uses the expressed idea to discuss the subject of iconoclasm and the Jyllands-Posten controversy. Monk is a fan of Dennett's and was wooed to philosophical materialism by his book Consciousness Explained, and while Monk is attracted to the forcefulness of this metaphor of the lancet fluke parasite, even he in not strongly inclined to reduce religion to a purely destructive virus, as tempting as that can be in these days of Islamist expansionism. One suspects that even Dennett does not go that far, and that in his fuller exposition Dennett refines his subject to that more nefarious aspect of religion, the fundamentalisms, whether that of our jihadic friends or that of our literalist six-day creationists.
For the record, for Monk's more religious friends, Dennett and his Breaking the Spell was trashed by The NY Times book review by Leon Wieseltier, "The God Genome." One can see in this review the whole scientism argument made with full derisive gusto. Monk is naturally inclined to think this review is also unfair, but he is not likely to read Dennett's new book and dig into this debate, as he is well settled with his histories and noir. One does not expect the God question to be settled anytime soon.
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An ant climbs a blade of grass, over and over, seemingly without purpose, seeking neither nourishment nor home. It persists in its futile climb, explains Daniel C. Dennett at the opening of his new book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" (Viking), because its brain has been taken over by a parasite, a lancet fluke, which, over the course of evolution, has found this to be a particularly efficient way to get into the stomach of a grazing sheep or cow where it can flourish and reproduce. The ant is controlled by the worm, which, equally unconscious of purpose, maneuvers the ant into place.
Mr. Dennett, anticipating the outrage his comparison will make, suggests that this how religion works. People will sacrifice their interests, their health, their reason, their family, all in service to an idea "that has lodged in their brains." That idea, he argues, is like a virus or a worm, and it inspires bizarre forms of behavior in order to propagate itself. Islam, he points out, means "submission," and submission is what religious believers practice. In Mr. Dennett's view, they do so despite all evidence, and in thrall to biological and social forces they barely comprehend.
-- Edward Rothstein for The NY Times
This excerpt raising Mr. Dennett's new book is from an article that uses the expressed idea to discuss the subject of iconoclasm and the Jyllands-Posten controversy. Monk is a fan of Dennett's and was wooed to philosophical materialism by his book Consciousness Explained, and while Monk is attracted to the forcefulness of this metaphor of the lancet fluke parasite, even he in not strongly inclined to reduce religion to a purely destructive virus, as tempting as that can be in these days of Islamist expansionism. One suspects that even Dennett does not go that far, and that in his fuller exposition Dennett refines his subject to that more nefarious aspect of religion, the fundamentalisms, whether that of our jihadic friends or that of our literalist six-day creationists.
For the record, for Monk's more religious friends, Dennett and his Breaking the Spell was trashed by The NY Times book review by Leon Wieseltier, "The God Genome." One can see in this review the whole scientism argument made with full derisive gusto. Monk is naturally inclined to think this review is also unfair, but he is not likely to read Dennett's new book and dig into this debate, as he is well settled with his histories and noir. One does not expect the God question to be settled anytime soon.
