Daniel C. Dennett - Breaking the Spell (Audiobook) {Bindaredundat}seeders: 4
leechers: 5
Daniel C. Dennett - Breaking the Spell (Audiobook) {Bindaredundat} (Size: 394.68 MB)
DescriptionDaniel C. Dennett - Breaking the Spell (Audiobook) {Bindaredundat}  Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] by Daniel C. Dennett (Author), Dennis Holland (Narrator) Product Details Audible Audio Edition Listening Length: 12 hours and 19 minutes Program Type: Audiobook Version: Unabridged Publisher: Audible Studios Audible.com Release Date: October 28th 2013 Whispersync for Voice: Ready Language: English ASIN: B00FT670ZI Editorial Reviews For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion¿s evolution from ¿wild¿ folk belief to ¿domesticated¿ dogma. Not an antireligious creed but an unblinking look beneath the veil of orthodoxy, Breaking the Spell will be read and debated by believers and skeptics alike. Customer Review Subject Religion to Scientific Scrutiny February 7, 2006 By The Spinozanator VINE VOICE Format:Hardcover Religion is commonly believed to be a stablizing influence in any society - but is it really? "Why not subject it to scientific scrutiny?" asks Daniel Dennett, director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. "Maybe it is just another bad habit." History has shown that science - despite wrong turns, egos, politics, jealousy, ambition - has a consistent record of being more correct than any other method of inquiry. Just ask anyone who bets their life on science every time they board a commercial airliner. Unique to religion, a theology's taboo against self-examination is brilliant. Guaranteed to cause controversy, Dennett addresses this issue and presents a plan. Dennett surveys various theories of religion: From Scott Atran - Religion is (1) a community's costly and hard-to-fake commitment (2) to a counterfactual and counterintuitive world of supernatural agent(s) (3) who master peoples' existential anxieties, such as death and deception (4) leading to ritualistic and rhythmic co-ordination of 1, 2, and 3; such as communion. This tendency to invent a supernatural agency is an evolutionary by-product - which involves exaggerated use of everyday cognitive processes - to produce unreal worlds that easily attract attention, are readily memorable, and are subject to cultural transmission, selection, and survival. Add a few hopeful solutions to the problems involving the tragedies of life, and you get religion. From Pascal Boyer - Every religion has these common features: (1) A supernatural agent who takes a specific ontologic form (animal, tree, human, etc.) (2) There is something memorably different about this agent (the animal talks, the tree records conversation, the human is born of a virgin) which is an ontologic violation. (3) This agent knows strategic information and can use it for or against you. Fun to read and not as dense as his acclaimed "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," Dennett has addressed this book to the believer, who knows in his heart he is on the right path. "If you are one of these, here is what I hope will be a sobering reflection: have you considered that you are perhaps being irresponsible?...If it [religion] is fundamentally benign, as many of its devotees insist, it should emerge just fine; suspicions will be put to rest and we can then concentrate on the few peripheral pathologies that religions, like every other natural phenomemon, fall prey to." Dennett clearly thinks God is made in man's image, as opposed to man's being a product of God's creation. In his view, the costs and benefits of religion need to be assayed with the scrupulous objectivity of science, and he outlines a plan to do just that.  Daniel C. Dennett http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Spell-Religion-Natural-Phenomenon/dp/B00FT670ZI Related Torrents
Sharing WidgetAll Comments |
Much appreciated ... MoodToo