In this 2006 lecture at TED, philosopher Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell [1]) takes on the “brilliant” contemporary redesign of religion by Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life [2]. After acknowledging that Warren’s book is, indeed, “brilliant” (it has sold 30 million copies and motivated comparable numbers of people), Dennett pointedly criticizes some of the book’s main points, including:
- Without God, there cannot be any meaning, purpose or morality
- God designed our environment for “Man.”
- To have meaning in life, you need to deny natural selection.
- One should obey God’s word, even if it doesn’t make sense.
- Good without God = 0
Dennett proposes the following antidote for preachers like Warren: We need a required curriculum that presents the facts concerning all religions of the world. We should teach our children all the facts (no spin), to include the history, creeds, texts, music, prohibitions, symbolism and requirements. This curriculum would allow our children to study religions, including their own religion within an appropriate context. This will allow them to see that humans have been actively designing religions. This would allow all of us to see that religions are natural phenomena that have been “domesticated” much like the modern dairy cow is a product of intense domestication.
Dan Dennett is one of the world’s leading cognitive philosophers. I have been inspired by many of his writings, including his 1996 book, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea [3].”
BTW, for all of his pontificating on morality, Rich Warren seems to have at least one gigantic moral blindspot. [4]
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