Dennett/D’Souza Debate — Dennett

2008.02.11   prev     next

Just saw the video of the Daniel Dennett vs. Dinesh D’Souza debate of last November 30th. This is Part 1 of 2, and talks only about Dennett.

Dennett

Is Daniel Dennett trying to physically resemble Charles Darwin (in his later years)? It sure looks that way. If they made a new movie about Darwin, they could probably have Dennett play the role and he wouldn’t even need a makeup crew.

Dennett claims that his plan to teach young students about all the world’s various religions is not an attempt to make those students think religion is false:

I really don’t think anyone, even the typical atheist, believes him for a minute. Probably the most compelling reason to doubt that there is such a thing as a true religion is the great multiplicity of wildly differing religions that abound throughout the world today, and have abounded over the course of human history.

And it’s not just that teaching about the Baptist Church alongside the (enthusiastically-described-by-Dennett) “John From” religion of the Pacific islanders strongly hints that Baptists are as deluded as John Fromists obviously are. Even if the curriculum were to be limited to the major world religions (say, the top ten), it would still have the same effect, because students are bound to wonder: “Why would the god(s) communicate a religion to humanity if it is doomed to look like nine other made-up religions that lead people astray?” And the students would also have to ponder, “If one of these religions is actually true, why isn’t my teacher focusing on that one, and stressing how important it is for me to follow it?” The mere fact that the teacher is treating all the religions equally is a direct implication that they are all false, and so we don’t need to follow any of them.

Now, I should mention that I actually agree with Dennett that all of the world’s religions are fictional. And I like his plan to teach them (at least the major ones) to grade-school students, knowing full well that such a program will likely dispel religious belief. But I think it’s critically important that we be above-board about it — Dennett’s denial is patently ridiculous, and to me smacks of an attempt to hoodwink the religious into going along with his plan. Apparently Dennett thinks that kind of deception is necessary to make his plan a reality.

To me, that would place Dennett’s plan in the same category as the religions he’s trying to undermine: just another deception that I don’t want to support, nor encourage anyone else to support. Perhaps Dennett thinks a dose of falsehood is OK if it achieves a good outcome? Well, then why don’t we all just join the Baptist Church and enjoy the good outcome its teachings generally provide. Sorry — some of us want humanity to find out what’s actually going on in this world, and that doesn’t include exploiting falsehoods to get your way. Science is not the pursuit of a “good” outcome. It is a quest to discover and embrace the truth.

Dennett also makes a point of presenting a pie chart of the various major belief systems, and includes “Non-Religious” as one of the pie slices, showing it to be about equal in size to Islam and Hinduism, and exceeded in size only by Christianity. This raises an interesting question not mentioned by Dennett: Are the various forms of “non-religion” (atheism, agnosticism, etc.) also to be taught in his curriculum? If not, why not? And if so, how will they be treated — as quixotic sociological phenomena in the same category as the “John From” religion? Dennett is well-known as possibly the most ardent Darwinist alive other than Richard Dawkins — can we assume then, that he would have atheism taught not as a sociological following, or personal preference, but instead as a scientific conclusion?

And what about Darwinism? Dennett’s main opponents these days are Intelligent Design (ID) theorists, who charge that Darwinism, though initially formulated as a scientific theory, has over the past 150 years grown into a religion as doctrinaire and intolerant as any other. Will Darwinism be included in Dennett’s religion class? Hell, no! Dennett doubtlessly wants Darwinism taught as part of the science curriculum.

The specific exclusion of atheism, agnosticism, and Darwinism from Dennett’s proposed curriculum (not to mention the inclusion of “John From”), lays bare the true nature of Dennett’s objective. I will support, and encourage others to support, Dennett’s proposal when he openly admits that its purpose is to show students that the covered beliefs are false.