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Eleven. Now what do we do?
Okay, here's a big point that needs to be considered carefully: That Dennett's "description of various features of religion" is "just a theory" (p. 309) is not in itself problematic. The problems are: 1) it isn't really testable, thus failing his own criteria, and 2) that it doesn't necessarily point to strong reasons for adopting one policy or another. And I think this shows up in later sections of this chapter. The crucial question to ask is, what is the relationship between the policies Dennett suggests, and the account that they are presumably derived from? It seems to me that there isn't much of a relationship, and that most of the policies are determined in reference to the observations that Dennett took as axiomatic in the first couple of chapters.

Another very big point. P. 312: "I anticipate that one of the challenges will come from those in academia who are unmoved by my discussion of the 'academic smoke screen' in chapter 9, and who firmly believe that the only researchers qualified to do research are those who enter into an exploration of religion with a 'proper respect' for the sacred...." On the whole, it looks as though Dennett would like to count consideration of the sacred out of research conducted on religion. That certainly would have the effect of making it more amenable to scientific method, but it might also undermine any attempt to really address religious claims. If one of the claims, explicit or implicit, of religion is the validity or presence of the sacred, science must either find a way to compass the sacred or admit its inability to broach those claims as testable material for experimentation. Dennett is right that the efficacy of intercessory prayer as a consistent mechanism ought to be testable, but how would researchers address the claim that prayer brings the believer in proximity to the sacred? Or, another example, how would science test the claim that a particular ritual imbues a mundane object -- say, a boat, a piece of bread, a neophyte -- with sacred character? I doubt it could be done without stretching the bounds of scientific method or the definition of "sacred". The sacred is a conception central to every religious tradition I've ever encountered -- it may well be the defining feature of religion -- and the majority of justifications for religion are likely to center around some relationship to the sacred.

In effect, asking religion to provide for scrutiny only elements that fit scientific criteria is to demand that it be something other than what it is, then to fault it when it fails. It's a bit like asking someone to assess the morality of a given action, but without recourse to notions of good and evil, right and wrong. How is anything moral without reference to one of those features? By that token, is anything really religious unless it takes some position in reference to the sacred. Dennett's position on this matter may indicate implicit bias, and any research based on that foundation is likely to perpetuate that bias unless some means of mediating between the two standpoints can be found. I'm not saying it's impossible, but Dennett's book provides us no groundwork for doing so.

There's good material in the last chapter, but it all leads in to incredibly sketchy territory. For instance, Dennett's suggestion that the social and biological sciences could be used to help mediate religious experience among those who "can't 'metabolize' them the way other people can" (p.318) seems, on the face of it, like a very humane position, particularly if it helps curb misguided religious violence. And when he talks of "rescuing" (p. 325) natives, adult and child alike, from their ignorance, there is some tendency to think that they need, at least, to be informed of what they're shunning. But I'm not sure that Dennett sheds any light on what the appropriate moral stance ought to be. His suggestions here lead towards a kind of social engineering -- even social Darwinism -- that ought to be evaluated very carefully before anyone jumps on board. His discussion of intervening in the parental indoctrination of children, for instance, seems like a fairly straight-forward extension of the sort of consideration that allows for intervention in any case of neglect or abuse. What it ignores, however, is that it essentially advocates the substitution of one form of indoctrination for another. What Dennett apparantly objects to is not the idea that children should have certain ideas imposed on them, but that those ideas should differ so broadly from what he perceives to be the appropriate social standard. The question of how we much access we allow to person's with certain psychological preconditions is far trickier territory than he really acknowledges in this chapter. What that implies is limiting their possibilities as a person -- not only barring them from violence, but also potentially barring them from happiness. It certainly sets curbs on their liberty. Whether or not restricting religious belief sits well with Dennett's avowed committment to democracy is something worth considering.

The point that Dennett wants to press is that of "informed choice". But in doing so, he also limits choice. On page 339, he writes, "in the end, my central policy recommendation is that we gently, firmly educate the people of the world...." It seems clear that he means we do so regardless of whether or not they would choose that education. The idea he's forwarding here, it seems, is that no one should have the right to choose ignorance, and by doing so, he's setting the terms of choice. I think we can affirm that informed choice is prefereable to uninformed choice, without making that preference a matter of policy.

A final note on this chapter, Dennett writes on p. 339 that "Such open discussions are underwritten by the security of a free society, and if they are to continue unmolested, we must be vigilent in protecting the institutions and principles of democracy from subversion." This is the closest he comes in the book to admitting that his purpose is to pit one ideology against another, not to examine religion from the neutral viewpoint of science. It's not so clear whether or not Dennett takes religion to be ultimately subversive to those institutions and principles he holds sacred, but that's certainly a possible interpretation. I think you can see this ideological leaning at work earlier in the same section, when he consideres (and denies) the hypothetical claims of Mohawk "holy soil". His denial is explicit, but his criteria for judging the claim are less clear. And it's particularly interested that his hypothetical situation has the Mohawks claiming Liberty Island. Are their claims "nonsense" for some scientifically demonstrable reason, or is because their claims come into conflict with the personal significance the Statue of Liberty holds for Dennett?

GOD defiles Reason: Are you suggesting that Dennett is suggesting that claimed sacred objects should somehow be gauged, or studied scientifically?

I don't know how Dennett would suggest dealing with claims about sacrality. That's the question I want to raise. Because what Dennett is suggesting is that science can be the basic tool we use in making judgements about religion. If that tool is incapable of assessing the most central, fundamental claims of the phenomenon it is intended to judge, why should we accept Dennett's argument?

Look at it this way. Let's send professor D. into a particular society with a particular religion. Professor D. says, "I'm here to assess your religion using scientific means. We're going to test whether or not it really makes you more moral." The high priest of the religion says, "Well, we've never claimed that our particular religion makes anyone more moral." "Oh," says Prof. D, "well, we can still test to see if it's an effective mode of social control." The high priest responds, "It isn't supposed to be a form of social control." "Then what does your religion claim," Prof. D asks. "Well," says the high priest, "Our religion claims that love is sacred, and that behaving in accordance with love will put the believer's soul in closer contact with the gods." "And what effect does that have?" asks Prof. D. The high priest gives him a confused look, and says, "You mean being in closer contact with God isn't enough?"

Now assuming that this hypothetical religion's claims stop there -- or that, even if other sects within the religion make further claims, that the religion can be shorn clean of these additional claims and still fall back on the above claim as more fundamental -- how does Prof. D. employ scientific method to test those claims? Does he test for love? Does he measure the proximity between the adherent's soul and that of their gods?

Okay, now the more technical explanation. Scientific method depends for its efficacy on the restriction of the field of inquiry to the material world -- specifically, what is measurable and quantifiable. It can't operate on anything that doesn't meet those criteria. If religion deals specifically with claims that don't meet those criteria, then how is science to test the veracity of those claims.

So a great deal depends on what religion claims. There probably are sects who posit something like mana -- that is, a sacred substance that is essentially the material of divinity, and which can be, if it exists, measured and quantified. In as much as those religions want to meet the approval of the scientific community, I'd say they're in a perilous situation. Dennett said it, if they're willing to put their claims to the test, then they run the risk of getting very bad news.

But most of the major religions, so far as I know, believe that the holy, sacred or divine are distinct from the material world. Dennett treats that as a memetic strategy to avoid debunking at the hands of science. I don't think so. As a characteristic of religion, it precedes scientific method and rigorous scientific skepticism by at least a thousand years.

So how does science deal with it? I don't think it can, and for that reason, I think Dennett is barking up the wrong tree here. The reason that doesn't stop the book dead in its tracks, I'd say, is that Dennett has asserted the primacy of William James' justifications for religion -- its effectiveness and its tendency to promote morality. But James was a very modern Victorian -- a believer, yes, but also someone liable to view religion from the viewpoint of late 19th and early 20th century psychology. That's not the viewpoint that informs 99.99% of the religious belief throughout history, and it probably isn't terribly common today, even in industrialized nations. Any considerations beyond effectiveness and morality Dennett altogether ignores, either deliberately or simply because he doesn't recognize that they are, historically and in modern practice, more fundamental to religion.

Dissident Heart: I think it demands asking the questions: what is sacred about the information/skills you are learning in each of your classes; what is the ultimate worth, meaning and purpose of your time in school; what sort of society are you hoping to create and participate within; what have you sacrificed, what have others sacrificed, what can you expect to continue sacrificing for your education; what fills you with awe and wonder in your education experience; I'm sure you can think of others.

All of that is fine on the individual level, or even at the level of small intra-classroom groups, but I think it's entirely impractical to think that those considerations can play more than a nominal part at the level of policy and regional administration. The best that one of these more general groups -- like, say, a district school board -- can do is to provide the opportunity for student and teacher to address those consideration.

I don't think you can expect students to learn anything meaningful without experimenting with the subject matter.

The meaning that students take from the education is a personal matter, as far as I'm concerned. Saying that public education should take an active role in determining the meaning disseminated to the student sounds a great deal like arguing that we should be striving to indoctrinate them to something, even if we suspend the decision as to what that something should be. Compulsory education should make sure, first and foremost, that students can read, write and perform basic math skills, since that's what is necessary to function in society (although some people are clever enough to get by without one or more of those skills); for its own good, society should also make sure that its students know what is expected of them as citizens. Beyond that, public education should be careful about what it presents as compulsory elements of a student's education. The bulk of education, I'm convinced, should be elective.

Why not actually participate in the prayers, rituals, ceremonies, diets, social structures, utilizing their symbol systems and methods of communication?

Because it isn't scientific method. Are you reading the book? I'm responding to Dennett's central thesis that religion should not be held exempt from scientific inquiry, and my argument here is that certain religious claims are a priori exempt, not from any consideration of respect, but because scientific method has determined certain criteria for what is subject to its methods and scrutiny, and the most fundamental religious claims fail to meet those criteria. To say that a scientist should participate in religious phenomenon is to say that he should cease, for whatever duration, to operate from scientific method. Which is fine, so far as the suggestion goes, but it has almost nothing to do with Dennett's argument or my reply to it.

What your suggestion amounts to is a rejection of Dennett's thesis, if not a refusal to consider it altogether. If you have an objection to the limitations of scientific method, that's probably the most fruitful line to follow, but simply reiterating this business as though it could be that easily reconciled with the program Dennett puts forth isn't really getting us anywhere. At the very least I can tell you that it is frustrating, regardless of whether or not I agree with you or Dennett, to try to address his arguments and to find myself constantly getting replies that don't.

It may be that Science, as it is customarily understood, will always avoid this step: the step of actually engaging the activity and belief from the inside...behaving and thinking as if it were true, and then examining the results.

I'd say that scientific method leaves no room for that sort of experience as an epistemological method. The chosen tools of scientific method simply cannot operate on that sort of holistic experience. Those are the limitations of the method, and they are also precisely what makes it so strong and influential and epistemological tool.

I think we can see the dance that develops. One says its impossible so why even bother; the other says you won't know until you try.

I can see the dance, certainly. And yet you keep making the suggestion, as though the only alternative were to keep plugging away at the dance until the metaphysical naturalists let their guard down. Why not try something new?

There is a difference between God and Creation, but it is one that makes possible the space for communion and consummation between the sacred and the profane.

Would you say that those traditions leave much purchase for scientific method? Even if the Judeo-Christian tradition allows for a this-wordly experience of the divine, is that experience measurable and quantifiable? That, after all, is the reason I brought up the topic of the sacred.