Daniel Dennett – Can Religion Be Explained Without God?

by



To honor Daniel Dennett’s immense contributors to the world of philosophy, we’re posting a bonus interview today in his memory.

Watch all videos featuring Dan Dennett on our website: https://bit.ly/3DeIzoG

Religion without God? Most people believe that God exists and religion is God’s revelation. But some say religion, particularly the organization of religion into institutions, needs nothing supernatural to begin, develop and multiply. In other words, religion without God can flourish because personal psychology and group sociology drive religion.

Daniel Dennett was an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist. He was most recently Professor Emeritus at Tufts University.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

source

25 thoughts on “Daniel Dennett – Can Religion Be Explained Without God?”

  3. DD: well I define religion as belief in a supernature agent or agents whose approval is to be sought now once I've defined religion then there are some things which look like they may be their religions that don't meet the definition 0:46 … 18:00 ❤what kind of next steps do you think would be productive for Human Society to make to understand religions? ❤👉Well I think first of all we have to do what Socrates always told us to do real that's what we don't know the fact is we don't know a lot that we think we know about religion uh I'm saying I don't know it I'm saying nobody knows and we Jolly well should try to find out using good old scientific methods uh we can't just rely on our good intentions and good intentions aren't enough and we can't rely on tradition history tradition isn't good enough let's find out next makes religions tick how they attract people and then we'll have some idea of how to how to build on that there's a lot of people who've tried to reform their religions in the last say 100 years some of those reforms were disastrous why? their intentions were fine they didn't understand the nature of this sort of organism that they're trying to fix um so doesn't matter whether you think religions should go extinct or should become stronger you should try to understand how they work their their physiology if ou like their ecology now if you look at religion now you see hugely different from what it was 100 years ago which was hugely different from what it was a thousand years ago what's religion going to be in 10 years it probably will evolved as much in the next 10 or 20 years as it has in the last 100 I'd like to be part of a planned attempt to channel that evolution of religion down paths that are socially useful.

    Reply

  5. "Can Religion Be Explained Without God?"

    Faith in the existence of an Almighty Creator did not start from witnessing the presence of God but from witnessing the AWESOME WONDERS OF NATURE by ancient people who used their good rationale and sound conscience ln having a sensible BELIEF without knowing God…

    …but if you ignore your good conscience by trusting what Dawkins, Hawkings, Hitchens, De Grasse, et al, taught, you would likely believe that your Consciousness is a product of EXPLOSION of Unconscious NOTHINGNESS (BigBang as they call it proudly)..

    … and that these Unconscious Pieces of NOTHINGNESS, from this magical explosion, soon turned alive and conscious free to believe in Spiritual God that defies not only physical laws of their material science but also sends their IQs in limbo… How can all these GARBAGE make sense to these wannabe science geniuses ? – makes any fair minded individual wonder !

    I pray that may our loving God have mercy on your lost soul, Daniel Dennett…

    Reply

  6. Religion without God is just science. Even the philosophers they turned into bishops understood this, and many prominent philosophers including Kant, Fichte, and Hegel wrote specifically on what made their "practical faith" different, but all of them pretended to understand God and the limitations of mans relationship to and ability to comprehend the divine from within extremely ethno-centric theories of mind.

    Reply

  10. I think Gaza VERY much illustrates the jury has decided – religion is the BANE of our existence, because it is unprovable yet used as a final arbiter, and can be used as a weapon, a cudgel, and constantly is…

    Reply

  13. His definition of Religion is the clearest definition of atheism: A willful rejection of the idea of A Creator . Ignorance would've been a blessedness than entertaining such an idea with an intellect of his stature. So sad!

    Reply

  14. WE DID THAT ALREADY 150+- YEARS AGO ,
    we didn't call it THE FIRST ERROR IN philosophy , just for the fun of it , you know …
    that's 3 generations that have been LYING TO THEIR OWN CHILDREN , while we KNOW it's >>> A DELUSION <<< the brain makes up …
    out of all 10.000+ errors the brain makes , almost Every brain , on a DAILY BASIS ,
    ''making up gods '' … we put at Nr.1 , OUT OF ALL ERRORS
    should't That .. tell people something … ?
    it's freaking weird , to live in a so called '' social society with a so called SOCIAL SPECIES '' ,
    where 7.5 BILLION out of 8.1 billion members of set species , run around with this SELF INDUSED SCHIZOPHRENIA AND STILL CALL OURSELVES A SOCIAL SPECIES ???? WTF ??
    HOW ??? how do you even DO THAT … ? how do you JUSTIFY THAT … ?

    Reply

  19. Religion is a particular idea of God. Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. God is the creator of the universe. Is God omnipotent, omniscient, all loving, all forgiving, inmortal, perfect? Who, what or how is this God for the moment it doesn't matter. For the moment what is important is to determine with arguments if atheism is true or false. Did something intelligent created the universe? Bear in mind it is better for you if God exists and reality matters. Without God life is meaningless and death is the end. With God there is hope and anything is possible. If life was designed also death could be designed. All the arguments for the existence of God point to an eternal metaphysical entity, and no arguments support the idea that God is personal and wants to be worshipped, obeyed and feared. What I know was discovered previously by the rationalist philosopher Spinoza. Spinoza was not understood because the true God is pantheism. Only one reality only one God, everything created from self. Reality is eternal because from nothing can not be created something. Spinoza and I are good people trying to end the harmful consequences of religion and atheism with knowledge. Our mind is eternal, our life is eternal, and God can die because the universe is mortal. It is just an idea that can not do harm to anyone and is censored. Why good ideas that can not do harm like pantheism are censored? Pantheism is not a religion, Spinoza was the opposite of a religious person, Spinoza was a rational thinker who found the truth and wanted to risk his life to warn you. Would you dare to read Spinoza? Would you dare to memorize Spinoza so future generations don't lose the knowledge in case all the copies of his work are destroyed? Spinoza was the messiah with the truth and how many people listened to him? Have you read Descartes? I haven't, I feel I don't have time. I have to call the program again to offer my three bedroom flat in Spain in the city of Burgos to the first person who writes from memory the Quran. The proof in front of everybody's eyes, the resurrection for all to witness. How much is at stake? Is it possible or impossible to memorize the Quran? I for sure can not do it, can you do it? For me it would be a miracle, a real miracle. I have done a lot of memorization in my life to learn languages. I invite all humanity to memorize the first page of the Quran to taste the effort that would require to remember the rest of the boring and difficult book. The Quran as a piece of literature I think it is a masterpiece, one of the greatest masterpieces of literature without any doubt, top 10 for sure. Where would you put the Quran as a marvelous piece of literature in the list of all that has been written? Maybe a silver or bronze medal judging by the results. Time is running out and lives are being lost because humanity don't understand God is simply everything, that's all, and life was designed and also death. Thank you.

    Reply

Leave a Comment