Sunday, March 12, 2006
Darwin's defender
"America's answer to Richard Dawkins is a self-confessed 'bright', his term for atheists, agnostics and defenders of Darwinism, a man who has made it his crusade to confront what he sees as the pernicious influence of the religious right in the United States. By Tim Adams.
Daniel Dennett has something of the look of those seventeenth-century puritan preachers who would talk for hours about the sins of the flesh. The gospel he has spent most of his life spreading, however, has nothing to do with supernatural vengeance; quite the opposite. His full white beard is worn more in homage to Charles Darwin than the Almighty.
When I went to see him at the little office in the corner of a quadrangle at Tufts University he has occupied for 30 years, he was examining on his computer screen the cover of his new book, Breaking the Spell. His book seeks to demonstrate that religion, chiefly Christianity, is itself a biologically evolved concept, and one that has outlived its usefulness. "
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"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" is currently appearing on the 'Featured Books' page of the Evolution Book Store: UK | US or go directly to Amazon: UK | US
Also see: "On Point : Religion's Evolutionary Origins (Audio - Dennett)"
technorati tags: richard+dawkins, darwinism, crusade, religion, dennett, darwin, gospel, on+point
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