Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

17.Sharlet, 2003, provides a fascinating and unsettling introduction to this little-known organization, which includes this list of congressmen (including a few who are no longer in Congress), and also describes highlights of the history of its activities around the world, which include the National Prayer Breakfasts but also the covert support of political leaders and movements. Its current leader, Douglas Coe, is described by Time magazine (February 7, 2005, p. 41) as “the Stealth Persuader.” Sharlet comments:

At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn’t say secret diplomacy,” as an “ambassador of faith.” Coe has visited nearly every world capital, often with congressmen at his side, “making friends” and inviting them back to the Family’s unofficial headquarters, a mansion (just down the road from Ivanwald) that the Family bought in 1978 with 1.5 million donated by, among others, Tom Phillips, then the C.E.O. of arms manufacturer Raytheon, and Ken Olsen, the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation. [p. 55]

I think we need to know more about the activities of this quiet, nongovernmental diplomacy, since it may be pursuing policies that are antithetical to those of the democracy of which these congressmen are elected representatives.

18.We also need to keep ourselves informed, and this is becoming more difficult, oddly enough. We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it. For instance, I do not fear that this book will be censored or suppressed, but I do anticipate that it (and I) will be subjected to ruthless misrepresentation when those who cannot honestly face its contents seek to poison the minds of readers to it or direct attention away from it. In my recent experience, even some respectable academics have been unable to resist the temptation to do this (Dennett, 2003e). Relying on that experience, I have made a list of the passages in this book most likely to be ripped out of context and used deliberately to misrepresent my position. This is not the first time I have done this. In Consciousness Explained, I provided a premonitory footnote to a passage on zombies (don’t ask; you don’t want to know), asserting, “It would be an act of desperate intellectual dishonesty to quote this assertion out of context!” (1991a, p. 407n), and, sure enough, several authors could not resist quoting it out of context—but at least they had to quote the footnote, too, not being quite that desperate or dishonest. In this case, stronger measures are called for, since the stakes are higher, so I am keeping my list of predicted deliberate misrepresentations sealed and ready to release. For instance, which of my little jokes, quite innocuous in context, will be brandished to demonstrate my “intolerance,” my “disrespect,” my anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim “bias”? (As all you careful readers know full well, I am an equal-opportunity teaser, who refuses to tiptoe around for fear of offending people—because I want to take the “I’m mortally offended” card out of the game.) It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, falls into my trap. They won’t be assiduous note readers, will they?

Appendix B Some More Questions About Science

1. William Dembski, the author of numerous books and articles attacking evolutionary theory, often complains loudly that his “scientific” work is not treated with respect by working biologists. As the coeditor of Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies (2001), he can find the reason for this in his own practices. For a detailed critique of Dembski’s methods, see the Web site of Thomas Schneider, http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/ ~toms/paper/ev/.

2.This paragraph is drawn from Dennett, 2003c, p. 303.3. Most of this huge increase in mass relative to “wild” nature is due to our livestock and pets, which now outweigh us in total by more than three to one. It is hard to estimate the ratio of domesticated plants to wild plants, but of course that ratio has changed dramatically as well.

Bibliography

Abed, Riadh, 1998, “The Sexual Competition Hypothesis for Eating Disorders.” British Journal of Medical Psychology, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 525–47.