Daniel C. Dennett is at it again. In his new book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Dennett applies his radical vision of Darwinism to belief in God, and the entire question of faith and belief. As you might expect, Dennett doesn't think much of belief in God.

Dennett is famous for his idea that Darwinism functions as a "universal acid" in contemporary thought--an idea that relativizes all other ideas and reshapes the intellectual culture so that all other ideas must give way or disappear.

Atheism is a central tenet of Dennett's faith, and he has previously argued that the belief in a personal and self-existent God--any kind of God for that matter--must simply give way to the inexorable progress of evolution. As he sees it, belief in God is a "meme" that functioned for some time as an evolutionary advantage, but has long since outlived its usefulness and now serves as an impediment to the forward progress of the human species.

Accordingly, the concept of God might continue as an intellectual concept that offers a mythological explanation for wonder and beauty, but not in the form of theism or theological realism. In other words, it's alright to believe in God so long as you do not actually believe that He exists.

In his new book, Dennett calls for what he calls a "common-sense" understanding of religion. For too long, this issue has been avoided out of social politeness, he argues, and now is the time to confront believers with the danger of their belief and the nonsensical nature of their convictions.

The persistence of belief in God does pose something of a difficult question for evolutionists like Daniel Dennett. "According to surveys, most of the people in the world say that religion is very important in their lives. Many would say that without it, their lives would be meaningless," Dennett concedes. "It's tempting just to take them at their word, to declare that nothing more is to be said--and to tiptoe away. Who would want to interfere with whatever it is that gives their lives meaning?"

Nevertheless, Dennett argues that to do that is to willfully ignore serious questions. He suggests that some forms of religious belief are more inherently dangerous than others, but wonders whether right-minded (which is to say atheistic) observers should leave believers "to their comforts and illusions" or, in the service of humanity, "blow the whistle?"

Never underestimate Dennett's capacity for condescension. "Dilemmas like that are all too familiar in somewhat different context, of course. Should the sweet old lady in the nursing home be told that her son has just been sent to prison? Should the awkward 12-year-old boy who wasn't cut from the baseball team be told about the arm-twisting that persuaded the coach to keep him on the squad? In spite of ferocious differences of opinion about other moral issues, there seems to be something approaching consensus that it is cruel and malicious to interfere with the life-enhancing illusions of others--unless those illusions are themselves the cause of even greater ills."