Daniel Dennett on How to Tell if You're an Atheist

Daniel Dennett at the 17. Göttinger Literaturherbst, October 19th, 2008, in Göttingen, Germany. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Philosopher Daniel Dennett was one of the stars of the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne and gave a brilliant and whimsical talk on defining the atheist. He is the uber-philospher of the mind and a great provocateur, though he was speaking to 4000 non believers at this convention.

He applies a scientific rigour to his investigation of religion and belief, or what he describes as “the belief in belief”. As he said in an earlier ABC interview ...”there’s a fundamental difference between religious attitudes and scientific attitudes...Science confesses to ignorance and incomprehension of all sorts of phenomena...and never celebrates incomprehension as a good thing”. Whereas with religious communities, the celebration of incomprehension is “ a standard trope”.

Outside of enraging some believers around the world, Dennett spends summers on his farm in Maine, harvests Blueberries, hay and timber and makes cider wine. He is also a sculptor.
Daniel Dennett is the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in the US. He is the author of Breaking the Spell; Freedom Evolves; and Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
For more on Dennett, you can access previous Radio National programs in which he features,hereand here.

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