text: Mr. Dennett's book demonstrates the ignorance, irrationality, and dishonesty  of humanists. Discussing the meaning of word materialsim, Professor Dennett says:
  
  "In its scientific or philosophical sense, it refers to a theory that aspires to explain all the phenomena without recourse to anything immaterial--like a Cartesian soul, or "ectoplasm"--or God. The standard negation of materialistic in the scientific sense is dualistic, which maintains that there are two entirely different kinds of substance, matter and ...whatever minds are supposedly made of." (p. 302)
  
  Philosophers stopped believing in dualism a thousand years ago with the development of metaphysics. A modern view is that man is an indefinability that becomes conscious of its own existence. 
  
  The philosophy that God does not exist is not materialism, it is naturalism. Materialism is the view that all that exists is matter. Materialists frequently say that free will is an illusion and that the experience of the existence of oneself is some kind of epiphenomena. (In a quote below, you will see that Dennett puts free will in a list of things people belief in.)
  
  It is not clear from the book whether Dennett is a materialist, but he is certainly a naturalist. Concerning the proof of God's existence, he trots out David Hume's "Who made God?" which is based on a misunderstanding of the principle of causality. I refer the reader to my personal website for my version of the proof.
  
  Let's look at two quotes, the first is at the end of the chapter "Belief in Belief" and the other at the beginning of the chapter "Morality and Religion": 
  
  "That is, isn't it true that, whether or not God exists, religious belief is at least as important as the belief in democracy, in the rule of law, in free will? The very widespread (but far from universal) opinion is that religion is the bulwark of morality and meaning." (p. 245)
  
  " Without the divine carrot and stick, goes this reasoning, people would loll about aimlessly or indulge their basest desires, beak their promises, cheat on their spouses, neglect their duties, and so on.  There are two well-known problems with this reasoning: (1) it doesn't seem to be true, which is good news, since (2) is is such a demeaning view of human nature." (p. 279)
  
  In the first chapter, he mentions "bulwark of morality" and "meaning." But in the second chapter, he leaves out "meaning."  If our purpose in life is not to get to heaven, what is our purpose is life? 
  
  Whether religion supports morality can be determined by observing whether there is a correlation of moral conduct with religious belief. Mr. Dennett makes such a correlation to the detriment of religion by citing the high divorce rate of fundamentalist Christians.
  
  There are worse things than divorcing your spouse. Disingenuousness can be worse and can take the form of leaving unsaid what should have been said. Mr. Dennett should have explained why he did not discuss the idea that religion gives meaning to life.
  
  The only miracle mentioned in Mr. Dennett's book is the Shroud of Turin, which has on it a mysterious image of a crucified man.  Since no one claims to know how the image got there, it can be called a miracle. However, Mr. Dennett does not tell us anything about it. The reader is left to find out about the famous relic by looking it up on the internet.
  