Straw Dogs had a profound and chilling effect on me. At it's core, it looks at the problems inherent in humanism as a philosophy. The central ideas in the book attempt to unpack the dogmas that prevent us from seeing our place in the world outside of a humanist belief system. Topics include our adaptation of science into a religion, deep misunderstandings about evolution and the myth of progress, and the replacing of God with science- with mankind as saviour of the earth.