We’ve now come to the point in our analysis of Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith, where we will look at the specific things he has to say about “faith.”
Intolerance and Religious Faith
Early in his book, Harris makes was should be for any critical reader a glaring and shocking contradiction. He first states that “Intolerance is thus intrinsic to every creed” (13). Clearly for Harris, intolerance is a bad thing that characterizes religion. He then immediately adds, “…criticizing a person’s faith is currently taboo in every corner of our culture. …religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse” (13), thus he claims our society has taken religious beliefs and “faith” and placed them on some kind of pedestal that no one can even challenge or debate them.
Yet, as any visit to any bookstore or the internet will show, and as any rudimentary knowledge of history will testify to, there has always been vigorous theological and philosophical debates in our culture and throughout Church history. The very fact he has written a book about this issue and that people are debating it contradicts his fundamental claim that people are not allowed to broach the topic.
Ironically, despite this glaring contradiction, Harris then turns around and actually advocates for intolerance toward religion:
“I hope to show that the very idea of religious tolerance—born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God—is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss” (15).
In other words, even though he has just accused “religion” of intolerance, he then turns around and says, “We should not tolerate religion!” Apparently, Harris does not think that “every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God.” When viewed against the backdrop of recent history, that statement should be seen as bone-chilling, for that very mindset that was ruthlessly enforced in the Soviet Union, to the tune of millions upon millions of people starved, tortured, and killed. Of course, Harris is not advocating genocide—but we need to see that such irresponsible rhetoric, completely devoid of any historical facts, often times leads to irresponsible and destructive actions down the road.
Peace and Love…Anti-Religious?
Harris clearly believes that “faith and religion” is intolerant, extremist, violent, and irrational. That is his “working definition” of faith. The problem, of course, with such a definition is that there are countless examples throughout history—from the Red Cross, to hospitals, charities, the abolitionist movement (the list can go on)—that clearly show Harris’ depiction of religion to be false. Not surprisingly, Harris finds a way around this clear fact of history:
“…religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God’s law. By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally” (21).
Amazingly, according to Harris, a Christian who “loves his neighbor as himself,” apparently is refusing to submit to God’s Law. The only problem with Harris’ assessment here is that Jesus himself said that if you love God and your neighbor as yourself, you have fulfilled God’s Law. So how can Harris justify his assertion? Simple—he has already determined that religious faith is extremist and violent; therefore any religious faith that is loving and peaceful just can’t be real faith. Harris can’t let the historical facts get in the way of his presupposed definition that condemns “faith.”
Let’s Have Fun with False Definitions: Sports is Sports!
Related to Harris’ insistence that “faith = violence” and that “peace = anti-faith/religion,” is Harris’ further attempt to explain away the facts of history in order to fit his own narrative, and further his own modern definition of “faith” that simply has never been the biblical definition of faith. Consider the following quote:
“Of course, anyone is free to redefine the term ‘faith’ however he sees fit and thereby bring it into conformity with some rational or mystical ideal. But this is not the ‘faith’ that has animated the faithful for millennia. The faith I that I am calling into question is precisely…‘an act of knowledge that has a low degree of evidence’” (65).
Please notice Harris’ definition of “faith” here: “an act of knowledge that has a low degree of evidence.” Such an understanding of faith is neither biblical, nor is that how the Church has understood faith for the past 2,000 years. In fact, Harris definition of faith (i.e. nothing more than “thinking something is there without any proof”) stems from faulty Enlightenment thinking that puts “provable facts” as the only type of knowledge there is. It assumes that everything is meant to be read as an attempted factual claim.
The “fact” is, though, Christian faith is simply not a matter of “believing certain facts without any proof.” It is both historical testimony to certain events in history, as well as a living and vibrant experience in the lives of individuals. Or course, Christianity makes historical claims: that’s one of the major points in the Gospels—they are the testimony of the early Church concerning the historical fact of the ministry, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. As with any other historical claim, people who are not there to witness any given event must place their trust (i.e. faith) in the evidence and testimony of those who did claim to witness it.
Of course, Harris dismisses such testimony out of hand because…well, just because. But the fact is, you can’t dismiss historical testimony out of hand as evidence, then turn around and complain that there is no evidence. What Harris is doing is historical suicide—he is destroying the ability to know anything about anything in history.
But the Christian faith is more than just believing certain historical events are “factual.” The heart of the Christian faith is an existential relationship with God Himself. It goes to the heart of understanding the nature of reality and mankind, as well as the purposes for life itself. Yet Harris does not address this because he cannot even see it, for he has already displayed his anemic and impoverished Enlightenment assumptions.
Contrary to what history shows, Harris is adamant that “faith = fairy tales,” therefore is analysis of faith is doomed and worthless from the start, for it doesn’t even get right what faith actually is. It would be like if Harris wrote a book arguing that baseball must be done away with, because what kind of are “Canucks” and “Blackhawks” anyway? No one wearing skates an swinging a hockey stick has ever hit a home run, so clearly the World Series is a delusional fairytale. If someone tried to tell Harris, “No, you’re describing hockey; you’re not even presenting baseball for what it really is,” then Harris would come back with, “Sports is sports! There’s a wooden stick, and it tries to hit a flying projectile—close enough!”
Such an argument is simply worthless, for it doesn’t even deal with the way things really are.
Oh, the Irony…
Ironically, despite his fanciful and unhistorical misunderstanding of faith, Harris then turns around and couches his personal hope for a completely secular and “religion-free” society in totally religious language:
“It is imperative that we begin speaking plainly about the absurdity of most of our religious beliefs. I fear, however, that the time has not yet arrived. In this sense, what follows is written very much in the spirit of a prayer. I pray that we may one day think clearly enough about these matters to render our children incapable of killing themselves over their books” (49).
I’m sorry, but if “religion and faith” are extremist and violently evil, and if our society would be better without any hint of “faith,” then why does Harris find it necessary to use religious terminology to express his hope for humanity? The answer is that it is because religion and faith are intrinsic parts to our human nature. Simply put, you can’t get away from it because it is hard-wired into our very beings. Given that, Harris should be honest about what he wants: he doesn’t want an abolition of all faith…he just wants all faiths that he doesn’t agree with to be exterminated so that his personal “faith preference” can dominate society. Yes, he has his personal “faith preference”—we will look at that a bit later. And yes, what he is advocating, therefore, is the very thing he falsely accuses “religion” of trying to do.
