One of Sam Harris’ main arguments in The End of Faith against Christianity is that, according to him, the roots of intolerance, repression, and violence are found within that “God-authored book” right from the start. He essentially asks, “Why are all Christians violent raving lunatics?” and then provides the answer: “Because they believe God tells them, in the book He dropped from Heaven, to be violent raving lunatics.”
Needless to say, Harris doesn’t think much of the Bible. In this post, we will take a closer look at some specific claims Harris makes regarding the teachings of the Bible.
One issue Harris takes aim at is the concept of “the flames of hell.” In fact, he seems quite obsessed with it. If you had never read the Bible, and had only read Harris’ book, you would think that talk of “the flames of hell” was on every page of the Bible. It isn’t. And even in the places it is mentioned, not surprisingly, Harris gets the biblical concept of hell completely wrong. Consider the following three quotes:
“As long as a Christian believes that only his baptized brethren will be saved on the Day of Judgment, he cannot possibly ‘respect’ the beliefs of others, for he knows that the flames of hell have been stoked by these very ideas and await their adherents even now” (15).
“Tell [the Christian] that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever” (19).
“It has long been obvious that the dogma of faith—particularly in a scheme in which the faithful are promised eternal salvation and doubters are damned—is nothing less than their perfect solution” (44).
There are a host of problems with Harris’ caricature of the biblical concept of hell. I have previously written about the biblical concept of hell in my post entitled, “Oh Hell!…Will there be an eternal crispy burning sensation?” so I will let the reader look at the more detailed argument in that post. For now, though, I would like to simply point out a few specific problems with the above quotes.
First off, Harris seems to think that the God of the Bible will send someone to hell for doubting or having a hard time mentally accepting certain “incredible claims.” Harris obviously thinks that the biblical concept of “belief” and “faith” is simply nothing more than a sort of game show stunt: “Jesus grew a full beard by what age? (a) 18, (b) 22, (c) 25, or (d) Jesus was God so he had a beard straight from the womb! You answered (c)? No! I’m sorry, the correct answer is (d)! Yes, I know, that sounds quite unbelievable, but hey, that’s what faith is—believing the absurd! Now…have a nice time….IN HELL!!!!”
Contrary to what Harris claims, biblical faith is not the equivalent of a multiple choice quiz that you have to simply guess at. Biblical belief is not simply mental adherence to a collection of historical assertions. God won’t send someone to hell if he doesn’t think Balaam’s donkey literally talked, or Joshua literally was able to stop the sun and moon one day, or that a literal seven-headed beast will come up out of the Atlantic ocean.
In the show South Park there was one scene that always has struck me as funny. The scene was in hell, and a great crowd of newly dead people are before a great stage, frightened and confused. Up on stage there is the “director of hell” who is going to be showing them around and introducing them to Satan. He comes to the microphone and says, “Attention! Attention! Just so everyone knows what is going on, let me clarify a few things! Yes, you are dead, and yes you are in hell!” Just then, and man shouts out, “Hey, I was a devout Protestant!” to which the director replies, “Sorry, you picked the wrong religion.” Then someone else says, “I was a Jehovah’s Witness!” and once again, the director replies, “No, sorry, that was wrong too.” So the crowd asks, “Well then, who does get to go to heaven?” The director replies, “The correct answer would be…THE MORMONS!”
The scene is funny because it clearly is a satire of the decidedly wrong and ridiculous view that Harris evidently believes forms the basis of Christian belief. Although there are certainly Christians who have incorrectly held this view (or some variation of it), such a view simply does not line up with the biblical witness regarding what faith is and what hell is.
Let’s take the concept of faith. When two people get married, they vow to be faithful to each other. When one cheats on the other, the cheating spouse is said to be unfaithful. Now, in this context, does “faith” and “being faithful” denote believing certain facts about your spouse? “I vow to be faithful and believe your hair is black, you took swimming lessons in 3rd grade, and you met Bono on a flight to Paris when you were fifteen!” Is that what faith is? Of course not.
When understood in the context of developing a relationship, faith takes on a far different meaning than the common caricature of “mental assertion of really crazy factual claims.” In fact, this common caricature of “faith” is not faith at all. It is an Enlightenment re-definition and distortion of what biblical faith really is. Biblical faith is, at its heart, relational. What Harris does here, though, is take the Enlightenment distortion and then play it off as the biblical faith—he then is free to attack such a ridiculous caricature. The only problem is that the thing he is attacking is something that his own Enlightenment creed has invented.
Secondly, and very briefly, did you catch the not so subtle Nazi allusion Harris makes when mentions that Christians’ belief in sending the “damned to hell” is regarded as “the perfect solution”? As ridiculous as it is, it really shouldn’t be surprising. After all, Harris first gets the very biblical concept of hell wrong, then he proceeds to get the biblical concept of faith wrong as well. Therefore, his conclusion that the Bible teaches that if you happen to get a few facts wrong, then God is going to send you to burn forever in hell, if it were true, would certainly warrant a comparison to the Nazi camps.
But it isn’t true. Harris has clearly not taken the time to actually research what the Bible says, or what Christianity actually teaches. It is very easy to condemn something one knows little or nothing about.
