[He's alive! This post has been provided by our guest columnist, the Christian missionary da, who continues with my assignment for him to read Sam Harris' The End of Faith]
I believe I have been enjoying a break from Sam's End of Faith. Although, as we know, nothing can be taken for granted, hence, maybe it wasn't two weeks after all. Maybe it was just a blink. Who knows?
Anyway, I am finally holding in my hand a real copy of Sam's book (again, maybe my nervous system is just telling me I am holding it in my hands and maybe Amazon just made me believe they delivered it to me to make me pay them 10 bucks). So, I had the pleasure to scribble my notes directly on the book instead on the computer screen. I can tell you it hasn't been fun to always wipe off my notes from the screen after reading.
Death the Font of Illusion
I am glad to see that Sam Harris has not fallen for some weird mystic belief and states that “the only thing we can be certain of in this life is that we will one day die and leave everything behind.”
Equally true, he says, that what we believe about death dictates our behavior in life.
Just a note on this thought: why not program death and systematically get rid (enjoy) all wealth up to that point? If you have lived for 21,600 days (60 years), is one extra day worth that much? Isn't it better to organize a spending scheme, waste all your money and then say goodbye? Makes sense to me, although I cannot do that because God forbids me to commit suicide. Sorry pals, I´m still going to stick around a little longer.
Ending this section, he again says something which is deeply true from a Biblical point of view: “the fact of death is intolerable to us”. True, dear Sam, actually death is not meant to be, we are supposed to live forever. This is one point where we differ from animals, animals are scared of danger and being hurt but not being eternal doesn´t pose a problem to them.
The following section is “The World Beyond Reason” in which Sam openly acknowledges his beliefs in some kind of mystical “thing” we need to search for. At footnote 18 he even states that "there may be even some credible evidence for reincarnation”. Whoops! Mr. Sam, where has your celebrated rationalism gone to?? But then you call it “fundamental openness of mind” which is compatible with “healthy, scientific skepticism”. All right … now I think you and me are not that far away anymore. I believe Darwin would be spinning in his grave hearing you … but then, an afterlife would exist. Oh my.
Now, in “Coming to Terms with Belief”, he states it would be good to ask ourselves which ideologies make mankind most capable of incredible brutality. Good question! Why not search for the answer? My suggestion is to look for radical followers of the different faiths and look at their behavior. Easy as that. If you observe pseudo-followers, you might only observe mankind’s ingenuity in covering up their true motives with some nice sounding religious cover. You shouldn’t mix these two things. Crusaders of the fifteenth century have nothing to do with the two young German missionaries who were killed in Yemen a month ago.
Despite not performing the easy exercise above, Sam is not reluctant to criticize the Bible as a work of some idiots who know nothing about the Wii or the Big Mac. Now, if it has been the work of some geeks, why was it then, the first book ever printed, translated completely into almost 400 languages, with over 5 billion copies sold since 1815? It has survived many dictatorships and is incredibly accurate from historical science point of view. You may do whatever you want, but saying the Bible has been written by some idiots does not help you in getting your points to more people than just an undergrad class of philosophy students.
Your book, by the way, has been apparently sold 145,000 times, sorry: 145,001 times. So, for one of your books, you have 35,000 Bibles. Scary isn't it? I believe it might have been translated into 3 or 4 languages (in Spanish it still isn't around!). I had a hard time trying to find it in a major 9m capital, and still couldn’t find it. Sorry, compared to the Bible, your book is just a 45 watt light bulb next to the sun.
In the same section, Sam suggests that the fact that nobody is burning witches anymore is proof that Christianity is going down. I am sorry to inform you that Christianity is the fastest growing faith worldwide. Remember, the world doesn't end at the Mexican border. Just look further South and you will have a different reality.
In the last section of this first chapter, Sam amazes me with some poor logic. This is worth citing “We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it”. First, if it is faith, by definition there is no evidence, get it? Second, where is your evidence for the reincarnations you mentioned earlier and which you seemingly believe in? Your quest for a mystical “thing” which needs “openness of mind” sounds very much like faith to me.
As Sam apparently tries to “save the world”, I hope he will get into more profound issues like why some people differ on their view of the supernatural? Why do Christians believe and why do atheists not? Why could a world, based on Christian principles (I mean principles, not what some power-greedy leaders interpret out of them) destroy itself, as he claims? Having glimpsed a bit of some further sections, I believe we will come to some of these issues.
HE'S ALIVE! HE'S ALIVE!
ReplyDeleteda - we were worried about you, Padre. Welcome back.
That quote from Harris about "faith" without evidence is odd, I have to admit. He should have said "belief" without evidence - that is what he meant.
Welcome back, da. I hope you stick around for a while.
ReplyDeleteBut then you call it "fundamental openness of mind" which is compatible with "healthy, scientific skepticism".
I think this is easily summarised by one of my stock responses to supernatural claims (as used recently in a discussion between myself and a friend who practices Reiki):
"That's an interesting idea. What evidence is there for it?" (actually, my question in that case was "by what mechanism does it work", but the essential gist is the same.)
Allowing for an interesting idea is open-mindedness. Following up by asking for evidence is skepticism. They work well together.
The ideas that a deity is looking down and tampering with our lives in infinitessimally undetectable, yet real and effective ways is a very interesting idea. I am open-minded to this idea. The idea of having a soul that lives on as a spirit after death is an interesting idea. The idea of a deity sending his avatar to this world for the sole purpose of being slain so that he can forgive mankind is also an interesting idea. I am open-minded to all these ideas.
To clarify: I find all of those ideas interesting, but abhorrent, but personal opinion doesn't matter to reality. And it is equally irrelevant to the Skeptic Question:
What evidence for them is there?
None.
I find that the Skeptic Question is essentially a junk mail filter for the brain.
There are plenty of interesting ideas out there. For example, one interesting idea is that the wall of this room might spawn demons that fly around and devour everyone's left foot. The Skeptic Question -- what evidence is there for this -- allows us to dismiss this scenario out of hand. And I think even you would agree that in that case it does so correctly.
So, when we look at what Dawkins called 'The God Hypothesis' -- the idea that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, supernatural being who involves him-or-herself personally with your affairs (listening to prayers, etc.), we find it is one we can dismiss out of hand because there is zero evidence supporting this*. Just as I am sure you dismiss out of hand, for the same reason, the idea that the Earth is flat and just one of many planes propped up by a giant tree, another such plane being above the clouds where powerful immortal beings fight endlessly against terrible giants until the end of days, as the old Norse believed.
*Note: the bible is as much evidence for Jesus as a Harry Potter novel is evidence for Ron Weasley. Note that the first Harry Potter novel is historically accurate. I've been to King's Cross station on numerous occasions, and it is as described in the novel. And no, I'm not being facetious; I am making a point.