As one may gather from the title of his 2004 book, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris doesn’t like religion. Harris calls it “the root of all evil” and blames it for every major historical tragedy from the Holocaust to 911. He doesn’t only target extremists, however. Harris is equally critical of religious moderates whom he says “offer no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence”.Harris brought a lot of information to the table within the discursive 301 pages of his bestseller and gave me a lot to think about. While I often struggled with his wordy style and ironically preachy tone, I did find Harris’ arguments overall quite engaging. One of his main disputes with religion is its aversion to development and change. I find this view undeniably true. While every other field and form of science makes progress and continuously redefines itself, only religion takes increasing pride in being backward. It is quite clear that religion’s outdated views have set the stage for modern day problems like hindering stem cell research and failure to control the AIDS epidemic.
Harris also addresses the lack of success separating church and state in the US. The increase of religiosity in US politics contributed to George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency and undermined efforts to build a common knowledge of scientific understanding among the American population. Shortly after finishing this book I read that President Obama had recently chosen a church (a non-denomination church, the same church George W. attended). I have to wonder what the repercussions would be for a president who opted not to attend church. There has never been a non-Christian US president.
While I agree with many of Harris’ points, my views deviate from his when he goes as far to claim that the blanket of religion is the root cause of blame for all world struggles. He cites the conflicts in Palestine, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Kashmir, Sudan and others. True, religion is often a major complicating factor, but is by no means invariably the only cause. In Northern Ireland, controlling land and resources, racial hatred and cultural diversity along with religious differences have been factors for bloodshed.
I also have concerns about Harris’ aggressive and outright hateful tone. If he truly wishes to bring awareness to a problem, attacking and offending the masses doesn’t seem to me a good tactic. Harris is obviously impressed with his own intelligence and at times seems more interested in showing off how much he knows than finding a solution to the problem he is has identified.
Although I sometimes grew tired of Harris’ bombastic pages, I was still impressed by his analysis of history, politics and religion throughout the book. Although I had to weed out some of his subjective passages and oversimplifications, I found The End of Faith to be stimulating and filled with compelling arguments. It forced me to interactively examine my own opinions and for that this book is a success.
Good i'm glad you read this book for me.
ReplyDeleteThe major 20th century conflicts have been driven by greed (WW1 - land, WW2 - land and resources, IRAQ - oil) and ideologies (communism vs democracy).
The lesser conflicts as you yourself note (Israel, northern Ireland) are caused by religious groups and people using religion to motivate others or hide their real agenda but by the numbers religion is hardly a motive anymore.
Hitler's antisemitism is a small part of a larger and more deeper problem namely racism, and Hitler was known for hating anybody who opposed him including communists (non-religious group).
Basically, economic dominance is the main reason for both Iraq wars, arctic claims and other future problems.
Jerry Wong