Letter to Sam Harris

Dear Sam Harris,

I found your book excellent in several respects, while surprisingly lacking in others. Your assessment of the Bible—that it is by no means the moral text of humanity—is right on target. I especially like your use of quotes, that while they made sense to the people who lived at the time the Bible was written, are now seen as quite embarrassing. The fact that the Bible gives permission to have slaves—

“As for your male and female slaves whom you have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you…You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, with harshness.” (Leviticus 25:44-46)

—and to stone a bride found not be a virgin—

“But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die…” (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

—are great examples of why, as you imply, the holy text should be questioned as the word of a moral God rather than very intelligent men. Even Jesus, who was much more compassionate than his forefathers, never rejected slavery, as you correctly point out. Furthermore, if I may paraphrase you, there are many other religions, so why should Christianity be the one? What about Jainism, which teaches its adherents to "not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.”? I agree with you, it’s much more potent and simpler than the Bible.

I was also gratified that your compared our moral intuition to that of our primate cousins. Your statement is fitting and factual:

“There are obvious reasons why people tend to treat their parents well, and to think badly of murderers, adulterers, thieves, and liars. It is a scientific fact that moral emotions—like a sense of fair play or an abhorrence of cruelty—precede any exposure to scripture. Indeed, studies of primate behavior reveal that these emotions (in some form) precede humanity itself. All of our primate cousins are partial to their own kin and generally intolerant of murder and theft. They tend not to like deception or sexual betrayal much, either. Chimpanzees, especially, display many of the complex social concerns that you would expect to see in our closes relatives in the natural world. It seems rather unlikely, therefore, that the average American will receive necessary moral instruction by seeing these precepts chiseled in marble whenever he enters a courthouse.”

Your analysis of how religious dogma can lead to disastrous and often immoral public policy—you cite HIV, HPV, and stem-cell research is superb and worrying at the same time. Allow me to quote you on the latter:

“Let us look at the details. A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. The human embryos that are destroyed in stem-cell research do not have brains, or even neurons. Consequently, there is no reason to believe they can suffer their destruction in any way at all. It is worth remembering, in this context, that when a person’s brain has died, we currently deem it acceptable to harvest his organs (provided he has donated them for this purpose) and bury him in the ground. If it is acceptable to treat a person whose brain has died as something less than a human being, it should be acceptable to treat a blastocyst as such. If you are concerned about suffering in this universe, killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst. The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interest of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics. The link between religion and ‘morality’—so regularly proclaimed and so seldom demonstrated—is fully belied here, as it is wherever religious dogma supersedes moral reasoning and genuine compassion.”

Further on, in the section “The Clash of Science and Religion”, you correctly argue that ultimately the two will always be in conflict because fundamentally the Bible is incorrect about the origin of life and there is no “intelligent design”.

Up to this point, I found your book to be a piece of art. Unfortunately, parts of your analysis of “Religion, Violence, and the Future of Civilization” is fundamentally wrong. You favor getting rid of religion entirely rather than religion tolerance because as you point out,

“Religion raises the stakes of human conflict much higher than tribalism, racism, or politics ever can, as it is the only form of in-group/out-group thinking that casts the differences between people in terms of eternal rewards and punishments.”

You also write that it encourages us to lie to ourselves about the compatibility of religious faith and scientific religions. I agree with you on both points, except that I think tolerance is better in the interim, while the people of this earth learn the truth about Darwinism (to give you credit you do point out that religious tolerance is better than religious war).

Here is where you are wrong: you argue that Islam is a violent religion. You say,

“It is now a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so—it is so because Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith. Muslims tend to view questions of public policy and global conflict in terms of their affiliation with Islam. And Muslims who don’t view the world in these terms risk being branded as apostates and killed by other Muslims.”

While there is clearly a problem (and a serious debate within) the Muslim world, your statement that Muslims are “deranged by their religious faith” is inaccurate at best, and racist at worst. There is no doubt that some of its followers are deranged, but every religion has them.

In your last paragraph, you write,

“Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you, dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of the living . But we stand dumbstruck by you as well—by your denial of tangible reality, by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by your attachment to an imaginary God. This letter has been an expression of that amazement—and, perhaps, of a little hope.”

Again, you insinuate that the whole Muslim world wants to attach non-Muslim nations, and that they’re evil (“death to whole nations of the living” [emphasis is mine]).

While you previously continually stated scientific facts, where is your proof here? You offer not a single fact to back up your claim. The fact is that most wars are fought over economic resources, not religion per se. We were attacked a la 9/11 because we were over there (troops stationed in Saudi Arabia), not the other way around. The terrorists in Iraq are attacking now because they were attacked by us. Where were the Muslim terrorists in, say the 1950s and 1960s? Perhaps you should open a history book, Mr. Harris. If Muslims are so evil now, why weren’t they so evil then? Why would over a billion people be Muslims if the religion was so evil? Some of their beliefs may be false, as they are in any other religion, but the fight today is not about religion—it is about economics, with the violence justified by religion. In other words, you are talking about a subject matter that has little to do with an essay about the fallacies of Christianity.

In summary, you make some very good arguments as to why Christianity is flawed and its negative effects on public policy. What your book doesn’t address—and perhaps it shouldn’t since you’re on one side of the debate—are the positive effects of religion, such as larger and more stable families (as you pointed out, Muslims have the highest growth rate; secular Europe on the other hand, having lost its Christian roots, is experiencing a huge population decline (economics also play a factor). Finally, your attack on Islam is misguided and largely out of context given that your book is called A Letter to a Christian Nation.

Sincerely,

Recogitare