Sam Harris

For other people named Sam Harris, see Sam Harris (disambiguation)

Sam Harris

Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American author with active interests in philosophy, religion and neuroscience.

His first book The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and his essays have appeared in numerous publications and internet forums. Harris has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Stanford University and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in neuroscience, conducting research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Previously, Harris made a lengthy study of both Eastern and Western religious traditions. His second book, Letter to a Christian Nation, was published in September 2006.

World view

Harris's basic theme is that the time has come to speak openly and unambiguously about what he sees as the dangers posed to society by religious belief. While highlighting what he regards as a particular problem being posed by Islam at this moment in respect of international terrorism, Harris has made a direct criticism of religion of all styles and persuasions. He is also critical of the stance of religious moderation, which he sees as essentially providing cover to religious extremism, while at the same time acting as an obstacle to progress in terms of pursuing what he considers to be more enlightened approaches towards spirituality and ethics.

Conversational intolerance

Harris acknowledges that he is advocating a form of intolerance, but not, as he puts it, the kind of intolerance that led to the Gulag. Rather he is arguing for a conversational intolerance, one in which we examine people's convictions to see if they really scale with the available evidence. He feels that the time has come to demand intellectual honesty right across the board, and confront the prevailing taboos which, in his view, prevent us from openly criticizing religious ideas, beliefs, and practices.

Harris observes that these are essential rules which underpin progress in every other field of knowledge. He notes that we are rarely admonished simply to respect someone's views on, say, physics or history; instead, we both demand reasons and expect evidence. Anyone who fails to substantiate their viewpoint, or resents questioning, is quickly marginalized from the conversation on those topics. So Harris believes that the routine deference accorded to religious ideologies comprises a double standard which, following the events of September 11, we maintain at our peril.

Religious America

The current state of affairs in contemporary religious America is something which Harris feels should be a matter for profound national embarrassment. He notes that 44 percent of Americans, according to polls, believe that Jesus will probably return within the next fifty years. This is roughly the same number who think that creationism should be taught in schools, to the complete exclusion of Darwinian evolution; or that God has literally promised the land of Israel to the modern-day Jews.

These beliefs cannot exist in isolation; rather, he feels, they should be deeply troubling because they are, in his view, entirely maladaptive to planning a sustainable future for humanity on this planet. He points out that, by the light of biblical prophecy, general Armageddon is regarded as a necessary precursor to the Second Coming, or the Rapture as some call it. Harris considers it no exaggeration to say that a significant proportion of the American population would see a nuclear conflagration in the Middle East, say, as a happy portent of the imminent arrival of Jesus.

What troubles Harris the most is that these are the same people who both elect and are elected as presidents and congressmen. Religion, he observes, permeates American politics to such an extent that it would be futile to consider running for office without professing some sort of faith. When George W. Bush publicly invokes God in his conversation (as he frequently does with respect to both domestic and foreign affairs), Harris invites us to consider how we might react if the President were to mention Zeus or Apollo in a similar vein.

Islam

Harris argues that the taboo against criticizing religion obscures what he sees as the greatest present threat to civilization, namely that from the Muslim world. The general response in the West to terrorist atrocities such as 9/11 has been to pronounce Islam a "religion of peace", while simultaneously declaring a "war on terror". Harris sees the first sentiment as demonstrably false, and the second as meaningless.

Instead, he says, we should plainly acknowledge that Western civilization is at war with Islam which, he maintains, preaches a doctrine of religious and political subjugation, not a message of peace. The Koran and the hadith, he notes, are packed full of unambiguous incitements to kill infidels – acts which, according to the texts, are duly rewarded with an eternity of celestial delights. It is specifically this metaphysics of martyrdom, or jihad, which, in taking the sting out of death, Harris sees as the source of greatest peril. That such notions might be merely the product of a more extreme form of Islam is an argument Harris considers to be especially untenable in the light of the worldwide violence which erupted in 2006, as a consequence of the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Harris has called upon Muslim communities to practise open criticism of their faith, and to offer assistance to Western governments in locating the religious extremists among them. He has even argued that Muslims must be prepared to accept ethnic profiling as a tool in the fight against terrorism, so long as adherence to Islam remains a statistical predictor of terrorist behavior.

Moderation

Though he readily accepts that replacing religious extremism everywhere by religious moderation would be a huge step forward, Harris has nevertheless reserved some of his strongest fire for religious moderates themselves.

The first problem, as he sees it, is that religious moderation gives cover to religious fundamentalism. Under the banner of moderation, respect and tolerance are sacred, from which stance it becomes difficult to mount a credible assault upon extremism. Moderate religion therefore provides the context in which religious fundamentalism of any stripe can never be adequately opposed.

Secondly, Harris argues that it is absurd to imagine that we can continue to respect everyone's conflicting religious beliefs equally. The claim to know the absolute truth is inherent in almost every belief system at some level. Moreover, any religion that claims that all other belief systems are false and heretical cannot foster genuine acceptance or tolerance of religious diversity. Thus religious moderation stands on weak intellectual ground.

And thirdly, moderation is simply bad theology because the extremists are, in a sense, right: God really does want to put homosexuals to death or destroy infidels, if one reads the texts literally. Harris further notes that religious moderates (and indeed some secularists) appear to be blinded to the fact that fundamentalists really believe in what they say they believe. Instead, a moderate tends to argue that a suicide attack can more readily be attributed to a range of social, political, and economic factors.

Morality and ethics

Harris considers that the time is long overdue to reclaim morality and ethics for rational secular humanism, where he feels they have always properly belonged. He believes that the supposed link between faith and morality is a myth, not borne out by current statistical evidence. He notes, for instance, that the highly secular Scandinavian countries are among the most generous in terms of helping the developing world, as well as enjoying higher standards of living themselves according to a variety of indices.

But Harris goes further and posits that, far from being the source of our moral intuition, religion is a travesty of good ethical behavior, something he attributes to the tendency of religion to decouple the concept of morality from issues of actual human suffering. He cites as two examples: the impact upon the global AIDS epidemic due to the Catholic prohibition of condom use, and the attempts made by the religious lobby in America to impede funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

More controversially, Harris has made an ethical argument in favor of the use of judicial torture under certain conditions. His reasoning is that we should reluctantly accept the use of torture in much the same way that we accept collateral damage in a war situation. Indeed Harris argues that the latter situation, inevitably involving the killing of innocent civilians, should be much more troubling to us than the torture of a terrorist suspect, say.

Spirituality

Finally, Harris also wishes to recapture spirituality for the domain of human reason. He draws his inspiration from the practices (but not the metaphysical beliefs) of Eastern religion, in particular that of meditation. By paying close attention to the empirical phenomena of one's moment-to-moment conscious experience, as described principally by Hindu and Buddhist practitioners, Harris suggests that it is possible to make our sense of "self" vanish and thereby reach a hitherto unknown state of personal well-being. Moreover, Harris argues that such states of mind can and should be made subject to formal scientific investigation, without incorporating the myth and superstition which he feels so often accompanies meditational practice in the religious context.

Criticism and debate

See also The End of Faith article for further criticism

Harris has been criticized by some of his fellow contributors at The Huffington Post. In particular, RJ Eskow has accused him of fostering an intolerance towards faith, potentially as damaging as the religious fanaticism which he opposes. Margaret Wertheim also weighed in. On the other hand, Harris has received backing from Nina Burleigh and Richard Dawkins. In May 2006, Harris came under sustained attack in a featured article by Meera Nanda for New Humanist, in which she claimed that his analysis of religious extremism was flawed, and that his spirituality was a recipe for authoritarianism.

Scott Atran has criticized Harris for using what he considers to be an unscientific approach towards highlighting the role of belief in the psychology of suicide bombers. In the 2006 conference Beyond Belief, Atran confronted Harris for portraying a "caricature of Islam." He later followed up his comments in an online discussion for Edge.org in which he criticized Harris and others for using methods of combating religious dogmatism and faith which he believes are "scientifically baseless, psychologically uninformed, politically naïve, and counterproductive for goals we share."

In 2006 when Harris went on the Colbert Report Harris admitted that God could exist. [1]

In January 2007, Harris received further criticism from John Gorenfeld writing for AlterNet. Gorenfeld took Harris to task for defending some of the findings of paranormal investigations into areas such as reincarnation and xenoglossy. He also strongly criticized Harris for his defense of the use of judicial torture. Gorenfeld's critique was subsequently reflected by Robert Todd Carroll writing in the Skeptic's Dictionary. In response, Harris clarified his stance on these issues on his own website. Shortly afterwards, Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with Andrew Sullivan on the internet forum Beliefnet. Then in April 2007, Harris debated with the evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine.

Media appearances

Harris has made numerous TV and radio appearances, including those on The O'Reilly Factor, Tucker, Book TV, and The Colbert Report. In 2005, Harris appeared in the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There, directed by Brian Flemming. He speaks at various points in the movie, and then in a separate thirteen minute interview with the director. Harris was a featured speaker at the 2006 conference Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival. He made two presentations and participated in the ensuing panel discussions. Harris has also appeared a number of times on the Point of Inquiry radio podcast.

Books

• The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004, 2005) ISBN 0-393-03515-8
• Letter to a Christian Nation (2006) ISBN 0-307-26577-3

See also

Anthropology of religion Criticism of religion Philosophy of religion

Psychology of religion Sociology of religion Metaphysical naturalism

Mysticism Neurotheology Philosophical realism

External links

• Official website
• The God Who Wasn't There
• On Faith articles
• Huffington Post articles
• Truthdig articles and interview
• Point of Inquiry audio interviews
• Free Inquiry articles:
  • Rational Mysticism
  • Selling Out Science
  • The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos
  • Reply to a Christian
  • Beyond the Believers