I’m halfway through the book, right now. It’s a relatively quick read, though it’s annoying to always have to go to the appendix to check notes, when they could be at the bottom of the relevant page instead.
This well-known book is, of course, a criticism of religion - not just organized religion, but of faith itself. The book is very un-PC; I’m sure that even some atheists and agnostics will dislike Harris’ tone and some of his opinions.
One of the author’s main points is something I’ve written about, here, several times. It goes like this: in any religion (let’s say Christiany and Islam, they’re the most troublesome ones), there are both moderates and fundamentalists (or “extremists”). Whenever there’s some act of violence by the fundamentalists, everyone - even those not belonging to that faith - says that the extremists aren’t really representative of their religion, that they deviate from the religion and from its basic tenets, and so on. They say that the extremists are “distorting” their faith, that either they’re simply insane, or they’re using religion as an excuse for their violence.
Harris says - and I fully agree, as you know - that such a view has no support from the holy books. It’s not that the extremists are “distorting” their religion; much the opposite. They’re the only ones who really believe in it, in all of it. They’re the only ones who are “true believers”, who go all the way. The “moderates”, for convenience - or simply because they don’t want to die, or be arrested -, ignore most of their religion, and most of their holy books. And they, probably, feel a little ashamed of doing so.
Any Christian who is not stoning unbelievers to death is disobeying the Bible. Any Muslim who doesn’t become a martyr, sacrificing himself to take some “enemies of the faith” with him, is disobeying the Koran. Are fundamentalists - including terrorists - “fringe lunatics”? Or devout believers?
Another of Harris’ points is this: not all tolerance is good or desirable. Quoting from Wikipedia, here’s a great summary of this point:
Harris freely admits 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 require in our everyday discourse that people’s convictions really scale with the available evidence. He feels that the time has come to demand intellectual honesty right across the board, and ignore the prevailing taboos and political correctness which, in his view, appear to prevent us from openly criticising religion.
Harris observes that these are the rules which seem to apply to 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.
The book goes on in more detail about what are the main problems with the 2 most common faiths, Christianity and Islam. The chapter on Islam is especially strong in its criticism: according to Harris, Islam is at the same level of cultural and ethical development as 14th century Christianity, when the Inquisition ran rampant, people burned “witches” and “heretics” everywhere, and women were seen as inferior, sinful beings. In other words, most Christians have learned to ignore most of the Bible these days (which is a good thing), but Muslims still don’t do it; they haven’t grown as a culture since the middle ages, and believe absolutely and completely in an ancient book whose author couldn’t conceive of a greater reward in the entire universe than “seventy-two virgins”.
I don’t agree with all of the book; Harris seems to have a view on “spirituality” that is a bit too “new age” for my tastes, and he seems not to believe in reason as an absolute. I’ve read that there is a final chapter about “spirituality”, which many readers, who agreed with the rest of the book, disliked, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Still, I think that it’s a great read, and it would be great if, someday, criticizing religion or beliefs stopped being “taboo”.
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Nice post. I wholly agree that it is the most extreme of the faithful who best represent the faith, for the very reason you mentioned: they actualy take it seriously.
If one were to truly believe all of christianity, he/she would have to be advocating slavery, women as chattle, underage sex, and a great many other actions and institutions which most of us gladly shun. I can hear the chorus of “but that is not really christianity” already..
An interesting argument. I often look at my mother, who has become a somewhat fanatical Roman Catholic in some ways, and think she is very devout. She has gone as far as telling me that she feels I’m going to hell because I chose to become Buddhist.
At the same time, I have argued with her about her own hypocrisy. She sees no problem with birth control, she accepts but does not agree with the ban on female priests, and has readily admitted that she would follow her conscience over the pope in other instances as well if it came to that.
So, looking at this situation, I guess I would revise my estimation of her “fanaticism.” She is fanatical about those things she strongly believes (and does not wish to question and/or expose to the light of reason) and willing to compromise when her Catholic “beliefs” conflict with something she believes otherwise in. Guess she is a moderate by the definition given above.
Go figure.
The fact that you said:
[quote post="154"]they’re using religion as an excuse for their violence.[/quote]
Brings me to say (Because it is one of my own arguements, of course probably not an original one, I’m not sure, but one that I myself thought might be) refute this. Meaning, not that it’s something personal, but something I veiw as true… so correct me if I’m wrong.
First, let’s define the word Christian. Is it not someone who believes in, and therefore practices Jesus’ (Christ’s… hence the word CHRISTian, meaning OF CHRIST) teachings?
(No TX
Huh… I see that didn’t work.
I was going to say to TX, that NO… those ways of life aren’t Truely Christian.
A quote from what Jesus said, (Not exactly of course… translations and all) “Let he who hath not sinned cast the first stone.”
Meaning, in simpler terms: Don’t hurt people unless you yourself have done no wrong.
If following the words of Jebus is what a Christian does, then NOT stoning nonbelievers would be ABIDING by thier religion, and those who do some horrible act of violence are in fact going against it.
If abiding by the religion of Christianity means NOT killing, then no, the ones who really believe ALL of it aren’t doing so.
Even so, it’s probably a good book, I just find it funny that it’s okay to only agree with most, and/or a portion of THAT book, but not okay to feel the same way about the bible.
Kren,
THAT book, as you referred to it, does not proclaim itself to be either the literal or inspired Word of God. It is written by a human being who is attempting to use rational arguments in order to understand and comment on a particular situation.
However, if you are a Christian then you, at the very least, are expected to accept the bible as inspired by God. Raised as a Roman Catholic, this was drummed into me as I grew up. However, we were expected to take literally Jesus’ teachings, but not everything in the old testament. In fact, I was essentially told that Jesus came along to “change the rules” so to speak.
Which, in essence, made the old testament more of a history book and lead in to the actual teachings, the New Testament. And this is where I would get confused, because it seemed that since the entire bible, new and old, was inspired by God I wondered why he needed to change his mind about what he wanted of his people. And how did we know for certain which things in the old testament still applied, since now it was one big metaphor?
You would think that an omnipotent god would be a little more clear in his message.
And I’m not even getting into the people who believe the whole thing as a literal speaking of God’s word. In that case it seems like God has a split personality… and I am not talking about the Trinity here. He comes across as a warmonger, sadist, benevolent being, or indfferent depending on what parts you read.
You wanted to define the word Christian, but in reality I think that there are as many different definitions of that word as there are Christian sects. Belief in Jesus and his teachings may be the start of each definition, but they go beyond that.
Jim:
A split personality indeed.
And yeah, you’re right about different definitions of “Christian”.
All of your points are sound there, I must say that the saddest point is the fact that someone tried to force thier beliefs upon you.
Kren,
One of the dictates of the xn bible is to treat your SLAVES less harshly. Nothing about not owning slaves, only that you should not overly abuse them.
Examples of women as chattle abound as well as examples of underage sex.. So as has been pointed out if one is going to follow the primary tennets of the religion, one must endorse and actively seek to enslave others, own women, and have sex with children.. To name but a few of the evils inherent to the religion.
Denying that we should pay attention to these parts of the xn bible is simply intellectually dishonest.
Jim,
Jesus did not “change the rules” as you mentioned. Many people feel this way even though Jesus himself refuted this idea : 17“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to fulfill them. 18I assure you, until heaven and earth disappear, even the smallest detail of God’s law will remain until its purpose is achieved” - Mat 5:17-18
This word “fulfill” has been taken out of context by many Christians. What He did offer was a proper interpretation of “the law” and in doing so, a proper way of fulfilling it; or rather “living it out”. “The law” itself did not demand the killing of unbelievers, but the interpretation by man did. The summary of the message of Jesus was that Love, and love alone fulfills the law. When we understand this, we see that God did not “change his mind”.
TXStorm,
It should be said that in the old testament there is the law of God (10 commandments), and the law of moses( the daily rules for the Israelites). However, the law of moses was an interpretation of the law of God as to the extent that the Israelites could understand them. Jesus talked about this when He was asked about divorce:
7“Then why did Moses say a man could merely write an official letter of divorce and send her away?” ◙ they asked.
8Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce as a concession to your hard-hearted wickedness, but it was not what God had originally intended” - Mat 19:7-8
God never said it was OK to have slaves. It was, however, accepted by most cultures up until modern times. So Moses interjected the idea of treating them as people instead of “property”. God never said it was OK to have “sex with children” as you so eloquently put it. It was, however, accepted in many cultures up until modern times to marry “women” who had begun menstruation. This idea of being with 13-yr olds is unimaginable now, but was common in most cultures. When “ripe old age” comes at 50 or so if you were lucky, marrying at 13 isn’t as absurd. God never said it was OK to “own” women. Once again, this is cultural and not part of ” God’s law”.
It is not necessary to ignore parts of the Bible to believe. However, we should read it in context so we can understand it.
Joshua,
You do realize that you are doing exactly what was predicted right?
“oh well those are not the *REAL* xn values… ”
Like it or not reading the commandments and other drivel in the xnbible in context leads to the necessary conclusion that in fact it is pro-slavery, pro-incest, pro-child molestation, pro-women as chattle, the list of lovely little peculiarities inherent to xnty goes on and on…
I appreciate that you of course find those behaviors distasteful and thus want to separate the religion from them, but since these constitute the religion are explicityly condoned by the religion, and are included repeatedly in the very works of the religion, such a separation simply is not sincerely and honestly possible. There is only bathwater here, no matter how hard you want to find a baby..
BTW are you sure that you want to introduce the notion that the xn bible is the work of men rather than the word of “god?”
Out of curiosity, since you put yourself up as one who knows what god *really* said, upon what do you base your belief that the xn bible is in error and your claims are correct? (BTW JFTR I happen to know that both are false, but still it is an interesting question or at least could be an interesting answer)
[quote comment="3473"]Out of curiosity, since you put yourself up as one who knows what god *really* said, upon what do you base your belief that the xn bible is in error and your claims are correct?[/quote]
Ooo, don’t get me started.
Haha you guys are great.
TXStorm,
You obviously have not read the Bible in its entirety. Even as to whether you actually read my post or not I cannot be sure since you disregarded pretty much everything I said without reason or reference. Since you are the one suggesting the the Bible is pro-pedophile, pro-slavery, etc. . . please site references. Im beginning to think that you have simply read a series of “atheism for dummies” books since you continuously show disdain for the Bible without scriptural reference
Remember, not every word in the Bible is God’s. “It” never claims to be. It is both a record of God’s instruction and a record of “His people”. The Israelites continuously disobeyed God and where in and out of exile for most of their existence. A good part of the old testament is a record of this. Maybe this is what the authors were trying to convey when they wrote lines like:
“1This is the history of the descendants of Adam.” Genesis 5:1 and
“9This is the history of Noah and his family. ” -Genesis 6:9
Lines like these can be found often in the old testament
Joshua,
A little honesty and reason would very much be appreciated. I did not disregard your post, I REFUTED it. There is a vast difference. As for references, look to the ten commandments for issues of condoning slavery (and no your apologist tactic simply does not work, nor have you cited ANY basis at all for it or for the contradictions between your claims and the xn bible)
Ah.. so you really do want to go down the “not the word of god” path.. so how do you reconcile THIS claim which also puts your own person and your prviate “knowledge” above that of all others, with the xn bible being “THE” word of “god?”
I have mentioned it several times now, but it deserves mention again. That you rely upon logical fallacies and false assertions is sufficient to defeat the arguments and claims that you make, but that you actively engage in personal attacks, ad hominems, and presumptions of your own omniscience should be large red warning flags as to the strength of the arguments which you are endorsing.
So the question was and remains, on what basis do you claim to have superior private “knowledge” of what “god” *REALLY* said?