08/18/2004

Secularism With the Gloves Off

Attacks on Christianity are nothing new, but a book now hitting the nation's bookstores argues that faith in God is not only out of date, but dangerous. As a matter of fact, Sam Harris argues that belief in God is the root cause of world terrorism and virtually every other problem faced by humanity.

In The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Harris presents a frontal assault on the edifice of faith, charging the God-believers with murderous intentions, intolerance, and intellectual repression--and that’s just for starters.

"Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity--a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible," Harris asserts. "When foisted upon each generation anew, it renders us incapable of realizing just how much of our world has been unnecessarily ceded to a dark and barbarous past."

Harris levels his attack at theism in any form, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. While he appears to find some potential benefit to society in the meditative traditions of Eastern religions, theistic faiths bear the blame for monstrous evil and human suffering.

Harris represents the hard left of militant secularism. He minces no words and writes with a "take no prisoners" aggressiveness. Take this passage for example: "Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education. That so many of us are still dying on account of ancient myths is as bewildering as it is horrible, and our own attachment to these myths, whether moderate or extreme, has kept us silent in the face of developments that could ultimately destroy us."

While most Americans--even those on the cultural left--would suggest some positive contributions attributable to faith in God, Harris discards all claims of theistic value. This author is not out to resist religious extremism. As Harris sees it, all faith is extremism. Faith in God--whatever its form--is the problem, he insists, and religious liberty is a threat to the Republic itself.

Pursuing his argument to its logical conclusion, Harris admits that he hopes "to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance--born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God--is one of the principle forces driving us toward the abyss." So much for the myth of liberal tolerance.

Harris, a philosophy graduate of Stanford University now completing a doctorate in neuroscience, clearly hopes to change the terms of our current debate. He does not want militant Muslims to moderate, he wants them to become atheists. He does not call upon Christians to forfeit belief that Jesus is the only way of salvation; he calls upon Christians to abandon the faith altogether. The poisonous influence of theism and the dangerous intoxication of belief in God must be eliminated. But how? In an op-ed column published in the August 15, 2004 edition of The Los Angeles Times, Harris calls for an all-out attack upon faith, seeking to mobilize militant secularists to action. He blames Christians--particularly Christians in elected office--with obstructionism, hatred, and intellectual backwardness. Such believers are responsible for the nation's focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage" and the like.