Kristina Coop-a-Loop's Reviews > The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

2017 Review:
I read Sam Harris’s The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason probably 10 years ago and remember disagreeing with his views on Islam. I decided to read it again because my views have changed over the years and I wanted to reacquaint myself with this book.

I’m not going to summarize all the points Harris makes regarding religion. Overall, his view is that religion is a negative, it’s not helpful to anyone, and in order for society to progress we need to abandon its archaic and outdated dogmas. Although I am not a militant atheist, I agree with that. Even “moderate” religious views still negatively affect how we define and deliver health care, administer our legal system, mete out punishments, educate our children and how we conduct foreign policy. Moderate religious views do nothing to stop religious extremism because, from the point of view of the extremist, “the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist” (20). Harris continues to say that religious moderates “don’t like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human-interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God. Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance--and it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put in on a par with fundamentalism” (21).

What struck me when reading the book this time was the realization that I, as an atheist, do not need to justify my non-belief in the supernatural. It’s often been demanded of me by believers that I justify my atheism. But it should be the other way around. My atheism is a rational, reasonable, logical response to the world and the knowledge we have accumulated about it. Belief in a supernatural omniscient, omnipotent, merciful god, with no proof other than a 1,000+ year old translations of scriptures (which cannot be traced back to their original sources) written by a variety of authors, seems weird. Why worship a Christian god? Why not pick from one of the Egyptian gods? Or Greek gods? If you’re going for old and unsubstantiated, there are thousands to pick from. It makes more sense to me to worship the sun. At least it’s there. It’s reliable. Its heat and light give us life.

What I disagreed with from my previous reading was Harris’s view that Islam is the cause of 9/11 and all other acts of terrorism perpetrated by Muslims. My knowledge of America’s destructive Middle East policies was greater than my knowledge of Islam and my view was that terrorism was perpetrated for both political and religious reasons. Many years later, after extensive research, I no longer disagree with Harris. Islam offers very little recourse for believers to fully embrace the idea of peaceful relationships with unbelievers. There is no separation of politics and religion—the two are intertwined. However, I reject the idea that Muslims, as a whole, are a violent people. There are moderate Muslims and I think it’s very important that they are supported as much as possible, particularly when they point out the shortcomings of their own religion. But Harris’s point from above about moderates still holds—moderation comes from disregarding/discarding the more extremist/inconvenient scriptures and allowing secular knowledge to inform your views of the world. Moderation is a secular choice and the Koran does not allow for much in the way of individual choices regarding scriptural interpretation.

In his chapter, “A Science of Good and Evil,” Harris raises an interesting point: why are the deaths of innocent civilians in war acceptable, but torturing an enemy soldier unacceptable? Both are immoral and unethical, yet we consider civilian deaths to be part of the costs of war, “collateral damage,” but the torture of one (probable) bad guy for necessary information to be worse: “If we are willing to act in a way that guarantees the misery and death of some considerable number of innocent children, why spare the rod with suspected terrorists?” (194) Neither are acceptable, but Harris does make a convincing (if unappealing) logical argument for torture. He suggests that we accept this disparity because, emotionally, “killing people at a distance is easier” (196). Let me be clear that Harris is not an enthusiastic supporter of torture; he is merely trying to explain that our ethical arguments against torture are an illusion: if we are unwilling to torture, we should also be unwilling to wage war.

I disagree with Harris’s stance on pacifism, which he calls “flagrantly immoral.” He lumps all conflicts into one large category and says that violence, or the threat of violence, is an ethical necessity when responding to enemies. He then spends two pages relating a story about how he managed to extract a woman from a possibly violent situation without any harm coming to himself, the woman, or the aggressors. While I thought he acted intelligently, he says what he did was an act of moral failure because he lied to avoid a physical confrontation and did not confront the men regarding their poor ethical choices. Since he did not confront them, they did not learn that their behavior was immoral. I rolled my eyes when I read this. If these guys thought that perhaps kidnapping this woman/threatening her with violence was perfectly okay, did Harris really think they would stand about and intently listen as he lectured them about their ethical choices? And (better yet) agree with him? All he would have accomplished was getting himself beat up and the woman possibly raped. In his view, he was acting as a pacifist and that means acting immorally because no one learned a lesson in ethics. I find this ridiculous. Harris does not differentiate between pacifism and civil disobedience, but does mention Gandhi and that Gandhi’s pacifism worked for his situation, but wouldn’t have been a successful tactic against Nazis. Well, no one says it is. However, there’s a difference between saying “I’m a pacifist and I refuse to take another human life so I’ll just sit this one out” and “I’m a pacifist and I refuse to take a human life but I’ll help our cause by becoming a medic or an ambulance driver or a mechanic.” Harris believes that violence must be met with more violence. It’s possible he means specifically just in case of war, but his own example indicates he does not. This commentary on pacifism was rather brief and not well reasoned. There are many kinds of conflicts and ways of responding to those conflicts. Violence is not always the smartest answer.

His least successful chapter is the last one: “Experiments in Consciousness.” It was a lot of discussion of consciousness, what is consciousness, what makes up our sense of self, and how we can expand our consciousness (he advocates for Eastern spirituality/philosophy). While mostly interesting, I can understand why Harris received a lot of complaints from readers (apparently most of the complainers are closed-minded atheists who freaked out at the idea of being spiritual). The chapter is kind of weird and out of place. I personally didn’t care for it either. Not because I’m against the idea of atheist spirituality (it’s very possible to be both), it’s just I don’t think he did a great job of presenting the material, plus it felt more like an excuse to bring up his thing, which is apparently Eastern mysticism.

The notes to the chapters are extensive and well worth glancing through. He has some very interesting comments hidden away there, along with other good books to read on the topics he discussed. Harris also apparently now has podcasts to go along with this book. I have not listened to them yet, but if I find they complement my reading of the book, I’ll update this review with that information. In this paperback edition, Harris includes an afterword that responds to some of the comments and questions he received after publishing the original hardcover edition. Earlier in the book, Harris discusses extensively the idea of faith and how believers, before resorting to faith, find reasons (even if these reasons are weak) to support their religious beliefs. He summarizes that discussion in a paragraph that perfectly describes my feelings about religious faith, but says it much better than I can. I’m quoting it here in its entirety:

As I do my best to spell out over the course of the book, religious faith is the belief in historical and metaphysical propositions without sufficient evidence. When the evidence for a religious proposition is thin or nonexistent, or there is compelling evidence against it, people invoke faith. Otherwise, they simply cite the reasons for their beliefs (e.g., “the New Testament confirms Old Testament prophecy,” “I saw the face of Jesus in a window,” “We prayed, and our daughter’s cancer went into remission”). Such reasons are generally inadequate, but they are better than no reasons at all. People of faith naturally recognize the primacy of reasons and resort to reasoning whenever they possibly can. Faith is simply the license they give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail. When rational inquiry supports the creed it is championed; when it poses a threat, it is derided; sometimes in the same sentence. Faith is the mortar that fills the cracks in the evidence and the gaps in the logic, and thus it is faith that keeps the whole terrible edifice of religious certainty still looming dangerously over our world (233).

Original Review:
Thought-provoking book. I found his arguments against organized religion very persuasive, even if I'm not sure I completely agree with him. When debating what causes terrorism (politics or religion) he comes down hard on the side of religion. I think it is a mixture of the two. I bought this book so I could re-read it because it is certainly a subject deserving of much debate. I didn't like his last chapter on meditation and etc. I thought that was a little fruity and out of place. If you have any interest at all in religion and its impact on the world, read this book.