The End of Faith19:59 Oct 30 2018
Times Read: 571
The End of Faith was an amazing book in my eyes. It captured the essence of an atheist mind and used ideas to thoroughly explain problems of religion. Although the book in its entirety was interesting, of course there were a few flaws in the logic, but overall Sam Harris did a decent job of explaining his point on many subjects including Islam, the Bible, and the sense of self. Although Sam Harris is an atheist, he doesn’t hold back from addressing mysticism directly and using meditation as an example of exercising your consciousness.
Harris is a very powerful writer, and uses a voice that can be described as blunt and rational. The End of Faith seemed to have been written to try and convince the reader that all religious beliefs are absurd and are hazardous. This is a reaction against modern day terrorists and the religiously driven American government. The subject of faith is explained and Harris establishes what he means by faith. He uses the scriptural sense of faith, referring to the bible saying that faith is “belief in, and life orientation toward, certain historical and metaphysical propositions”.
As for believing in God, Harris gives a few examples of justifications which Christians might offer for believing in God’s existence: Spiritual experiences, how much “sense” the bible makes, and trusting the authority of the Church. I agree with this claim that these justifications make little sense in a realistic world. Religious individuals should be able to give a justification for their beliefs about reality. Harris scrutinizes the Pope, who says if you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, was resurrected, and is the son of God, who created the universe in six days, you will go to heaven after death; if you don’t believe these claims you will go to hell, where you will suffer for eternity. Harris says the Pope has nothing to go on but the bible itself. He doesn’t, however, reject all spiritual experiences and says that spiritual experiences require authentication. If the Pope had a vision of Jesus, we would need authentication that it is in fact Jesus himself. I agree with this idea that authentication is the key to proving, well, anything. If one were to say they’ve talked to God or received a sign from Jesus, it’s only logical to ask for proof. We can’t base evidence on personal experience. The person experiencing the paranormal contact has been raised to believe in such experiences, and won’t question what they believe, because that would defeat the purpose of believing.
Harris goes on to say that no evidence would be sufficient to authenticate many of the Pope’s beliefs. This is a strong statement, given that Harris demands justification for belief. According to him, no amount of evidence could justify these beliefs. Harris doesn’t specify which of the Pope’s beliefs he is talking about, but the existence of God is an obvious one. Harris believes these religious claims to be preposterous and I agree.
I have witnessed extremely religious people and know a few personally, and when I question them on the existence of a god, more than likely a negative response is given, not pertaining to any actual answer, but to the fact that I even asked in the first place. These types of people can be easily compared to Spiral Dynamics. Most are very red when it comes to questioning their religion. If we lived in the middle-ages, red people would be the ones burning witches at the stake for questioning or being a nonbeliever. Trying to convince these types of people to consider reasoning is beyond pointless. I’m not saying I am any better. Some atheists can be red on their part, when trying to reason. Same Harris demonstrates this in The End of Faith. He writes with orange intentions, but the way it’s written can be red at times. Not all religious people are on such a low color spectrum. There are many religious figures in the world that use their faith and beliefs as a source for helping people throughout history
Referring to religious individuals, Harris states that “nothing could change about this world or about the world of their experience that would demonstrate the falsity of many of their core beliefs”.
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