The End of Faith

Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith in what he has described as a period of "collective grief and stupefaction" following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book comprises a wide-ranging criticism of all styles of religious belief. It was first published in August 2004, and the following year was awarded the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. A paperback edition was published in October 2005. In the same month it entered the New York Times Best Seller list at number four, and remained on the list for a total of 22 weeks.

Synopsis

The End of Faith opens with a literary account of a day in the life of a suicide bomber—his last day in fact. In an introductory chapter, Harris calls for an end to respect and tolerance for the competing belief systems of religion, which he describes as being "all equally uncontaminated by evidence." While focusing on the dangers posed by religious groups now armed with the latest technology, Harris is equally critical of religious moderation, which he describes as "the context in which religious violence can never be adequately opposed."

Harris continues by examining the nature of belief itself, challenging the notion that we can in any sense enjoy freedom of belief—for as he points out, "belief is a fount of action in potentia." Instead he posits that in order to be useful, beliefs must both logically cohere, and must be truly representative of the real world. Insofar as religious belief fails to ground itself in empirical evidence, Harris likens religion to a form of mental illness which, he says, "allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy."

Harris follows this with a brief survey of Christianity down the ages, taking in the Inquisition and the historic persecution of witches and Jews. He contends that, far from being an aberration, the torture of heretics was simply a logical expression of Christian doctrine—one which, he says, was clearly justified by men such as Saint Augustine. Going still further, Harris sees the Holocaust as essentially drawing its inspiration from traditional Christian anti-Semitism. "Knowingly or not," he says, "the Nazis were agents of religion."

Possibly the most controversial aspect of The End of Faith is an uncompromising assessment and criticism of Islam, which Harris describes as being a "cult of death." He infers a clear link between Islamic teaching and terrorist atrocities such as 9/11, something which he backs up with five pages of quotations from the Koran. He also presents some Pew Research data, showing that significant percentages of Muslims worldwide would justify suicide bombing as a legitimate tactic. In an attack on what he terms "leftist unreason," Harris criticises Noam Chomsky among others for, in his view, displaying an illogical willingness to lay the entire blame for such attitudes upon U.S. foreign policy.

However, Harris makes an equally strong critique of the role of the Christian right in contemporary America, in influencing such areas as sex and drugs policy, stem-cell research, and AIDS prevention in the developing world. In what he sees as a steady drift towards theocracy, Harris strongly criticises leading figures from both the legislature and the judiciary, for what he perceives as an unashamed failure to separate church and state in their various domains. "Not only do we still eat the offal of the ancient world," he says, "we are positively smug about it."

Next, Harris goes on to outline what he terms a "science of good and evil"—a rational approach to ethics, which he claims must necessarily be predicated upon questions of human happiness and suffering. He talks about the need to sustain "moral communities," a venture in which he feels that the separate religious moral identities of the saved and the damned can play no part. But Harris is critical of the stance of moral relativism, and also of what he calls "the false choice of pacifism." In a controversial passage, he even goes so far as to argue in favour of the use of judicial torture under certain conditions.

Finally, Harris turns to spirituality where he takes his inspiration from the practices of Eastern religion, arguing that as far as Western spirituality is concerned, "we appear to have been standing on the shoulders of dwarfs." He discusses the nature of consciousness, and how our sense of "self" can be made to vanish by employing the techniques of meditation. To support his claims, Harris quotes from Eastern mystics such as Padmasambhava, but he does not admit any supernatural element into his argument—"mysticism is a rational enterprise," he says, "religion is not."

The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith, which is surely the devil's masterpiece.

Criticism

Some of the strongest criticism of The End of Faith has come from an unexpected quarter—the humanist press. In a review for Free Inquiry, the editor Tom Flynn alleged that Harris had allowed his argument to become clouded by his personal politics and his use of spiritual language. Harris later described Flynn's review as "mixed, misleading, and ultimately exasperating." Another review by David Boulton for New Humanist, also stopped short of a ringing endorsement, describing the book as containing "startling oversimplifications, exaggerations and elisions."

Writing for The Independent, Johann Hari was largely encouraging but also expressed considerable reservations about Harris's political leanings, and revealed how he "began to choke" while reading the final chapter on spirituality. Other broadly positive reviews have come from Natalie Angier, Daniel Blue, and Stephanie Merritt. Richard Dawkins has also endorsed the book, but without entering into too much detail.

Critical reviews from Christians have included those by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. for The Christian Post, and Matthew Simpson for Christianity Today. The paperback edition of The End of Faith, published in 2005, contained a new afterword in which Harris responded to some of the more popular criticisms he has received since publication.

External links

• Official website