Reading Sam Harris’s End of Faith

by Jonathan Laux

First, let me say right away that this is not a “Buddhist” book, though its themes will be of interest to many Buddhists. Second, this is a controversial book, and although the author’s arguments are compelling, reasonable people may well disagree with his conclusions. This is the book’s challenge, and perhaps its value.

Sam Harris has written an astonishingly caustic book, entitled End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, published in 2004. From the title alone, one would guess that Harris has no love for religion, but this book is not an attack on theism per se (philosophers have been having this argument for millennia). Rather, it is an attack on the ethics that result from religious belief: what people will do (or refrain from doing) in the name of God. He discusses numerous examples, ranging from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, from suicide bombing to Americans’ discomfort around homosexuality, prostitution and marijuana use.

The elephant-in-the-room issue that Harris presents is this: unlike race and gender (for example), a person’s religion is a choice, so we should be able to evaluate that choice – its rationale, its consequences. Yet religion is one area where we’re likely to give a free pass to all but the wildest ideas. As Harris says, “On this subject, liberals and conservatives have reached a rare consensus: religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse. Criticizing a person’s ideas about God and the afterlife is thought to be impolitic in a way that criticizing his ideas about physics or history is not.” (p. 13)

Harris claims it is imperative that we change this. Specifically, he argues that in a world with weapons capable of mass destruction, certain beliefs about the world are now too dangerous to tolerate. Within this category of “intolerable beliefs”, Harris includes the doctrines that are central to Judaism, Islam, Christianity and essentially any other religious doctrine that claims divine authority. For evidence, Harris points to numerous passages in the Bible and the Qur’an that implore devotees to punish or kill nonbelievers, and he points to the cultural climate in countries where the tenets of dogma have been faithfully observed, such as Afghanistan under the Taliban.

But wait, we say, my next-door neighbors are Christian and they’re kind, loving people. How can you say they believe I deserve death? It’s true that in the West, especially in America, we’re surrounded by religious moderates who look and act very much alike, regardless of faith. But this is where Harris drops the other shoe: tolerance is a virtue that comes not from the sacred world, but from the secular one. He observes, “it is only because the church has been politically hobbled in the West that anyone can afford to think this way. In places where scholars can still be stoned to death for doubting the veracity of the Koran, [the] notion of a ‘loving concordat’ between faith and reason would be perfectly delusional.” (16)

The problem with religious moderates, Harris argues, is that they don’t read their own sacred books very well. In the interest of living in the modern world, moderates may argue for a loose interpretation of unpleasant or difficult passages – if they’re aware of them at all. Most Christians I know would be unaware of the passage from Deuteronomy cited by Harris, in which God instructs that people who worship foreign gods must be stoned to death. For these and similar reasons, moderates are ill-equipped to “tame” their extremist brethren, because in matters of doctrine the extremists usually outperform them. This has consequences in America, but even more so in the parts of the world where religious extremism is far more prevalent.

The Christian Right certainly takes a beating in End of Faith, and Harris is duly critical of the “my god can beat up your god” rhetoric that has reappeared in American politics since 9/11. But he is more subtle and persuasive in his critique of American liberalism. When we speak of tolerance, we often lapse into pleasant but hollow platitudes: how we all share the same human experience regardless of faith, how God = Allah = Tao = Brahman = ... = Mu, etc. On a deep, fundamental level this must of course be true, yet we can easily allow ourselves to believe that all people superficially think like we think, want what we want, and act how we would act.

Harris’s book is a shot in the arm for this kind of cheap generalization. As with practice on the mat, the mind would love to squirm its way into a cozy little image of the world. But Harris keeps dragging us back to confront the evidence. Terrorism is borne out of poverty? No, actually terrorists tend to be middle-class and educated. The major religions do not condone violence? Actually, they do – and here’s where. He is particularly critical of the “leftist unreason” personified by Noam Chomsky and others who believe American foreign policy initiatives are the moral equivalent of terrorism and neglect such considerations as intent that would differentiate the two.

The final chapter of End of Faith discusses consciousness and the realm of spiritual experiences. Although he considers doctrine to be dangerous, Harris readily acknowledges the good things that people attribute to religion: healthy communities, morality, the erosion of self. He believes, though, that these things can be had without the baggage of unreason. As his discussion unfolds, one finds oneself thinking, “Hey, this sounds a lot like Buddhism!” And indeed, that’s where he goes. Buddhism receives little if any criticism throughout the book, and at the end it is meditation that serves as Harris’s blue print for a “rational” exploration of ultimate truth. Harris has drawn fire from other atheist writers for this section; it’s to his credit that he recognizes that while the authors of the world’s sacred texts didn’t know what happens after death, scientists do not know either.

A number of criticisms could be made of End of Faith; I’ll provide three. The first and perhaps greatest difficulty with EoF is Harris’s writing style, which is as scathing as it is logical and articulate. In the first chapter alone, he describes religious doctrine as a “scrap heap of mythology” and “mountains of life-destroying gibberish”, among other things. Although he writes eloquently and even compassionately toward the book’s conclusion, he may quickly lose his credibility with many readers.

Secondly, many of the conclusions Harris draws run counter to our liberal instincts. This does not necessarily make him wrong, and it does make him an important voice of dissent, but it will certainly give us pause. Among other things, Harris criticizes pacifism (“flagrantly immoral”) and argues in favor of judicial torture to extract information from potential terrorists. As always, his arguments here are eminently rational, yet I’m left feeling uncomfortable. If we cannot in good faith claim any kind of moral high ground, it would seem that we compromise the very things we supposedly stand for. Interestingly, Harris admits that he’s uncomfortable with his conclusion, too. But his rebuttal would be this: “Here we come upon a terrible facet of ethically asymmetric warfare: when your enemy has no scruples, your own scruples become another weapon in his hand.” (p. 202)

Finally, one might object to the academic timbre of End of Faith. In putting together this book, Harris has clearly drawn on a variety of quality sources, but nearly all of them are books. It appears that nowhere in the course of writing did he sit down with a Muslim or Christian cleric for a frank discussion. Lacking this, his assessment has the feel of someone looking in from outside. At one point, Harris argues that there can be no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim, because the teachings of Islam make it impossible. As someone who has known numerous moderate Muslims, I find this surprising. In general, Harris pays close attention to what a religion’s books say, but little attention to how the religion is actually practiced. In fact, the “end of faith” is itself a very tidy, book-worthy solution to the problems Harris discusses, but is it practical? Is it even desirable?

These and similar questions have haunted me since finishing the book. Still, the nature of these objections provides more reason to read the book twice than not to read it at all. End of Faith is a challenging, wide-ranging and insightful examination of an issue that is as relevant today as it has ever been. If you can stomach Sam Harris’s taste for virulence, this is a very worthwhile book.