Letter To A Christian Nation (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
New Atheist spokesman Harris published an earlier book attacking religion, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, in 2004. Written in response to "hostile" mail, mostly from Christians, reacting to the first one, this second book is designed as a concise (91 pages of text) distillation of his argument, both to irrefutably "demolish" any possible case for theism in general and Christian theism in particular, and primarily "to arm secularists... who believe that religion should be kept out of public policy, against their opponents on the Christian Right." Harris uses the term "Christian" loosely, apparently including various types of nominal "Christians" and Christian-influenced Americans; but he directs his attack here on those who hold to the traditional form of the faith, though defined somewhat inaccurately and treated as monolithic, without nuance. As a Christian, I obviously didn't come to the book without a prior opinion. But I did honestly seek to give it a fair hearing, considering his case on its merits, and seriously interacting and engaging with it. (That's been an intellectually stimulating and enriching process, despite the fact that the book itself is disorganized and poorly argued, IMO; I did quite a bit of study as a result, and learned some significant things.) I've attempted to organize my review topically, rather than following the rambling order in which subjects are treated in the book. First, I'll consider his arguments against theistic/Christian belief; second, his critique of Christian positions on social issues; and third, the significance of New Atheist attitudes for our common life in a pluralistic culture.Truthfully, given the hype surrounding the book, I expected a much more cogent case against Christian faith than Harris makes. There are actually no arguments here that I hadn't heard before, and they're for the most part shopworn chestnuts that have been bandied about (and already answered) by village atheists for generations, delivered with an in-your-face stridency and belligerence. (Calling it a rant is an objective description, not a deliberately pejorative epithet.) Due to time and space constraints, I won't touch on every point he makes, but I'll try to cover the most important ones.1. Theism, Harris says, has no evidential basis as all; it's believed in on faith (which he regards as by definition blind belief without evidence), and so is obviously irrational. But "rational" scientists believe in the existence of various real things that are, like God, not themselves directly observable; they're believed in on the indirect evidence of their effect on things that are empirically observable. That's the basis for Christian theistic faith, which turns out to have a lot of indirect empirical evidence, all of which Harris ignores here. (The most exhaustive summary of this that I know of is Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict; Frank Morison's more narrowly-focused Who Moved the Stone?: A Skeptic Looks at the Death and Resurrection of Christ is also instructive.) In weighing this kind of evidence, there is obviously a subjective element; most of us assess the cumulative force of the case to justify a decision one way or the other, and base our faith (in theism or atheism) on that, recognizing that it stops short of absolute demonstration. This isn't the same thing as blind belief without evidence.2. Harris argues that a benevolent God could not possibly allow human suffering (represented here by natural disasters, viruses, and crimes against innocent children); the existence of the latter cannot possibly be explained if one posits the former. However, Christians explain it by the fact that God created humans endowed, like Himself, with a free will; we're not robots or clones, but conscious beings who make real choices and enter into voluntary relationships. But that autonomy carries with it the possibility of making wrong and even horrendous choices as well as good ones, and those choices have meaningful effects. This affects even the natural realm. God created the Garden of Eden as a paradise in which He would have directly controlled nature for humanity's benefit; but because of the Fall He has backed off to allow natural law to operate, for the most part, without His direct intervention. This allows humans an environment in which their spiritual choices are not coerced, and that provides the maximum scope for purgative character formation. IMO, that explanation makes sense. Harris may subjectively disagree; but it is not an explanation that's illogical or fallacious on its face.3. Unlike some atheists, Harris admits that objective morality exists, and can be recognized by humans apart from special revelation. On that basis, he argues that atheists are more moral than Christians, based on lower crime rates in "blue" states than in "red" ones, and on the supposedly Utopian state of society in Western Europe and other Western nations that have lower rates of religious belief than the U.S. He admits that the red/blue state dichotomy isn't a "perfect indicator of religiosity." This is true, given that blue states are often blue due to the presence of large numbers of blacks (who are more Christian proportionately than the white community) and Catholic Hispanics, as well as of ethnic white Catholics who traditionally vote Democratic. It also seems to be true that the high crime rates of red states are driven by the rates in their blue counties, and that lower crime rates in blue states owe more to low rates in their red counties than in their blue ones. In general, Harris ignores every other factor, like income and education, that affect crime rates as much as religion. Those factors are particularly applicable in other Western nations with cradle-to-grave welfare states (which may not be economically sustainable). However, despite the myth of the "happy atheists" in those nations, the two countries with the largest per capita use of antidepressants are Iceland and Denmark, and four Western European countries have significantly higher suicide rates than the U.S. (see www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27... and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List-of-countri... .) [Note: that Wikipedia link does not work; see message 4 below for one that does.] And it happens that several recent university studies that actually DID measure the effect of religious affiliation on crime (unlike Harris' red/blue state comparison) all demonstrate that communities with a higher rate of religious affiliation have less violent crime (www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/n... .)It should be noted that Christians don't claim that every individual Christian is more moral than every individual non-Christian. All humans are fallen, and marred by psychological shortcomings; all humans also have consciences, and most to some degree receive the subconscious ministration of the Holy Spirit to move them in a better direction. Genuine Christians benefit from a moral reorientation and a more conscious attempt to cooperate with the Spirit, so that they're in a process of becoming morally better than they individually would have been without conversion. But the results don't break down into a "Christians=perfection, nonbelievers=monstrous vileness" dichotomy, and the Bible doesn't suggest that it does. So Harris' suggestion that the moral shortcomings of Christians across the 2,000 year history of the faith disprove the truth claims of Christianity has no more validity than a claim that the moral shortcomings of some atheists, such as serial-killer/cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who defend moral nihilism on the basis of what they consider a legitimate interpretation of atheism, in themselves disprove atheism.4. According to Harris, the Bible teaches an objectively horrible code of ethics, his main example here being that it supports slavery. This charge and a good many others are rebutted in Paul Copan's book, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (which I've reviewed elsewhere).5. Christian morality, in Harris' view, is inferior to the morality of Jainism, summed up in the command, "Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being." In other words, Jainism draws no distinction between the lives of humans and of lower animals. Atheists who eat meat, use glue and leather, euthanize their terminally ill and suffering pets, and omit to strain their drinking water through layers of thick muslin (to avoid swallowing and digesting an innocent microorganism) may see Jain ethics as more problematical than Harris does. (And might also have a problem with the ideal of suicide by self-starvation, which Mahavira is said to have attained, as the pinnacle of moral performance.) Jain pacifism may have influenced Gandhi's development of non-violent civil disobedience, which M. L. King in turn borrowed from Gandhi (and from Thoreau, who was a Deist and whom Harris does not mention). But he got his pacifism from his interpretation of the Bible; what he got from Gandhi and Thoreau was a technique for affecting social change, given a stance of pacifism. Most Christians, however, agree with Harris that the Bible doesn't teach absolute pacifism; we just don't view that as a defect in a fallen world. When you confront someone raping and torturing a child, tearfully remonstrating with him accords with Jain ethics, but a hard punch to the jaw works better. Biblical ethics allows for the latter.6. To Harris, the idea that God will someday bring the current world order to an end and finally judge the wicked is so self-evidently vile that it discredits Christianity, and Jesus' acceptance of that idea can "justify the Inquisition." No, it can't, because Jesus' explicit teaching forbids His followers to try to assume God's prerogative of judgment; that will be His function in His own time (Matt. 13:24-30). Nor is the judgment directed, as Harris suggests, at everyone who isn't a Christian; classical Christian thought has always understood the Bible to teach that Christ's sacrifice atones for all those who follow the light of general revelation to the best of their understanding. (Even Christians who have a more exclusive view of salvation don't see their mandate as to slaughter unbelievers to send them to "hell," but rather to peacefully invite them to embrace a place in God's community.) Final judgment is reserved for those who make a deliberate choice to embrace egoistic selfishness and persist in it --and as long as they live, there's hope that they won't persist in it, so Christians can't presume to finally judge anyone. God's role as Judge is consistent with His role in the moral governance of the universe He created; and His plan to bring that universe to a final state of social justice and happiness is a constructive teleology that differs from the Utopia advocated by people like Harris mainly in that God actually has the capacity to really achieve it.7. As Harris sees it, "Science" categorically disproves the existence of God. (Since the National Academy of Sciences officially denies this, his response is to slur their collective integrity.) It does this by supposedly proving, through the dogma of Darwinian evolution, that life came into being without a Creator. This contention is rebutted in, among other books, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis by Michael Denton, The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis by Hugh Ross, and Science Speaks by Peter W. Stoner (none of whom are "young earth" creationists).This doesn't exhaust Harris' arguments, but it covers the most important ones; the others are more obviously flawed on their face. As for the pernicious positions of Christianity on social issues, Harris identifies four that he considers "obscene" and "genocidal."1. Christians oppose abortion. While Harris calls it "an ugly reality," without saying why he thinks it's ugly, he maintains that there is a "need" for it as long as there are unplanned pregnancies. Presumably, this is because raising an unplanned child might threaten a woman's career and financial well-being. Things like adoption, paternal financial responsibility, educational and employment options, affordable day care, community support for single mothers, etc. aren't seen here as solutions. (Slavery apologists, of course, saw a "need" for slavery if the white community was to be able to live the good life.) Christians base opposition to this on the fact that unborn human babies are, as Harris says about slaves, "human beings like [ourselves], enjoying the same capacity for suffering and happiness." Being at an earlier developmental state doesn't change that, and the comparison with skin cells brushed off your body (which "could" be grown into a clone using high technology, but won't naturally develop into a living being at all) is spurious. So is the argument that humans often naturally miscarry, and God doesn't prevent it. God allows people to die of a good many natural causes, but that doesn't establish that it's morally neutral to actively kill those who don't naturally die. Nor does it become innocuous to kill someone if they don't feel pain (although developing babies do at a fairly early stage); the injury to a murder victim isn't just in the pain of the act, but in depriving him/her of life.The point also needs to be made that the example of El Salvador's 30-year criminal sentences for women who abort does NOT, just because El Salvador's population is largely Catholic, demonstrate that punishing women in this situation is "the Christian position." It's entirely consistent with Christianity (and common sense) to regard abortion as an offense committed against the woman, not by her, even if it's supposedly voluntary; this recognizes the reality of women's social situation, in which economic, psychological or physical coercion almost always drives the felt need to abort. This reflects the common law tradition, and is the position of the (largely Christian) National Right to Life Committee. See humanevents.com/2007/08/03/if-abortio... .2. Christians, says Harris, oppose "stem cell research." Actually, that isn't the case; Christians only oppose obtaining stem cells by killing human embryos for them. There are a number of other ways to obtain them; research with these has already produced significant medical benefits, while embryonic stem cells research has produced none. See www.all.org/nav/index/heading/OQ/cat/... . (www.stemcellresearch.org is another site with a lot of useful information on this whole subject.) Interestingly, the Jain position, which Harris earlier held up as the epitome of what religious ethics ought to be, happens to agree with the Christian one on both these points.The other two issues relate to Harris' view (not shared by all atheists) that any sexual behavior done by consenting adults is morally neutral, and that Christian disagreement with this is because of "prudery" that "contributes daily to the surplus of human misery." Christian sexual ethics are based on a positive view of sex as designed to be an expression of committed love in marriage, and I would contend that they can be recognized as valid by humans generally, based on natural moral intuitions of the kind that Harris admits to be valid.3. Christians encourage teens to abstain from premarital sex. Harris waffles on whether or not this is actually pernicious (at one point, he appears to concede that it isn't), but he misrepresents "abstinence only" education as doing nothing except preaching abstinence and withholding all other information. In fact, abstinence education is as or more "comprehensive" as any other sex education program, including providing information about birth control and AIDS preventives (and including their limitations) but it emphasizes abstinence as the only completely responsible choice (www.abstinenceassociation.org/faqs/ ). He also uses selected statistics to assert that abstinence education doesn't work, but a comprehensive review of the over 20 studies done to date demonstrates that they do (www.heritage.org/research/reports/201... ).4. He accuses Christians of deliberately trying to prevent the development of HPV vaccine, and of discouraging condom distribution, so that HPV and AIDs can be preserved as a boogey to prevent sexual activity. For the record, Reginald Finger, the evangelical member of the CDC's Advisory Commision on Immunization Practices that he falsely accuses of this (based on a secondary source that was incorrect) voted to recommend developing the vaccine, and fully supports it (www.regfinger.com/5.html ; see also Letter to an Atheist by Michael Patrick Leahy). And the Roman Catholic opposition to condom distribution is based on opposition to birth control (which is not a general Christian position), not on resistance to AIDS prevention.Harris does not simply think religious belief is mistaken; he thinks it's dangerous and needs to be eradicated. His earlier book declares that "some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." This is in a context of discussing Islamists, and he trades heavily on Islamophobic extremism (www.salon.com/2014/09/06/richard_dawk... ). But he makes it clear here that he considers traditional Christians just as potentially dangerous as he believes Moslems are. This kind of general tarring of ALL religious people as dangerous, intolerant maniacs is, frankly, disturbing. And it's doubly disturbing because he demonstrates himself here to be as intolerant and as hateful towards those who disagree with him as any of the medieval Inquisitors he condemns. ANY worldview, religious or atheistic, that demonizes its opponents and can't coexist in civil comity with them poses a threat to the peace of the majority of people, of various faiths or no faith, who have no problem sharing the world in peace together. (Comparing the faiths of the latter to religious terrorism isn't simply comparing apples and oranges; it's comparing apples and ergot.) It tends to poison the well of our civic discourse, and to foster a polarization and fear that nobody needs.Note: Links to a couple of other online reviews of this book, and citations for some print reviews, by other Christian readers, can be found here: www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2182547-... .
I'll admit that my only interest in reading this would be to amuse myself or to understand the position taken by Sam Harris. It may sound obnoxious to say but I find the delivery style of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins overwhelmingly stuffy, pretentious and interestingly dogmatic in their own way. Of course that's not any reason to ignore a book (save that I disagree with the overall contention regardless and that as far as I'm aware these New Atheists make some of the most blatantly obvious and repetitive assertions). The one thing I will note here is a comment on the blurb at the top, to allow me personally to remember this idea if nothing else. “Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.”Galatians 1: 6-106 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.The point being made is that when Christians judge so vehemently they are not applying to the true gospel but another gospel. They are applying to the gospel of the knowledge of good and evil - of law. The gospel where you have to work hard to end up as a good person and not an evil person. In reality the truth is that we all end up being on the wrong side of the ledger according to the gospel of grace and according to this gospel you don't have to work for salvation, you are accepted regardless of what you do not because of what you do. And I think that is something too many Christians haven't learnt yet...
What do You think about Letter To A Christian Nation (2006)?
I did not by any means feel the need to give this little book one star simply because it was written by an atheist; I deeply respect many atheist thinkers, and am very open-minded and appreciative toward the good that has been produced by many atheist philosophers and thinkers. But I just could not bring myself to give this any more than one star, because it is difficult to imagine how it could have been worse. Think about what the worst, least thought-out anti-religion and pro-atheist propaganda would look like in a little 100 page book, and you have a pretty accurate idea of what this awful piece of trash is like. What scares me is that it has an average rating of four stars. It is truly sad that so many people in today's society simply do not know how to think. Lacking even the most basic critical thinking skills, they hear any sort of anti-religious rhetoric and they're sold...Anyways, I wouldn't bother reading this if you want something that is at all meaningful or intellectually challenging and thought-provoking. If you already have a copy, I'd recommend using it at your next bonfire.
—Joseph Olivares
Can I just admit something straight off the bat? I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care whether you want to participate in ritualized cannibalism. I don’t care whether you think the soul resides on the top of the head. I don’t care whether you want to rub blue mud in your navel, ingest some psylocybin and commune with Gaia. I don’t care whether you want to build temples to a god who, at best, is enormously small-minded and petty or, at worst, is a genocidal tyrant bent on undoing the mistake of free will. I especially don’t care whether you do or don’t believe in any bi-polar sky god. I’m just done with it. It’s a discussion I’ve had more times than I can count and one where I’ve already heard every justification for and against. I just don’t care. While I am undoubtedly an atheist, there’s something very off-putting about this new wave of skeptics that makes me want to distance myself from them. Something about the missionary zeal with which this new group of atheists approaches religious discussions smacks too much of “we will save the heathens from themselves or they’ll die trying.” Tellingly, it is normally those who have recently lost their faith that are the most vocal challengers of deists, there is no fervor as powerful as that of the recently converted, be it to Christianity, Alcoholics Anonymous, or atheism. Yet what is the point of replacing one doctrine of ideas with another if it does nothing to change the tone with which we discuss things? People are still going to be assholes, regardless of which creed they are espousing today.Either all the accumulated evidence (and lack thereof) is correct and there is no god, or there’s a pantheon of every belief system floating somewhere in the ether. Either way it makes no actual impact on my day to day living, other than through interactions I have with a creed’s adherents. God is not going to do anything to either lessen my burdens or smite me with righteous fury. All we can do is live our lives in the manner that we feel is best for us. Any deity worth its salt should be able to recognize that, and any deity that does not recognize it is not deserving of anyone’s worship. That is not to say that I do not have severe issues with the ways in which people use “it’s just what I believe” as a justification for completely irrational and harmful behavior, and there is no faster way to earn my enmity than to try to write your morality into law. Do what you will, but keep it to yourself- live by example but without self righteousness. In his short polemic Harris lists point by point his, rather convincing, arguments against deism and the various reasons why coddling people’s faith and placing it beyond debate is both harmful and intellectually dishonest, in far more clear terms than I can ever manage. This is definitely a contentious book, but one that will make you think, regardless of which side of this argument you may sit. My main complaint with the idea of people moving beyond religion is I don’t think that Harris is taking into account humankind’s need for illusions. We all tell stories to ourselves to better understand the world and our place within it. For a majority of the world, this story involves a divinely imparted code of rules to adhere to or else. If we stripped away the belief systems of all of these people then what is left? Living without illusions is hard work, having to bear the responsibility for your choice on your own is a constant struggle. Some days I don’t think I would wish that on my worst enemy. Too much existentialism for a Thursday morning? Probably. It still doesn’t change the fact that I can conceive of no swifter way for the world to descend into chaos than to rip away the support structure of people’s existence. Slow and steady will win this race, the best we can expect is a holding action to keep God out of our statehouses and legislature.
—Chloe
WOW! It’s a tour de force- a perfect apologia. Sam Harris is so brilliant that he has an acute analysis of the issue. So , atheists, particularly agnostics, should read it to become more enlightened and completely free from fear of going to “hell” and religious intolerance. The first book that gave me an idea about apologetics was WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY by Dinesh D’Souza ( 5 stars ). In fact, the book introduced me to the said Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennet. Thereafter, I wanted to read their works on account of my agnostic itch of curiosity then. So, I have read Dawkins’ GOD DELUSION ( 5 stars ) twice, Hitchens’ s GOD IS NOT GREAT ( 3 stars ). Now it’s my first Sam Harris apologia. Harris intended to write this book in response to the hate letters sent by religious and political people out of his criticisms against major religions of the world in his book THE END OF FAITH. I enjoyed reading it because of his straight-to-the-point arguments- concise but clear and logically convincing. Upon reading it, I had four intellectual epiphanies :There is no such morality.There are many truths.The bible appears to be inconsistent.Therefore, for an atheist, and in general, God does not exist.On the other hand, the underlying cause on which I cast shed why deeply religious people tend to deny the fact that God does not exist is “IGNORANCE”. We are living in a civilization of ignorance as Harris put it. Or I would opine that we are all still ignorant although we are all civilized. We have been the archetypes of wrong education since time immemorial. So life has been complicated. See, pardon me if you may be feeling like blowing your top now, out of your devotion as if you want to engage in a heated debate with me. It is some kinda foolishness, isn’t it? But still I dare to uphold Sam Harris’s and other prominent atheists’ arguments. ^^
—Joey
