The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
Reference:
Harris, Sam. 2005. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. W. W. Norton.
Rating:
8/10
Review:
I probably should have read this long ago considering my research interests, but I’m finally just getting around to reading it. Given the title of the book, you’d think the focus would be more along the lines of secularization and how faith/religion is declining (at least in the developed world). But the book is actually more of a diatribe against religion that is more in-line with Christopher Hitchens’s book’s title God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
The primary focus of the book is Islamic Fundamentalism and its connection to terrorism. In fact, the book begins with an account of a suicide bomber in Israel destroying a bus filled with Jewish civilians. However, the book ranges widely, from the Catholic Inquisition to the Holocaust to Buddhist spirituality. With the exception of the last topic, all of the topics covered are covered with the aim of illustrating how religion is irrational, dangerous, and generally threatening to stable social life and the future of humanity.
Knowing what I do about Sam Harris and at the risk of coming across as an elitist I can’t help but describe The End of Faith as an extremely well-written undergraduate Senior’s Thesis. As someone who does original research on religion, it seemed to me that this book does not cover any new ground; the book makes no original arguments (except maybe the Buddhist spirituality stuff I’ll come back to shortly). I’d love to have undergraduate students of Mr. Harris’s caliber, but it does seem as though the book is basically a collection of very good undergraduate papers written for various classes: philosophy, history, religious studies, and cognitive psychology. I don’t know that this is really a criticism of the book as it’s likely only a small percentage of people would criticize the book this way; there are only a few thousand people who research religion at more advanced levels. Thus, for most Americans (i.e., the 90% or so who do not have advanced degrees and the other 9.99% of those who do who don’t research religion) this book likely does push their knowledge of religion/irreligion forward. Thus, despite the fact that this book would not get Mr. Harris tenure in a philosophy or religious studies department, it is a great book for spreading awareness of these issues to a broader audience.
Another criticism I have with the book is the double-standard used for criticizing religions. Mr. Harris recognizes that there are moderate and even liberal Christians (though he condemns both of them as enablers of fundamentalism, which probably isn’t fair). But when it comes to Islam, he basically asserts that all Muslims are literalists, that all support suicide bombings and terrorism, and that none of them are even remotely ecumenical. Later in the book he provides evidence that counters his own erroneous assertion when he discusses survey results examining attitudes toward suicide bombings in predominantly Muslim countries. In most of the countries the number is below 50%. The implication: there are moderate Muslims and there are even ecumenical Muslims. Building on this, most of the experts on terrorism today agree that the best way to reduce the spread of terrorism is not to get rid of religion altogether (though that may work eventually), but rather to push religious extremists to become more moderate and tolerant (e.g., see the work of Mark Juergensmeyer). That approach seems far more realistic than simply getting rid of religion altogether. By not seeing this as a viable and more realistic alternative, Mr. Harris is painting a false dichotomy: Either you’re religious and support terrorism, or you’re not religious and don’t. This is, of course, a ridiculous over-simplification of how to deal with the problem of terrorism.
The last major problem I have with the book is one Mr. Harris notes has been a common criticism by his primary fan base, atheists: he frames Buddhist meditation as a form of empirical self-realization. While there is some evidence that meditation helps with health and stress, I fail to see how self-realization can be empirically analyzed. Additionally, it does seem as though he applies a double-standard to Buddhism, letting the rather violent past of Buddhism (e.g., Tibet, Thailand, etc.) slip by with virtually no discussion. His response to this criticism in the edition I read doesn’t really address what I believe are poignant criticisms of his Buddhist favoritism.
Overall, I think the book is compellingly written, but it doesn’t break new ground and suffers from some serious problems. However, Mr. Harris must be credited with bringing many of these arguments into the mainstream. Despite the problems, I would recommend this book for those looking for a better understanding of why some people are leaving religion.