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.
“Either you’re religious and support terrorism, or you’re not religious and don’t.”
Out of curiosity, do you think this alarming point of view is becoming more prevalent in society?
On a side note, I haven’t read the book, but I can’t help but wonder if the author has ever actually met a Muslim. 90% of the ones i’ve met in my life were so incredible nice and polite I cannot even fathom how he can make the claim that all muslims are terrorists.
Anywho, interesting review.
Well, that’s a difficult question. There does seem to be something of a bifurcation taking place when it comes to religion, and that bifurcation is troubling. The number and/or percentage of moderately religious people (i.e., people who don’t think they have THE TRUTH but rather have “a truth”) is shrinking while the two extremes are growing: the non-religious and the fundamentalists. However, I don’t think growth of fundamentalists has been increasing all that rapidly in developed countries while non-religion has been. However, in developing countries and predominantly Muslim countries, it does seem as though there has been a more substantial increase in fundamentalism, which is the contingent among the religious that tends to support violence. In other words, yes, there does seem to be some increase in religious fundamentalism, which tends toward violence, particularly in less-developed countries. But I don’t think fundamentalism is growing as rapidly as is non-religion. And, FYI, the non-religious are really, really unlikely to engage in violent actions, particularly suicide bombing. So, from an anti-terrorism standpoint, more non-religious people is probably a good thing. But to assume that most people can simply go from fundamentalism to non-religion is simply to assume too much. Not sure if that’s an answer to your question, but it’s the best I can do as a sociologist of religion.
Some of the estimates I’ve seen for fundamentalist Muslims put the number at around 10%. I’m sure that varies widely by country and even by region in countries. Certainly there are fundamentalist Muslims, and if it’s 10% of the close to 1 billion, that’s a lot of fundamentalists. But there are actually that many fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. (33% of 300 million). So, to paint fundamentalist Islam as the problem when there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians who basically have parallel agendas is to miss the point: fundamentalism is the problem, not the religion.
So to delve deeper into that, do you think the non-religion group is increasingly of the opinion that ALL religious people support terrorism or violence?
The reason I bring it up is recently i’ve become rather alarmed at the vitriolic attitude many people are expressing about any and all organized religions. Reading many blogs and postings on news reports has left me quite amazed. It seems many people are no longer simply a-religious, they are becoming increasingly angry and intolerant of religion (which is kind of an ironic twist on history :) ).
That’s not to say I don’t understand the reasoning behind being cautious of fundamentalists. I don’t want to be blown up by a suicide bomber as much as the next guy, but I fail to understand where all the anger is coming from. So someone wants to believe in a magical guy in the sky because it makes them happy. And that makes people angry because…? Apart from the divisive issue of gay marriage, I just don’t see why people care.
Like Douglas Adams said in the beginning of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “…nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”
Do you think perhaps it’s because people are beginning to associate ALL religion with violent fundamentalism?
Again, i’m just kind of spitballing in the dark here. What I’m getting at is i’ve just been wondering why everyone is so angry all the time (both the religious and the a-religious, the democrats and the republicans, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann). I’m concerned about the issues, but I don’t find myself hating anyone because they voted differently than me.
Anywho, thanks again for humoring me, and any thoughts you have on the subject would be appreciated.
No reason to be apologetic. These are questions that sociologists of religion examine, so you should be asking me! ;)
A number of things come to mind. First, there is pretty good scientific evidence that people who hold extreme views are the most vocal. Part of the reason for that is they need to be vocal to find others who hold their views to bolster their extreme positions (extremists need lots of support to maintain their extremism). As a result, the anger you hear and see is not actually reflective of the majority of Americans who are really quite moderate in their views.
Second, there is also research looking at intolerance towards various groups by religion. The nonreligious are, hands down, the most tolerant of other groups of people, including: racial/ethnic minorities, women, people from other countries, communists, atheists, homosexuals, etc. This holds for basically every minority or oppressed group. The one group of people that the nonreligious do not like is… Wait for it… Yep, religious fundamentalists!
The reason why is actually quite obvious when you think about it: Religious fundamentalists basically don’t think the nonreligious should have a right to exist. And, well, religious fundamentalists are the least tolerant of all the groups mentioned above: they are the most bigoted, prejudiced, and racist group around. So, in what can only be called a great irony, the tolerant nonreligious are intolerant of the intolerant religious.
Keep in mind that, when I say “religious fundamentalist,” I use that in a rather technical way. I wouldn’t group just anyone into that category, though it does include about 1/3 of Americans. The classic criteria for religious fundamentalism are: (1) scriptural literalists, meaning they fail to put their scripture into context and they interpret it literally; (2) black and white thinking, meaning they only see the world as having two sides – us vs. them, there is no middle ground.
So, you can think about those criteria relative to yourself and relative to the vitriol you hear. FYI, the latest data we have on Mormons suggests that a rather large percentage (60% to 80%) are, in fact, fundamentalists (they are both scriptural literalists and black and white thinkers), though there is a sizable minority (maybe 20% to 40%) who are not.
When you do see the vitriol in the media, keep the above in mind: (1) these are extreme views; and (2) many of these are fundamentalists.
Lastly, you say you hear a lot of people attacking religion. Keep in mind that the most hated “religious” group in the U.S. today is atheists. I’ve actually conducted a fair amount of research on this very topic and it turns out atheists are also very likely to have experienced discrimination as a result of being atheists (probably 2 to 3 times as likely as the average American). Can you blame atheists for criticizing religion as a result of the prejudice and discrimination they experience? This is like blacks criticizing whites for the discrimination they suffer – it is justifiable criticism to some degree.
That said, I don’t think the answer is what Sam Harris did – trash all religion. Religion comes in many forms, some of which are much more tolerant than others. I’m among the first to criticize religious fundamentalism – that is some scary stuff! But I’m also the first to defend people like Quakers who are pacifists because of their religious views. Some have taken to calling people like Sam Harris “fundamentalist atheists.” While there is certainly no scriptural literalism among atheists, the black and white thinking that does occasionally occur – which I pointed out in my review – is in fact reflective of fundamentalism. I’m certainly not a fan of that. Is it increasing? Well, Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens all have wide readership, which may be doing that. But there is little data on that. That would be a good question to ask in future research…
Well, I figured if anyone had some ideas on the subject, it would be you, and I was right :) Excellent stuff there, and it gives me alot to think about.
Just one clarification on your definition of fundamentalists: does that classification additionally denote people that are willing to initiate violence in the name of religion (or I guess in the name of fundamentalist non-religion)? Or are fundamentalists ONLY defined by the 2 criteria you listed above?
Again, thanks for humoring me. There was alot of great information there.
Well, the two criteria I gave are usually the criteria used by sociologists and other social scientists to characterize fundamentalists. Willingness to initiate violence in the name of religion is not typically a criteria employed. If that were the case, I’m guessing a lot fewer people would meet the criteria employed (a lot of people talk the talk, but few are actually willing to walk the walk).
FYI, the term “fundamentalist” has its roots in Christian reform movements in the early 1900s. The root of the word, “fundamentals,” comes from the aim of these movements to “return to the fundamentals of Christianity.” There was no real interest in violence among these early groups; they were reformers advocating for a specific interpretation of religion. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#Christian_origins
The term has, of course, evolved over the years. Scriptural literalism has remained a constant for Christian (and Muslim) fundamentalists, but the black and white thinking is more of a characteristic that emerges from the scriptural literalism – it is basically required in order for a group (or individual) to justify their specific interpretation of scripture.
Again, probably more than you wanted, but the short answer is: No, willingness to engage in violence is not a requirement to be labeled a fundamentalist.
Excellent. Thanks for the clarification. Once i’ve mulled this over I might revisit this topic in the near future with more questions as i’m finding it quite interesting. Thanks for the good info.