Over six years ago I reviewed the book by Sam Harris titled The End of Faith.
More relevant today than ever, it is a searing indictment of all religions and how they counteract progress, science and the good and peace in our modern societies. The Muslim religion is lately singled out as one of the strongest culprits. It’s the one religion that somehow gets teenagers to put on suicide belts and blow themselves up in public places. It’s the one religion that does pseudo-medieval reality shows showing YouTube videos of choreographed beheadings. It’s the one that’s associated with atrocities today.
That was not always true. Christianity had its share of killing, genocide, persecution and corruption on a gargantuan scale over the centuries. Fortunately Christians stopped committing atrocities on a large scale around the 1600s or so (for the most part).
Muslims never stopped, and they continue to commit them now, with the help of social media, automatic weapons, and shipments of oil. So, yes, the “good Muslims” are not happy with this, and I understand them. Yet, without a doubt, the fundamental tenets of Islam foment the insanity we are witnessing today.
I invite you to read The End of Faith to educate yourself about all the adverse effects of religion in general and Islam in particular.
Let me quote Sam Harris.
Human evil is a natural phenomenon, and some level of predatory violence is innate in us.
Let me add that Mr Harris is a determinist and he does not believe in free will or the concept of self.
That Human evil is a natural phenomenon is almost a religious statement.
A more balanced veiw is that of Steven Pinker in ‘ The Better Angels of Our Nature’ In this huge volume he claims from history that we are living in the most peaceful period ever known in history.
If that is true the past religious turmoil has led to peace. Mr Pinker is careful to point out the new peace is not due to our peacable natures but the fact that in a modern society peace pays.
I’m not a defender of religion just skeptical that its absence will leave us a world of sweetness and light.
Certainly its presence has not led to sweetness and light but then nor has the unprecedented growth of scientific knowledge.
Thanks for the insightful comment and the Pinker recommendation. It’s now on my reading list. I do think that the total absence of religion would be much better for society, but it’s such an alien concept, it’s really hard to imagine. I do not remember Harris as a determinist. Do you have passages or writing I could review?
Let me say I admire Sam Harris for his outspoken veiw and his fellow atheist Richard Dawkins.
I think the quote was from ‘The Moral Landscape’ He wrote this book to show that you do not needm to be religious to have morals and he suggested well-being as a yardstick to judge moral acts.
I’m far too haphazard in my reading to keep any , except mental, records.
Lately I have spent sometime looking at human evolution especially with reference to the conscience of man.
I’m just an interested layman probing the experts who often disagree.
By nature I’m agnostic but I do not think evolution would have been possible without religion.