The End of Faith

Book: The End of Faith
Author: Sam Harris

Sam Harris is one of my all time favourite authors/speaker/thinkers. I think I’ve seen every debate he’s ever been in and every time I do I’m blown away by his intelligence and his intellectual integrity. I was very impressed after reading his other book “Letter to a Christian nation” and the end of faith has been on my must read list for quite some time. I like Sam’s work so much I was willing to buy this book instead of my usual poor man’s trip down to the library, although this act didn’t come without a price.

The first time I bought this book, I was planning to read it on my long plane journey to America, which unsurprisingly I did very little as I was distracted by the on flight entertainment system (mainly Tetris). While I was in my hotel room, I happened to leave the book on the bench in what I thought was a very safe (yet oddly placed) plastic container. As it turns out this was a recycling bin and the maid, bless her little heart, thought it right to throw away this perfectly new looking book.

It took me a while, but I finally built up the courage and self esteem to bring myself to spend another twenty or so dollars for another copy of the book. This time I took the book with me to a wedding in Greece. Again very little of the book did I actually read on the plane (dam you Tetris!) and as I was about to step foot off the plane I suddenly realised I had left the book tucked away in my seat pocket. So I barged my way through the oncoming traffic of people and was lucky to retrieve the book that I’ve had to buy twice now. It would seem that the powers that be did not want me reading this book, BUT besides the obvious signs from God, I read it anyway. I’m thankful to say I haven’t been scorched in a freak lighting storm... yet!

The title of the book comes across quite aggressive, “the end of faith”, and If me being quite a liberal open minded guy when it comes to faith and spirituality found it so, I can only imagine how those who hold some sort of religious faith might feel about it. I imagine this title would turn them away immediately, which is a shame because this book makes a lot of good points aimed directly at people who hold strong religious convictions. If the only people reading this book are atheists, agnostics and men and woman of the secular persuasion, then I think a lot of what Sam has to say in this book goes to waste.

The first two chapters of the book were so far in my short journey of intellectual pursuits, the best two chapters I have ever read about understanding the concept of belief, what beliefs are and why we believe certain things. This is probably aided by the fact Sam has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. The way in which Sam explores belief, religious belief especially, and lays it out on the table seems both wonderfully insightful and painfully obvious:

“It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potentia. The belief that it will rain puts an umbrella in the hand of every man or woman who owns one. It should be easy enough to see that belief in the full efficacy of prayer, for instance, becomes an emphatically public concern the moment it is actually put into practice: the moment a surgeon lays aside his worldly instruments and attempts to suture his patients with prayer, or a pilot tries to land a passenger jet with nothing but repetitions of the word “Hallelujah” applied to the controls, we are swiftly delivered from the provinces of private faith to those of a criminal court.

As a man believes, so he will act. Believe that you are the member of a chosen people, awash in the salacious exports of an evil culture that is turning your children away from God, believe that you will be rewarded with an eternity of unimaginable delights by dealing death to the infidels - and flying a plane into a building is scarcely more than a matter of being asked to do it. It follows, then, that certain beliefs are intrinsically dangerous. We all know that human beings are capable of incredible brutality, but we would do well to ask, what sort of ideology will make us most capable of it?...”

Sam argues in the book that the we need new rules of conversation when talking to those who are convinced by things through unjustified beliefs, or “faith”. He uses Islamic fundamentalism to back up his arguments. The rise in Islamic fundamentalism is one that has affected the entire world. For those of us in the west, no longer is it something we can just pass off as something happening far away and not worry about it, but over the past couple of years as we’ve seen on our televisions and our newspapers is something that is beginning to trespass ever more dangerously in our lives. Sam attacks not only fundamentalist’s beliefs in his book, but religious moderates as well:

“Of course, people of faith fall on a continuum: some draw solace and inspiration from a specific spiritual tradition, and yet remain fully committed to tolerance and diversity, while others would burn the earth to cinders if it would put an end to heresy. There are, in other words, religious moderates and religious extremists, and their various passions and projects should not be confused. One of the central themes of this book, however, is that religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others. I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.”

I understand exactly where he is coming from and agree with him to an extent, but when I think about the idea of crushing religious moderates, I think of all my dearest and closest friends who hold to a religious belief, the kind of people that wouldn’t hurt a fly. I think of all the honest and sincere people of the world that are inspired to do good through their personal faith and religious beliefs. I am currently at a deep conflict within myself when it comes to “fighting” religion. Yes we can all agree that fundamentalism is a genuine threat and problem to our society and to the freedom of the standard of life we love so much. We should oppose this kind of black and white thinking with everything we’ve got. But do religious moderates really fuel this fundamentalism? Don’t they oppose fundamentalism just as much as those who oppose religion entirely. Should something that inspires someone to become a better person and build greater feelings of love and tolerance towards fellow human beings really be thrown in the garbage heap with radical fundamentalism? Isn’t that common ground that believers and non believers such as myself can come too?

The final chapter of the book and the epilogue were by far my favourite. Sam unlike a lot of outspoken atheist or agnostics is not afraid to explore spirituality and take ever so careful steps into trying to understand the mystical and spiritual experiences that so many have. In his last chapter of the book Sam explores meditation and the value of spiritual experience, although he tries so very hard not to use the word spiritual, instead opting for a much more liberal term “mysticism”. I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to everyone, instead of explaining my conclusion of the book I will simply share the last paragraph of Sam’s epilogue with you, I think it sums up the book wonderfully and if any one wishes to know more they need only to read the book.

"...Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call - spiritual. No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbours, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.”