I'm reading Sam Harris'
The End Of Faith because a friend recommended it to me as a moving book. I'm only 23 pages into the book, and I have dwindling hopes for any real argumentation to follow that may substantiate any aspects of the so-far endless string of assertions. Here's an easily isolateable assertion that makes me fear the book will have no real argument:
The only reason anyone is "moderate" in matters of faith these days is that he has assimilated some of the fruits of the last two thousand years of human thought (democratic politics, scientific advancement on every front, concern for human rights, an end to cultural and geographic isolation, etc.). The doors leading out of scriptural literalism do not open from the inside. The moderation we see among nonfundamentalists is not some sign that faith itself has evolved; it is, rather, the product of the many hammer blows of modernity that have exposed certain tenets of faith to doubt. (Harris, Sam. The End Of Faith. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York, NY. 2004. p. 18-19.) [emphasis original]
This statement would be embarrassing to its author, were he familiar with the last 2500 (or so) years of human thought about Judeo-Christian scripture. Augustine was interpreting Christian scripture non-literally in the fourth and fifth centuries (a 10-second google search finds reference to this in
Augustine through the ages: an encyclopedia. (
Fitzgerald, Allan and Cavadini, John C. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1999. p. 367.)) But even before Augustine, scripture is seen to take itself non-literally (in at least some sense -- though what it means to take something "literally" is not always very obvious). For examples, we need look no further than the
Skeptic's Annotated Bible:
- "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." God says that if Adam eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then the day that he does so, he will die. But later Adam eats the forbidden fruit (3:6) and yet lives for another 930 years (5:5). 2:17
- God promises to make Isaac's descendants as numerous as "the stars of heaven", which, of course, never happened. The Jews have always been, and will always be, a small minority. 26:4
If Genesis 5:5 doesn't take Genesis 3:6 literally (in at least a certain sense), then Harris' assertion is almost as groundless as it could possibly be. Judeo-Christian scripture has never been taken entirely literally, so it can hardly be the case that modernism has at last come to our rescue and knocked some sense into all those otherwise exclusively literalist believers.
I will cheerfully add an assertion here that Harris and the Skeptic's Annotated Bible are both making the mistake of criticizing without any apparent regard whatsoever to how Hebrews and Christians (at least) have historically viewed scripture. It is not difficult to conclude that an opponent's view is ludicrous if you apply all of your own presuppositions to it while ignoring those of your opponent. In fact, I'm inclined to think that creationists of the 6-24-hour-day camp far too often take such an approach with regard to science.
Instead of ignorantly railing against the beliefs of others, we should all strive to understand one another and carry on respectful discussions. This goal became easier for me when I read Harris' acknowledgments at the end of The End Of Faith. "I began writing this book on September 12, 2001..." (p.323) I can empathize with Harris -- this book is clearly a cathartic work for him, and I can respect that even while I see that his seemingly-extensive research unfortunately did not apparently include anything to bring him understanding of or respect for his opponents.
But, as I mentioned, I'm only on page 23. Maybe he'll surprise me with thoughtfulness somewhere in the remaining 204 pages -- I hope he does.
