"The truth shall set you free"? Whose truth? What truth? Your truth? My truth?
With some comments on Sam Harris, preacher of fundamentalist atheism
Atheists claim that it is their truth that will set people free - to the extent, that is, that anyone can properly be said to be “free” in a consistently materialistic system. After all, if all of our thoughts and feelings are merely a matter of biology and chemistry, how can we speak of human freedom in any meaningful way? But, overlooking such a minor technicality as the possibility of our having no free will at all, atheists claim that adopting their world view has many liberating concepts. It will, supposedly:
Rid people of the fear of punishment after death
Solve the problems of a guilty conscience by eliminating fundamental moral laws
Free us from burdensome religious rules and regulations
Enable us to make the most of the one life we have, instead of vainly hoping for something better in the next life
Liberate the mind so we can be more rational, and make better decisions for ourselves and for the good of society
Make the world a safer place by lessening or hopefully eliminating religious violence
Help us to find deeper inner fulfilment and a greater degree of human flourishing as we make our own choices and manage our own lives outside of the narrow boundaries of religious truth
Most will agree that having a proper understanding of our origins as a species and of our place in the cosmos is necessary to real happiness. After all, happiness that is based on illusions is in fact unhappiness and deception. As Paul wrote in his first letter to the church at Corinth:
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain . . .
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
This means that if you have a good job, a nice family, and everything is going well for you, but you have a false hope in a resurrection that will never occur, you are miserable – because real life requires a proper understanding of life. Those who are deceived about the most basic and fundamental questions of life are miserable, even if they think they are happy. This is because their lives are based on a lie, and they will never know life at its best and its highest.
However, there are many different ideas about the real nature and origin of the cosmos, and our relation to it. Hindus and Buddhists may join this conversation with different ideas about the nature of the universe and the right way to live in it. Others may say that there is no point in considering these and other unanswerable questions. They think that instead we should devote ourselves to the pursuit of pleasure, power, wealth, or at least comfort and security. Still others may say we need to find meaning in the fight for social change to make the world a better place.
There are also debates about the real nature of freedom. Radical determinists (biological determinists who say we are controlled by our genes, or environmental determinists who say we are controlled by our environment) claim that we have no real freedom at all. Those who believe that the non-material, spiritual human soul is an independent human agent insist that there is something beyond that – and these differences in outlook lead to vastly divergent concepts of what a good society is and how it can be attained.
How can we maintain social harmony and live in peace with all of these competing worldviews? Here are some principles to keep in mind:
(1) First, we need freedom. People need to be allowed to make their own choices. They also have the right to raise their own children in the manner they think best.
(2) Also, we need to vigorously repudiate and diligently resist the fascist dream of obtaining social harmony by imposing lockstep obedience to one single approved point of view. This is the dream of evil people, who have complete contempt for those who disagree with them, and of arrogant people, who think they are competent to manage our lives for us. It is also the dream of weak people, who are afraid to face the diversities and challenges inherent in a free society, and of cruel and heartless people, who are prepared to impose their views on others by force (for the good of humanity of course).
(3) We need a real understanding of views we feel inclined to argue against. If we want to really oppose some beliefs that we consider to be harmful and wrong, we have to present them and critique them fairly. This means not muddying the waters and inflaming tensions with wild exaggerations and deliberate oversimplifications and misrepresentations.
(4) We need some basic humility. The best of us have imperfect understandings of complex social questions, and we remain weak and fallible human beings even if we have attained to a proper worldview.
Another aspect of this humility is recognition and acceptance of the fact that we cannot fundamentally change reality and bring about paradise on earth. We cannot eliminate illness and old age, and neither can we forge a new humanity free of the stupidity, greed, selfishness, violence, laziness, bigotry, dishonesty and incompetence that have wrecked every single humanly inspired scheme of paradise there ever was.
So, getting back to the first point, we need to give people the freedom to be wrong, so long as they remain within the boundaries of civilized behavior. Thus, Nazis (I mean real Nazis, not “Nazis”) and revolutionary communists (as distinguished from merely academic communists), as well as other advocates of organized social violence who seek to turn society upside down in order to impose their own visions on society as a whole - they should be prevented by the state authorities. This is the proper function of the state, according to Romans 13:4, which says God has given governments the power of the sword to maintain peace among their subjects.
The above points are what I take to be necessary qualities of ordinary and civilized behavior. I fear that Sam Harris - the well-known evangelist for the gospel of atheism – is sadly deficient in these areas. As an example, I refer the reader to his online essay “SEPTEMBER 11, 2011” [1].
It is not that I have anything personal against Mr. Harris. He has not harmed me in any way, and I know little about his writings. I did read his book Letter to a Christian Nation maybe ten years ago or more, and thought at the time it was a bad book. In my opinion, America is not now, and has never been, a biblically Christian nation. Jesus said, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,” and the Declaration of Independence is a Deist document rather than a scripturally Christian one. True, Christianity has had a great influence on American culture, but that has been declining for well over a century and is less in evidence by the day.
Getting back to Mr. Harris, I also watched and took detailed notes on a video conversation between Harris and Jordan Peterson (moderated by Brett Weinstein). Moreover, his name comes up here and there as a champion of the New Atheism which claims to be guiding us on the path to a better world. And are they succeeding? Is the world now a better and a safer place after all of their efforts than it was 50 years ago?
I don’t see criticizing Sam Harris as my main calling in life, but his aforementioned essay came up recently when I was researching a possible Substack letter on 9-11 (Of course God could have prevented that catastrophe, but why should he? Does America deserve anything from God?). Anyway, reading Mr. Harris’ words, I was so appalled at the dishonesty and ignorance manifest even in the first few paragraphs that I thought some sort of response was called for. After all, it says in the Bible somewhere, “Do not let your good be evil spoken of.”
Looking at the essay itself, Harris begins with a question from his daughter about the nature of gravity. He wrote,
Yesterday my daughter asked, “Where does gravity come from?” She is two and a half years old. I could say many things on this subject—most of which she could not possibly understand—but the deep and honest answer is “I don’t know.”
What if I had said, “Gravity comes from God”? That would be merely to stifle her intelligence—and to teach her to stifle it.
To begin with, it is completely false to say that ascribing gravity to God would stifle her intelligence. Surely Mr. Harris must know that all of the founding giants of modern science – Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Robert Boyle and many others – believed in God (even if they were not all orthodox Christians). This belief in a Creator did not cause them to say “God created the world. There is no further need for investigation, so let’s devote our lives to prayer and Bible study and abandon science.” On the contrary, they said, “God created the world. Now let’s see how it works, let’s study and understand what God has done.”[2]
If Mr. Harris does not know about the deep religious influences on the origins of modern science then he is a complete ignoramus when it comes to the history of science – but I believe he does know. I can think of two reasons why he neglected to mention it. One, he may have been so emotionally upset by the subject of religion that he didn’t know what he was saying – but that doesn’t seem likely as the article must have been edited and proofread.
The second alternative is that he deliberately stated what he knew to be untrue because he was writing propaganda. That is, his goal was to persuade people to adopt his point of view, and if some deception was necessary, why not? He is already on record as saying openly that deception is justified to achieve important goals. [3]
Getting back to the answer to his daughter, Harris further says:
What if I told her, “Gravity is God’s way of dragging people to hell, where they burn in fire. And you will burn there forever if you doubt that God exists”? No Christian or Muslim can offer a compelling reason why I shouldn’t say such a thing—or something morally equivalent—and yet this would be nothing less than the emotional and intellectual abuse of a child. In fact, I have heard from thousands of people who were oppressed this way, from the moment they could speak, by the terrifying ignorance and fanaticism of their parents.
Here again it is not true to say that no Christian has any compelling reason not to say such a thing. Christians have in fact two very compelling reasons. I omit the Muslims because I am not well-versed in the final points of Islamic apologetics, and feel no need to defend Islam - or Roman Catholicism, Rabbinic Judaism, or classical Greek philosophical theism for that matter.
The first reason is, that the Bible doesn’t teach it. When it comes to the material world, no one denies that atheists or adherents to many different religions can arrive at physical truths. When it comes to the spiritual world, it is elementary to biblical Protestantism that the Bible alone must be our final guide in spiritual matters (we significantly diverge from Catholicism here). Since the soul is not material but spiritual, and since the final judgments of God are also spiritual and not scientific, the rule of following scripture gives us no warrant to make such a ridiculous answer, one which I have never heard of, and one that to my knowledge has never been uttered by any credible writer in nearly two thousand years of Christian doctrinal writing.
A second compelling reason not to give such an answer is respect for the questioner. An example is found in the writings of Augustine. He wrote in his Confessions:
My answer to those who ask “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” is not “He was preparing Hell for people who pry into mysteries.” This frivolous retort [my emphasis] has been made before now, so we are told, in order to evade the point of the question. But it is one thing to make fun of the questioner and another to find the answer. So I shall refrain from giving this reply. For in matters of which I am ignorant I would rather admit the fact than gain credit by giving the wrong answer and making a laughing-stock of a man who asks a serious question. [4]
So, there are two compelling reasons – adherence to Scripture in spiritual matters, and respect for serious inquirers. Sam Harris says there are no reasons, but he is wrong. He seems to have little understanding of the Christian religion as believed in and practiced by millions of followers.
As to Harris saying he has heard from thousands of people who were oppressed in this way, I doubt his veracity. I do not accept that many Christians who believe in the literal truths of the Bible terrorize little children “from the moment they could speak” with thoughts of hell and damnation. I have never heard of or seen such a thing in my life. Christ, who is to be our example, said “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). It is also said of Christ, “And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it (Mark 4:33).”
Of course, there may be Christian parents who hurt their children in various ways. Unbelievers and atheists are not always model parents either. Here is a testimony by someone about his atheist mother, who by his account was very far from being a model parent: My Life Without God, by William J. Murray [5]. Just off the top of my head I can think of three other books by men who had a terrible upbringing under parents who were not Christians: (a) My Shadow Ran Fast, by Bill Sands; (b) A Child Called “It”, by Dave Pelzer; and (c) Castaway Kid, by R. B. Mitchell, all of which are currently available online.
The last book was written by a man who spent almost all of his childhood from the age of three in an orphanage. His father was confined for life to a hospital after a failed suicide attempt permanently damaged his brain. His mother was a mentally ill alcoholic who was in and out of institutions. She dumped him in an orphanage and disappeared for years. When she turned up later she was hostile and abusive. The boy had many problems, but he found over the years that biblical Christianity and faith in Christ helped him to overcome his background. Unfortunately, Sam Harris - not being a true scientist in his approach to these questions - has no interest in any evidence that contradicts his idée fixe that atheism is good, and religion is bad (idée fixe is a French phrase occasionally used in English meaning “an idea or desire that dominates the mind; an obsession”). There are no beautiful hues of life in his bleak and simplistic mindset.
Getting back to the essay, Harris makes some other comments worthy of notice. Referring to the crashing of the second plane into the World Trade Center, he says:
We knew from that moment that things can go terribly wrong in our world—not because life is unfair, or moral progress impossible, but because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors. The worst of these ideas continue to thrive—and are still imparted, in their purest form, to children.
What?! It was not until September 11, 2001 that Sam Harris knew things can go terribly wrong in our world? I have suspected from other comments of his that he is profoundly ignorant of life, but I did not expect his knowledge of the real world to be so inadequate as to allow him to think that peace and prosperity were the norm, or our sacred birthright as Americans, which we deserve because we are special. Or maybe he was just getting carried away by his own eloquence.
Such catastrophes, and far worse, are a common theme through all of recorded human history – and this is not because we have “failed to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors.” It is rather because, as the Bible teaches, there is sin and evil in the human heart. The Apostle Paul, writing in the 1st century AD, shows a far more sophisticated comprehension of the sad reality of human nature than does Sam Harris, with all of his spiritually useless knowledge of biology and chemistry. Paul writes in Romans chapter 1 of people who are:
filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers . . . Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful . . . [my emphasis]
And does Mr. Harris now think he is going to abolish these delusions for the first time after 5,000 years of violence in recorded human history? For thousands of years people have been hating and killing each other, but now Sam Harris has the answer – teach our children not to believe in religion? He is living in a fantasy world.
Skipping over some other arguments to save time, I note Mr. Harris says:
Whatever else may be wrong with our world, it remains a fact that some [my emphasis] of the most terrifying instances of human conflict and stupidity would be unthinkable without religion.
Some of them? That means not all - so what about the other instances of conflict and stupidity that were not caused by religion? There are many such instances, but Harris decided not to mention them. Once again, he does not seem to have much historical awareness.
Did America go to war in Vietnam because of religion? How many millions died there during France’s and America’s non-Christian and unbiblical attempts to prevent a Communist takeover? Did Napoleon invade so many countries because of religion? In both the American Civil War and in World War I, the countries on opposing sides held generally the same religions, so religion was not the main cause of those wars.
Did the Vikings, the Mongols and the Huns go to war because of religion, or because of a love of risk, of danger, of fighting, conquest and plunder? Are the steadily rising crime rates in American cities caused by people who believe they will stand before God on a day of judgment and give an account for their lives? Were the scientists who invented nuclear weapons and all of the other technologically advanced paraphernalia of modern warfare – flamethrowers, rockets, landmines, missiles, poison gasses, aerial bombers – were they devout, Bible believing Christians?
In my opinion, Harris blames the world’s problems on religion in the same way and with as much validity as Hitler had when he blamed the world’s problems on the Jews.
He goes on to say:
And the other ideologies that inspire people to behave like monsters—Stalinism, fascism, etc.—are dangerous precisely because they so resemble religions.
Really? Not a single religion in the history of the world ever approached the terrifying immensity of Stalin’s state-controlled slave empire. Where else do we see in all of world history, prior to the twentieth century, a state of affairs in which countless millions of people were arrested and condemned without cause and then forced to labor in such extreme and inhuman conditions for the profit of the state. No religion has ever practiced such a thing. Even the conquests of Mohammed, which did have a uniquely religious element, were to a great extent military conquests such as have happened all over the world at many points in history.
What about the Spanish Inquisition? One source says that it led to 32,000 deaths in about 200 years. [6] Even if one were to double that number or triple it, it would not equal in 200 years what Stalin did in a single lifetime.
We also should not forget the Protestant Reformation. For people ignorant of history, this began in 1517. In the ensuing decades many countries - including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, England, Scotland and parts of Germany and Switzerland - expressly repudiated the doctrines, ecclesiastical organization, and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. In some of those countries (notably England and Switzerland) there were some religious executions here and there, but in very small numbers compared to the horrors of the modern secular age, and not even remotely approaching an Inquisition.
Moreover, in all of those countries where Protestantism was the predominant religious influence, including of course Canada, Australia and America, atheists and Darwinists were given great freedom in the 19th century to openly spread their views. But, the evaluation of these facts involves the use of reason, logic and evidence, none of which interest Harris in his crusade to save humanity from ideas he disagrees with.
He also says,
Sacrifice for the Dear Leader, however secular, is an act of cultic conformity and worship. Whenever human obsession is channeled in these ways, we can see the ancient framework upon which every religion was built.
Once again, not one single religious movement in all of history relied on a massive totalitarian regime of force, fear and terror to compel people to obey and sing the praises of the leader as we see in the case of Stalin. In fact, comrade Stalin (who was an atheist and who believed in Darwin’s theory of evolution) [7] is a towering example not of the evils of religion, but of the evils of atheism. It is the denial of God which nullifies the divine uniqueness of the individual, and reduces people to the status of nothing more than property of the state. It is atheism that denies the laws of God and removes the fear of judgment, opening the door to the limitless cruelties of the 20th century, cruelties enabled and intensified by the blessings of technology which – thanks to science – have exponentially increased the power of the state.
I don’t want to respond to all of the remaining comments in this essay, but do feel that this merits one more response.
What defenders of religion cannot say is that anyone has ever gone berserk, or that a society ever failed, because people became too reasonable, intellectually honest, or unwilling to be duped by the dogmatism of their neighbors.
And where, pray tell, has such a reasonable society ever existed in the history of the world? It was not found in the secular society of France during the Revolution, when people were parading around with severed human heads on pikes screaming for blood, or when the secular humanist rulers ruthlessly exterminated anyone who got in their way, while preaching the gospel of “reason” at the same time.
Harris, with his complete ignorance of the unpleasant realities of human nature, thinks we can – with his help – create a society where people sit around reading Locke, Hume, and Spinoza. But there are deeper passions in the spiritual caverns of the human heart – passions and caverns of which Sam Harris as a materialist is completely ignorant. They are best controlled, and even converted, and changed, not by the belief that we are in essence only animals; not by the belief that the soul ceases to exist at death; and not by the belief that the whole cosmos, including not only the wonders of nature but also the laws of science and mathematics, came into being by blind chance.
What we need now more than ever are the rules and laws of the almighty God, maker of heaven and earth. It was respect for these rules that allowed the Western countries, in spite of all of their many flaws, to develop standards of law, prosperity and liberty unknown in the rest of the world - and it is the rejection of those laws that have led to the increasingly catastrophic results and the loss of liberties that we see all around us.
[1] Sam Harris, “SEPTEMBER 11, 2011,” September 9, 2011, https://www.samharris.org/blog/september-11-2011. [Accessed July 30, 2023].
[2] Isaac Newton’s General Scholium, an informal essay Newton appended to his Principia Mathematica, plainly states that Newton saw creation, including the laws of gravity and motion, as the result of a divine Creator. This does not prove God exists, but it does prove that belief in God does not stifle science – and we can be sure Sam Harris the atheist will never surpass or even begin to approach Isaac Newton the theist when it comes to significance in the history of science. Even Albert Einstein refused to profess atheism, possibly because he was not as enlightened and advanced in science as Sam Harris with his super-duper intelligence.
As to Newton’s General Scholium, it is short and readable. Here is a brief quotation:
This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being . . . This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all: And on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God Pantokrator, or Universal Ruler.
Isaac Newton, General Scholium, Isaac Newton: Theology, Prophecy, Science and Religion, https://isaac-newton.org/general-scholium/. [Accessed July 30, 2023].
[3] Graig Graziosi, “ Who is Sam Harris and why did his Trump comments cause such a stir?”, Independent, August 19, 2022, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/sam-harris-trump-comments-podcast-b2148761.html. [Accessed July 30, 2023]. Harris’ evasive sort-of apology is given in the article.
[4] Alexander George, Ask Philosophers, October 17, 2005, quoting Confessions (Sections 12, 13, Book XI of The Confessions, translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin), https://www.askphilosophers.org/question/249. [Accessed July 30, 2023].
[5] https://www.amazon.com/Life-Without-God-William-Murray/dp/1565070291/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39X40IB4YC4N0&keywords=my+life+without+god&qid=1690756907&s=books&sprefix=my+life+without+god%2Cstripbooks%2C97&sr=1-1 [Accessed July 30, 2023].
[6] “Inquisition,” History, March 27, 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/religion/inquisition [Accessed July 31st, 2023].
[7] See this Substack letter “The materialistic philosophy of Josef Stalin (1 of 3)”, https://joekeysor.substack.com/p/the-materialistic-philosophy-of-josef [Accessed July 31]