The End of Faith

I started reading Sam Harris's book, The End of Faith, this evening. Here is the blurb on the back of the cover.

In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs--even when these beliefs inspire the worst of human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic.

As you can probably guess I am already enjoying the book.

I am still much under the spell of Pascal Boyer's book Religion Explained. He claims that religion is a by-product of evolved cognitive systems and processes. He also claims that because of this religion will not fade away soon. One can draw the gloomy corollary from this that the more extravagant, dangerous, and false religious beliefs people hold will be with us for a long time. That means I'm stuck with a reality I don't find agreeable.

Sam Harris does not believe in compromise with religion and Pascal Boyer does.

For myself, I am beginning to find it more than irritating to listen to people say foolish things about mundane matters and justify it by their religious faith. I used to think of it as cute idiotic nonsense, but I am beginning to see it as symptomatic of much of the current ignorance about science, politics, and morals. Too many people use their faith to justify the relativity of truth. Beliefs are true just because they have faith they are true. Many people are insulted when you call them on a bit of their foolishness. Too bad for them. Calling it your faith, Boss, doesn't make it true or right.

I was reading a blog at the beginning of Hurricane Katrina. The author, who is very religious, related a story about how one man heroically rescued another man from drowning in the flood. The author said it was an example of god's grace. When the death toll from the storm began to mount, I was tempted to ask her if that was an example of god's grace too. I didn't.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Matthew 7:6