Return of the Village Atheist: Sam Harris Against Nature

American Vision ^ | July 29, 2009 | Joel McDurmon

[topcat54]

No sooner has Sam Harris established his reputation for intolerance and harassment of religious faith than he has now begun to lash out at those scientists who do show tolerance and respect toward religious folk. He is passionate that, as he titles it, "Scientists should unite against threat from religion." Imagine! The crime of not excluding people from scientific discourse because they are Christians, or even Muslims!

Sam won’t stand for it, and in his recent editorial to that massive organ of scientific literature Nature he blasts the scientists for — of all things — being too nice. Nature’s great sin of being "unfailingly tactful" Sam warns — saving us from almost certain peril — whitewashes religion and leaves us with nothing but "obscurantism."

The charge of dreaded "obscurantism" reminds me of some real scholarship I recently read, regarding the militant atheists of times past. I quote a bit at length:

"Interrelationship between science and religion is probably the most sensitive and most emotionally laden subject in the whole of Soviet atheism’s spoken and written output. Its aim is to prove that these are incompatible, that only science and the scientific method are true and pursue the truth, and that therefore the essential nature of religious faith is obscurantism and ignorance. . . .

Soviet literature focusing on the attempt to prove the anti-scientific and hence anti-progressive, obscurantist, intellectually reactionary character of religion, is immense in volume and, even on the ‘high-brow’ level, emotionaly [sic] highly charged." (Dimitry V. Pospielovsky, Soviet Studies on the Church and the Believer’s Response to Atheism: A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice, and the Believer, Volume 3 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988) 36, italics mine).

As I showed with case after case in Return of the Village Atheist, the outspoken modern atheists repeat the same charges that the earlier communist and murderous revolutionary atheists flung at Christians, only today Harris and his clan keep denying the consequences of trying to erase religion from culture. Well despite the denials, the parallels are there, and though Harris keeps sounding the keynote to disestablish all things religious, and keeps denying that atheism itself had anything to do with the Soviet atrocities, the quote above comes from the man who wrote the book (several actually) on the subject of Soviet Atheism. There is no reason why Sam’s supposed atheistic utopia could be any different than what Pospielovsky chronicles.

Such a minor digression in my topic may prompt our atheist to respond that I am playing a game of "guilt by association," where if I can pin the image of a murderous commie on Sam (not to be confused with "Uncle Sam"), then I have gotten by with a smooth but effective dishonesty. Well, personally, I believe the case is closed on the fact that atheism itself lay at the root, in the stem, and in the poisonous fruit of the violent Marxist tradition, but it would take more time to prove than I have right now. But look! It is not me but our atheist who is playing the subtle dishonesty game. To wit:

Sam Harris Against History
In order to cement his case that religion and science must never be mixed, Sam quickly slams down the Galileo card. He reminds us once again how wrong the church was, and how infallibly precious science turned out (precious if only because it was the church that turned out wrong), and all the standard anti-faith rhetoric is spouted all over again.

But, this time there’s a big problem. Sam, and I must stress, for those who have read my book, is once again so wrong about his historical facts that he should feel moved to publically recant and apologize to theists and atheists alike. He states incorrectly that in the year 1633, "Galileo was being forced, under threat of death, to recant his understanding of the Earth’s motion." Under threat of death! What?!? This claim has been known to be wrong for so long that to keep repeating it is evidence of pure ignorance, carelessness, or pure malice. Why in the world Nature published such nonsense without giving the writer a chance to edit his embarrassing error hints of some kind of agenda: either to further the slander of religion, or to allow Sam to publically discredit himself. One can only hope the latter, and hope that it succeeds, too.

Truth is, according to real historians of the matter, Galileo was never threatened with death, nor even in danger of it, especially near the latter part of his story in 1633. At that time, even though he was under house arrest, the scientist was at leisure in a sunny Italian villa unharassed. He was once — seventeen years prior, in 1615-1616 — required to witness with the "on paper" threat of torture, but the respected historian Giorgio de Santillana informs us that even this "threat" was a mere formality which would never have been carried out due, if for nothing else, to Galileo’s age. (Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981 [1955]) 322-3)

Well, as you can tell from just that little bit, actual facts are a bit boring; so Sam doesn’t bother with them. He apparently prefers to charge his story with emotion and fear of immediate "threat from religion" — just as Pospielovsky reminds us the Soviets did. The reason is simple: the facts don’t line up with Sam’s argument, philosophy and science neither line up with Sam’s agenda, so he has to dramatize the story, and hope that enough fear will help recruit atheists.

Let me be the first to congratulate Sam on his pure bravado: to take on a scientific journal the size of Nature is truly an exhibition of David vs. Goliath faith. But to make such blunders in the process must be a real disappointment. I suspect it doesn’t bother him; meanwhile, let us be wary of his quasi-commie threat for scientists of the world to "unite against religion."

Better, out of our hands, let the "beauty and majesty of God’s creation" continue to overwhelm our resistance (a phrase written by Christian and genetic scientist Francis Collins, and presented by Sam as a subject of ridicule). Real science is not afraid of God, His majesty, or His beauty; it’s all quite natural. But until faith, reason, and tolerance have a balanced sway, atheists like Sam will continue to oppose Nature, and, for that matter, Nature’s God, too.

[topcat54]

If the village idiots atheists where in charge, all those who did not share their worldview would be silenced under threat of death. After all, if you adopt an amoral worldview, anything that gets you to your goal is acceptable, even death to the opposition.

[xzins]

Now that much of atheism has become “evangelical” about itself, it is absolutely necessary to see this capital “A” Atheism, as a religion.

It is concerned with the major ultimate questions of life, and it reaches out for adherents.

[GunRunner]

Harris is one of the most outspoken critics of Islam. YouTube his debate with Muslim apologist Reza Aslan and see if you don’t support 90% of what he says.

[YHAOS]

"If the village . . . atheists where in charge, all those who did not share their worldview would be silenced under threat of death."

Historically, the trait of threatening death to dissent is common to most belief systems. It is gratifying to know, at least, that the Judeo-Christian culture has, over the last 500 years, learned better, even if Atheists, Islamics, and Liberals have not.

[YHAOS]

"see if you don’t support 90% of what he says."

Just because someone is right about one thing, it does not logically follow that they are right about everything.

[GunRunner]

Where did I say "everything"? I mentioned one issue.

Sam Harris is out there speaking out against violent Islam while Rick Warren is meeting with Basher Assad and other evangelical leaders are giving us the religion of peace excuse.

Watch the debate before you jump on the bandwagon and bash him like the author does.

[bdeaner]

Atheists seem to be too ignorant of history and philosophy to understand that the idea of a rational, orderly universe -- the basic assumption behind all Western science -- is relatively exclusive to Judao-Christian culture. This is why so many cultures with as much if not more resources -- Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, Maya -- never developed anything resembling modern science. All of these cultures lacked a belief in a transcendent Creator who endowed His creation with consistent physical laws. To the contrary, they conceived of the universe as a huge organism dominated by a pantheon of deities and destined to go through endless cycles of birth, death and rebirth. This made the development of science impossible.

The animism that characterized ancient cultures, which conceived of the divine as immanent in created things, hindered the growth of science by making the idea of constant natural laws foreign. Created things had minds and wills of their own--an idea that all but precluded the possibility of thinking of them as behaving according to regular, fixed patterns.

Christianity, since it reposed the divinity strictly in Christ and in a Holy Trinity that transcendenced the world, avoided any kind of pantheism and allowed Christians to view the universe as a realm of order and predictability.

In contrast, atheism and by implication its concomitant materialism, undermines any guarantee that the universe is orderly and predictable, and consequently, as we have seen historically, falls apart into a muddy cultural relativism in which truth evaporates into endless multiplicities. Atheism is fundamentally and ontologically anti-science to the core.

[bdeaner]

...which is a long-winded way of saying: Sam Harris is an idiot.

[GunRunner]

This is why so many cultures with as much if not more resources -- Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, Maya -- never developed anything resembling modern science.

I'm not sure how to respond to your non-sequitur filled post, but I'll tackle this one tremendously incorrect assertion.

Arabic and Persian astronomy was one of the most advanced of its time. In fact we still use several Arabic terms to describe modern astronomical features and stars, like the star Rigel and the term azimuth.

The Babylonians had an advanced systems of mathematics and medicine and were ahead of their time in the development of the medical procedure such as diagnosis, prognosis, examination, and issuing prescriptions.

The Chinese, whose technology was light years ahead of the west during early recorded history, were the first to record many astronomical events such as supernovas and eclipses. Taoism itself is based off of the idea that the universe is ordered and balanced, not to mention the fact that Confucius was speaking about the Golden Rule 500 years before Christ.

I could go on, but there's not really any point. The idea that your society must believe Christ was the son of a deity in order to envision a rational and orderly universe is demonstrably wrong.

[YHAOS]

”Where did I say "everything"? I mentioned one issue.”

Oh yeah, that’s right. What was that “one” issue (in your mind)? The violence of Islam? Or the violence of religion? It seems in his correspondence to Science Harris was condemning religion in general (and President Bush). Yet you seemed focused on Islam. What about the rest? Was Harris 90% right? Which 90%?

Watch the debate before you jump on the bandwagon and bash him like the author does.”

I was watching it closely enough to notice that you’re changing the focus of your argument from one sentence to the next. And, where is it that I’ve bashed Harris? While you’re at it you might inform us if you make any distinction between the terms ‘bash,’ ‘attack,’ and ‘criticize.’ Do you switch terms contingent more on the group or individual you’re discussing than on the nature of the discussion itself?

I’m sure you would agree, in the abstract, that Harris is not right about everything. But, in the specific, can you name one thing about which Harris is wrong?

[GunRunner]

Oh yeah, that’s right. What was that “one” issue (in your mind)? The violence of Islam? Or the violence of religion? It seems in his correspondence to Science Harris was condemning religion in general (and President Bush). Yet you seemed focused on Islam. What about the rest? Was Harris 90% right? Which 90%?

I was talking about the violence of Islam, as I very clearly stated. The 90% I was referring to pertains to his statements in his debate with Reslan, also very clearly stated.

I was watching it closely enough to notice that you’re changing the focus of your argument from one sentence to the next.

I've done no such thing. I made one specific argument and gave one specific example to back it up.

And, where is it that I’ve bashed Harris?

I didn't say you did; I asked you to watch the debate before you bash him as most of the people on this thread have already begun to do.

But, in the specific, can you name one thing about which Harris is wrong?

He is much more in line with Hitchens in his across the board criticism of religion, whereas others like Dawkins recognize and frequently make the point that modern Christianity should be given credit for its relatively peaceful nature in contrast to modern Islam.

He also harps on embryonic stem cell research way too much, without acknowledgeing that its basically a dead issue according to the newest research that shows that the cells are far too unpredictable and largely dangerous with respect to causing tumors.

[GunRunner]

It is gratifying to know, at least, that the Judeo-Christian culture has, over the last 500 years, learned better, even if Atheists, Islamics, and Liberals have not.

If your assertion atheists were correct, then Denmark should have the most murderous government on on Earth.

[YHAOS]

”I made one specific argument and gave one specific example to back it up.”

In defense of a man who is attacking religion generally as much, if not more, than he is attacking Islam.

Me: “And, where is it that I’ve bashed Harris?”

You: “I didn't say you did; I asked you to watch the debate before you bash him as most of the people on this thread have already begun to do.”

Ahhh, I haven’t bashed Harris, but I’m going to. I see. You’ve learned well from Slick Willy.

”He is much more in line with Hitchens in his across the board criticism of religion, whereas others like Dawkins recognize and frequently make the point that modern Christianity should be given credit for its relatively peaceful nature in contrast to modern Islam.”

Dawkins, in an interview with Ryan Tubridy on the Ryan Tubridy Show: “Well the word delusion means a falsehood which is widely believed, and I think that is true of religion. It is remarkably widely believed, it’s as though almost all of the population or a substantial proportion of the population believed that they had been abducted by aliens in flying saucers. You’d call that a delusion. I think God is a similar delusion.”

The very title of Dawkins’ latest book is as clear a demonstration as one would want that Dawkins deems Christians to be delusional, or worse (misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent), and the book’s title likewise makes it manifest that the existence of a god is what he considers them to be delusional about. Dawkins launches his attacks against Christianity in a Western Civilization context, using Western Civilization terminology, and arguing in Western venues, with nary a reference to Islam. I imagine you can produce a quote somewhere from Dawkins on Islam, but if there’s a difference between Dawkins and Harris on this issue, it is a difference I would hate to live on.

You’re correct that Harris is beating a dead horse when it comes to his praise of the wondrous virtues of embryonic stem cell research. Guess we’ve found that missing 10%.

[YHAOS]

”If your assertion atheists were correct, then Denmark should have the most murderous government on on Earth.”

And Denmark’s cultural and religious heritage from Western Civilization, of course, has nothing to do with it. That rationalization allows you to overlook the Soviet Empire, the Chi-Coms, the Khmer Rouge, Cuba, and all the other bloody atheist states that erupted over the globe, like a skin disease, in the Twentieth Century.

[YHAOS]

Oh yes, and while you’re at it you might mention if you make any distinction between the terms ‘bash,’ ‘attack,’ and ‘criticize,’ Or do you switch terms contingent more on the group or individual you’re discussing than on the nature of the discussion itself?

[wideminded]

If the village atheists where in charge, all those who did not share their worldview would be silenced under threat of death. After all, if you adopt an amoral worldview, anything that gets you to your goal is acceptable, even death to the opposition.

The reason why this is wrong is that paradoxically, many atheists are very moral people. It is not necessary to be religious to accept the Golden Rule. It is not necessary to fear divine punishment to act in a moral way.

[GunRunner]

Ahhh, I haven’t bashed Harris, but I’m going to. I see. You’ve learned well from Slick Willy.

Huh? What in God's name are you talking about? Atheist authors routinely get bashed on FR; it was a logical conclusion to make.

The very title of Dawkins’ latest book is as clear a demonstration as one would want that Dawkins deems Christians to be delusional, or worse (misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent), and the book’s title likewise makes it manifest that the existence of a god is what he considers them to be delusional about.

I've read the God Delusion, so I fully understand what points he tries to make. He does say that belief in the divine is a delusion, but he doesn't ever state that all or even some Christians are "misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent." Those are terms he uses to describe the religious texts, specifically the Old Testament.

Even Christians ask questions about the Old Testament and its brutality, so I don't even think its a controversial statement to make.

I imagine you can produce a quote somewhere from Dawkins on Islam, but if there’s a difference between Dawkins and Harris on this issue, it is a difference I would hate to live on.

Of course I can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhp5ktBSsu8

It's not that difficult because he makes these kind of statements on Islam all the time.

Guess we’ve found that missing 10%.

Once again, even though you keep ignoring the fact, I was making the statement about 90% veracity in a specific debate Sam Harris had with a Muslim apologist, a debate I cited above with Reza Aslan, which is freely available for anyone to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5og-hyD3A7A

[GunRunner]

And Denmark’s cultural and religious heritage from Western Civilization, of course, has nothing to do with it.

So wait a minute; if Denmark was 80% Christian, instead of 80% atheist, I'd bet that you claim the cultural and religious heritage as the chief factor in their relatively peaceful society. But you also claim it as they are in reality 80% atheist. So which is it?

Sounds like a heads you win tails I lose gambit.

Either being an atheist makes you a murderer or it doesn't. Obviously in the case of Denmark it doesn't.

That rationalization allows you to overlook the Soviet Empire, the Chi-Coms, the Khmer Rouge, Cuba, and all the other bloody atheist states that erupted over the globe, like a skin disease, in the Twentieth Century.

I don't have to rationalize anything with respect to those evil regimes, as I do not share any of their principles. Mandating atheism and requiring worship of the state and its leaders and then murdering dissidents is not secularism.

[bdeaner]

If my post seems to be riddled with non-sequiturs, that is only because I am providing the conclusion of an argument from the evidence, not the entire analysis itself. This is an online forum, and not a peer-reviewed journal, you know.

You do point out some isolated scientific work being done in non-Christian cultures, but what you neglect to understand is that these discoveries never amounted to the cumulative, systematic and rigorous scientific insights of the West. None of the cultures you mentioned ever produced anything like a Galileo or Newton. None of the isolated discoveries ever evolved into the unprecedented technological wizardry that emerged only in the Judao-Christian West.

To illustrate what I mean, and for the sake of brevity, I will focus simply on one of the cultures you mentioned -- the Arabic culture. Now, as you seem to know already, the Arabs were the first to take Greek mathematics and science and to make advanced upon it -- BUT it never went anywhere!

Now, in the West, the acquisition of Greek scientific knowledge in the late 13th century led within 150 years to Copernicus, and within 300 years to Kepler and Galileo. Another 350 years later, Newton emerged. But in the Muslim world, it was a completely different situation, even though they were exposed to Greek knowledge earlier than the West. There, after 300 years of meditation on Greek science, which takes us to the time of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and even after twice that many years, which takes us to Ibn Khaldoun, there were no signs whatever that a Copernicus, a Galileo, let alone a Newton would arise within a reasonable time.

Now this is especially interesting because the Arabs had all of the intellectual excellence and technical skill they needed. But they had no Newton, and Newtonian science was quickly followed in the West by a vast technological development, while at the same time the Muslim world became a paragon of backwardness, both intellectual and industrial--and the West dominated with indisputable technological superiority.

Why? In the West, as compared to the Arab world (and other non-Western cultures), science was conducted in such a way that every step in it was in strict order so that the each step or law was inconceivable without the prior law. This did not happen in the Muslim world -- they did not have a robust, modern science in which one step is not only preceded by another step, but in which one step generates another in a sequence that cannot be stopped. And because they did not have this kind of systematic science, they could not discover, for example, the law of momentum or impetus. The only scientist in the Muslim world that speculated at all about inertial motion was Avicenna who died in 1037, but the crucial insight that occurred in the West, the impetus theory, was not possible for him, because he was a pantheist, who did not share with the Western scientists the theology of Creation, which led Buridan to modify Aristotelian physics in such a way that paved the road to Newton. On the other hand, there were also Muslims such as al-Ashari and al-Ghazzali, who represented a Muslim orthodoxy which rejected the notion of scientific law altogether, because it was seen to be an imposition of constraint upon the infinite power of Allah, the Creator. Their metaphysics did not allow for modern science.

In contrast, Christian theology of creation not only permitted, but assumed a Creator whose creation was available to be discovered through reason -- that the cosmos was a totality of consistently interacting things with universal laws that were valid consistently everywhere in it and all the time. etc etc

Modern science as we know it would have stalled out just as it did in the Arab world if Greek thinking had not been appropriated and transformed through the presuppositions of Judao-Christian metaphysics. And that's why modern science emerged in the West, and not any of the other cultures mentioned.

[GunRunner]

None of that addresses your original point, which was that only a Judeo-Christian perspective can conclude a rational and orderly universe.

First of all as I mentioned, Taoism predates the Judeo-Christian belief in an ordered universe, and several Hindu philosophies predate even the Epicurean hypothesis of the atom; all of this was happening while the Israelites were being fascinated with stories of a burning bush and lamp oil that lasted a few extra days.

The fact that nothing "became of it" is really irrelevant; other cultures did perceive a rational and orderly universe. The West rose to scientific prominence for many reasons, but even if a certain divine philosophy inspired these men to look for order in the universe, that doesn't prove in a scientific sense that God wrote the texts that Judeo-Christians claim he did.