AN END NOT JUSTIFIED BY THE MEANS
Book review by Pete Hartwell
It is clear from reading The End of Faith that Sam Harris is a strong minded individual. He expresses his arguments so starkly that anyone who reads them can’t remain neutral. Indeed, Harris does not want us to remain neutral about his primary subject of faith.
Harris is a powerful communicator who gives much colour to the issues he is dealing with. He has written this book in order to convince the reader that all religious beliefs are absurd and are, furthermore, hazardous to us. Harris is reacting against modern Islamic terrorists and the religious elitism of the American government.
Harris divides his book into seven chapters. He sets out his stall in chapter one, underlining the urgency of the situation. He seeks to demolish the credentials of religious faith in chapter two. Chapters three to five aim to illustrate the damaging effect of religious belief both historically and today. Harris argues simply that it is not acceptable for religious belief to have any public influence. Chapter six puts forward the value of science as opposed to religion for establishing morality. In chapter seven, Harris concludes by pointing the reader to a new kind of spirituality which is devoid of religious faith. Harris builds his spirituality on rational grounds thus rendering faith superfluous.
The subject of faith ties the book together, as the title suggests. Harris is careful to establish what he means by faith. Prompted by his American culture he uses what he calls the ‘scriptural sense’ of faith, referring to the Bible. He says that faith is ‘belief in, and life orientation toward, certain historical and metaphysical propositions’ (pp. 64-65). The individual not only intellectually accepts these propositions, but the way they live is also affected by them. Harris removes any distinction between religious faith and other beliefs that we hold.
As religious faith isn’t distinct from any other beliefs we may have, Harris demands that there be a reason for adopting it. This reason should be consistent with our knowledge of the way the world is and should be a consequence of this knowledge. Harris argues that if there is not a consistency between what we claim religiously and other areas of our knowledge or experience, then our religious beliefs are not really claiming anything objective at all. ‘To believe that God exists,’ he says, ‘is to believe that I stand in some relation to his existence such that his existence is itself the reason for my belief’ (p. 63).
Therefore Harris argues that someone who believes in the existence of God must ‘play the same game of justification’ that we all play when ‘claiming to know the most ordinary facts.’
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