before i dig into harris' 'manifesto' (i think it is not really a 'manifesto', but then again i also think that harris misemploys some other words as well, so it probably is only a slight matter of semantics), let me state where i myself am standing. throughout my life i have wondered whether or not there is/are (a) divine entity/entitites and fostered my curiosity for things spiritual. but i have also very early on developed my personal way of thinking which (in a nutshell) states that whether or not such a divine presence exists or not cannot be answered in my lifetime and also makes no difference to the way i live my life. in other words, my way of thinking is very close to that of agnosticism.
as for mr. harris' text, i think it is a very strong and strong-willed attempt at describing what might be going wrong in the u.s.a. at this point in time. yet there are various passages and general strokes that make me wonder. i'll try to go through the text from start to finish and point out the passages that striked me as either highly interesting or peculiar (or perhaps both).
[i did not read the comment section to harris' text.]
in the very first passage, after using a very graphic demonstration of (probably) mislead faith in god, harris does something that i think is (especially for someone who thinks himself very rational) extremely objectionable and which he will do several times again over the course of his text:
"Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this? No." [bold emphasis mine.]
'right'? 'good'? by what measure, what moral standard? is harris saying that he has found the moral high ground as opposed to non-atheists and therefore can judge what is 'right' and 'good', because 'rationale' dictates it? i don't think a truly rational person would ever suggest something like this. but more on that later.
he then continues on with what i think sums up the main valid argument in this entire writ:
"[...] no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that such a God exists; [...]"
divison of church and state. something that has plagued and is still riding on the back of many societies. i have the impression that this is what really bugs harris, but he goes on ranting about faith and belief in god that kind of blemishes his otherwise solid argumentation.
"We live in a world where all things, good and bad, are finally destroyed by change. [...] If one didn’t know better, one would think that man, in his fear of losing all that he loves, had created heaven, along with its gatekeeper God, in his own image."
yes, and if it were so? harris seems to imply that remorselessly letting go of all things, because they inevitably will be lost, is the only way to go. well, besides the airiness of this implication (if indeed he makes it), this doesn't seem very rational in the first place and also it would seem smart to have an imaginary space into which one can release things when they are lost. a 'heaven' or 'other life' where one can let go of things and not be fettered to them in one's current life.
also, harris seems to think that all humans are rational thinking beings, who are being muddled in their rational capacity by religion, as exemplified here:
"If God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or he does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God’s goodness in the first place."
i don't think that humans are rational at all. so i don't think that any way humans choose to describe something like god (whether or not he/she/they exists or not) will be without errors. if there is a divine presence it probaly really cannot be judged by human standards, but how else should a human try to describe something if not by human standards? what else do we know? i do not see a contradiction here.
of course, i agree with harris that those who believe in such a divine presence must be aware of the inadequacy of their decriptions and rules and guidelines because they have all been put down by humans, even if they were really handed down by the divine presence itself. this is regrettably only very seldom the case.
after quoting some statistic figures about the inclination of us-americans towards their puritan and presbyterian roots, harris goes on to state very simply but profoundly:
"Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world."
quite a fact. we currently feel the political pressure of the u.s.a. all over the world and it is not a very welcome pressure nor is it generally considered to be very healthy. connecting this symptom of the u.s. government with religious fundamentalism is not far-fetched at all. again: i believe this to be harris' main point of criticism, to which he sadly did pay peripheral attention only.
he next has his funny moment, when he tries to reveal the failure of 'relgious moderation' with an example that might seem well made at first but is lacking. i won't quote that particular example, but harris' point is:
"It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning."
rationality also includes proportionality, when the means justify the end, so to say. well, if (as in harris' example) the belief in a refrigerator-sized diamond in the backyard actually does make a person happy and does not make other persons unhappy, then i'd assume that the means very well justify the end and so it is perfectly rational to uphold that belief. that being said, harris' continuation of
"[...]“I wouldn’t want to live in a universe where there wasn’t a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot."
only make himself appear somewhat angry and shortsighted. i wonder whether he really is angry at god/s and religion or if he is more angry at humans for behaving stupidly in the name of god/s and religion. which are to very seperate things in my opinion.
on page 3 of his text harris appears to me the most concise in his criticism. here he lays out basic ideas why a secular government is to be favored to a religious one, but again there are some 'hiccups'.
"Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth."
he continues to point out that states like these are the most prosperous. yet he neglects (1) quoting a source for this information and (2) defining what he means by "are among the least relgious societies". i do not have a source to look up how religious or not these societies really are, but in my personal experience swedes and danish people are quite religious in their calvinistically influenced ways. also japan is a fiercely religious society, but is wise enough to keep religious matters out of state affairs, which in turn creates a very ambigious environment, because religion is such a great part of japanese culture.
on the final page harris lastly criticizes relgious conflicts. i agree with him on this, but again he uses rhetoric that makes me furrow my brow.
"In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree."
'only the atheist' - again, harris seems to want us to know that atheism is a morally superior way to go. although he, at another point, concedes that dogmatic view of atheism is also not very healthy, he is basically doing just that. also, i think 'religious faith' seems to me to be the wrong word here. 'religious fanatism' or 'hierarchically organized religions' would seem to fit the bill much better. that should include all religious practices that are based on a fixed writ and leave no room for the human experience. see bible, torah, koran and so forth.
to sum it up, the very last paragraph of the text:
"Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One’s convictions should be proportional to one’s evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn’t--indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable--is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to make them his own."
i am ambiguous about this part. on the one hand i agree with harris' plea to humans to be conscious and sceptically about what to believe in and what not. on the other hand i cannot sympathize with his vanity in regards to atheism.
imho, i think that harris has many valid points and makes a strong case for why harsh cirticism of religious fervor in today's societies is probably needed. yet i cannot get over the fact how he would use his perceived 'rationalism' in such unrational ways and not discern between individual spirituality and faith, organized forms thereof and the conflicts that might arouse from these. i'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that somewhere there is a more detailed publication in which he makes this distinction. |
