Asymmetric Catholic

I don't know why people find these books interesting. My Atheist brothers and sisters make the same, banal points:

1. Religion is unlikely (assume material-only universe).
2. People are happier without religion. Or, if they're happier, it's only because they're ignorant (I guess if you assume you're correct, then anybody who doesn't agree with you is wrong and therefore ignorant or the truth).
3. Society is better without religion (Well, I guess if you compare medieval France to modern day France, you could say that modern France has faster trains).

Anyways, as long as these things sell books, I'll keep replying. You can read the first five here. Those were the best five. These five are just narcissism:

6) Atheists are arrogant.

When scientists don't know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn't arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.

I rarely use the word "stupid," but what else can I say about this argument (not Harris himself who I'm sure scored quite high on his exams and went to the very competitive Oxford or somewhere similar)?

Mr. Harris, I don't really care about whether Atheists are arrogant or not, but let's examine your logic. If you admitted to not being sure about something you'd admit you're not sure about God and consider yourself an agnostic, for your case against God is based solely on an assumption (that only the material exists). You've offered no proof of an alternative cosmology, but you're sure what it's not.

Also, most Christians don't pretend to have scientific proof of God. I'm sure most would say they believe in God because they have Faith. And, who claims to know what no scientist knows? This is just willful ignorance. Ironic, isn't it? But wait, the dumbness keeps on coming:

7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.

There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don't tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.

What the heck is he saying? Who says Atheists can't appreciate beauty? Indeed, who says people of other faiths can't experience these things? Talk about straw men!

Of course, to the Atheist, these experiences are nothing more than chemical reactions in the mind developed over millions of years; a biological function that has helped us better adapt to our environment. Hee Hee. Harris thinks the fact that a chemical stimulates that part of his brain that allows him to experience "awe," is somehow significant (or spiritual. spiritual! as in spirits? as in non-physical beings?).

8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.

Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature's laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

From the atheist point of view, the world's religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn't have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.

How he comes up with this is beyond my comprehension, I admit. How can this non-arrogant man claim to know what aliens would think of our religions? Who said that the Bible's purpose was to explain cosmology? Mr. Harris is arguing against whom, I wonder?

9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.

Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as "wishful thinking" and "self-deception." There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.

In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?

Why would people be concerned for others' suffering? What would be better? Better yet! What would be more reliable: Helping people because it makes you feel good or to receive some kind of social benefit (what other reason would you have?); or helping people because you think somebody who wants you to is watching?

I also ask: why Harris would think helping the unfortunate is a good thing? Where'd he get that idea? Nietzsche, an atheist, thought it was weakness.

10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.

If a person doesn't already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won't discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn't make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.

This is the dumbest of the dumbest list of its kind. have all cultures known what was "good?" You've had the benefit of growing up in a society with a little Christian gas left in its tank. Would you say the ancient Mayans figured out what was good based on their hard-wiring. What about the very scientifically advanced, cultured, and secular Germans of the thirties? Did their wires break? Do children require any moral guidance? Why would they if it was hard-wired? And, most important! Who wired us? Didn't that same force wire us for cruelty and selfishness? Why should we resist this wiring and embrace the other? And why would we think slavery wrong? Who played the most major role in ending slavery?

Finally, a challenge: As an Atheist, explain why...

1. ...slavery is wrong/
2. ...helping the unfortunate is good.
3. ...beauty is good.
4. ...murder is wrong.
5. ...theft is wrong
6. ...or, anything else, really.

What do you think of this Zeus?

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths by Edgar Parin D'Aulaire