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Christianity Today, March, 2007 |

Atheist Apostle

Sam Harris has little patience for theists of any sort.

Review by David Aikman | posted 3/05/2007 08:59AM

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The End of Faith is, as one British review approvingly noted, a "rallying cry for a more ruthless secularization of society," so one is thankful that Harris is favorable toward nonviolence. Atheism, when in power, has displayed a ruthless habit of suppressing religious points of view. One hopes that what Harris has in mind is indeed persuasion, not suppression.

David Aikman, a CT columnist, is an author and foreign-policy consultant.

Related Elsewhere:

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is available from Amazon.com and other retailers.

Books & Culture reviewed The End of Faith in 'Unbelievable'

Harris's website has more information on the author and his ideas, including articles he has written.

NPR interviewed Harris on Letter to a Christian Nation.

David Aikman's "Atheism and Moral Clarity" is available at the Trinity Forum.

Other Christianity Today articles on atheists and religion include:

The New Intolerance | Fear mongering among elite atheists is not a pretty sight. A Christianity Today editorial (January 25, 2007)

The Twilight of Atheism | Why this once exciting and 'liberating' philosophy failed to capture the world's imagination. (March 2005)

Pledging to Fight | Atheist says battle over 'under God' has just begun. (August 1, 2004)

Forced by Logic | It took philosophy and a friend to convince this atheist (June 1, 2003)

Russian Intellectuals Try to Revive Atheism | The Moscow Society of Atheists says its ideology has fallen out of fashion (January 1, 2001)

The Know-Nothing Party | How should Christians respond to ill-informed attacks? (Books & Culture, February 5, 2007)

The Trials of Being Agnostic | A conversation with skeptic Wendy Kaminer. (Books & Culture, January 1, 2000)

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March 2007, Vol. 51, No. 3

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sb	Posted: March 09, 2007 4:13 PM

Harris has always cherry-picked his data, and misrepresented his opponents. But where he really fails is in making a positive case for his own position. Harris’ atheism assumes a universe governed by blind, unthinking, uncaring forces, which have created the world and everything in it, including us. We’re glorified (albeit unlikely) collections of chemicals, and nothing more. What does "ethical," "moral," or "sacred” even mean to such a collection? Harris not only cannot explain why such values should matter to any of us, he can’t even explain their existence in a purely naturalistic universe. And yet, he repeatedly appeals to such qualities when making his argument. In the end, the case for his world view depends on the existence of a real, external moral standard which his own presuppositions expressly deny. But still, credit to him for pressing on through the cognitive dissonance; his tenacity is to be admired, even if his intellectual credibility is not.

Sandrine

Posted: March 07, 2007 2:28 AM


It is absolutely wrong to say that Edward Said was a cultural relativist. Some of his disciples in Asia are cultural relativists, but he always insisted that he was opposed to relativism.

dipaolor@yahoo.com

Posted: March 06, 2007 6:15 PM

Generally, I wouldn’t respond to a response to my comment, but DiverCity must have misread my comment. So in an effort to clarify for the sake of clarification, note that my comment had nothing to do with “moderate” or “nominal” Christians. In fact, I don’t know what DriverCity means by such terms of “primary potency” seemingly intended to disparage such belief. My point was simply that the version of Christianity critiqued by Harris and the collective trinity of atheists isn’t that of Christianity as described in the biblical text, but rather a caricature thereof as manifest in the USA. Dobson and company are about as far from biblical Christianity as is the atheism of Harris, making it, at best a caricature of biblical faith, and thus Harris’s et al.’s critique a caricature (which is what his critique is) of a caricature, ie, a version of Christianity which bears little resemblance to that describe in the NT text. Clarifying further would be casting peals . .

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