Sam Harris (author) - Worldview

Worldview

Harris's basic message is that the time has come to freely question the idea of religious faith.p. 13–15 Harris specifically attacks Islam, Christianity, and Judaism which tend to be monolithic and ready to harm others only for their religion. He feels that the survival of civilization is in danger because of a taboo against questioning religious beliefs, and that this taboo impedes progress toward more enlightened approaches to spirituality and ethics.

Although an atheist, Harris avoids using the term, arguing that the label is both unnecessary and a liability. His position is that "atheism" is not in itself a worldview or a philosophy. He believes atheists "should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, honest people, who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them".

Harris argues that religion is especially rife with bad ideas, calling it "one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised." He compares modern religious beliefs to the myths of the Ancient Greeks, which were once accepted as fact but which are obsolete today. In a January 2007 interview with PBS, Harris said, "We don't have a word for not believing in Zeus, which is to say we are all atheists in respect to Zeus. And we don't have a word for not being an astrologer". He goes on to say that the term will be retired only when "we all just achieve a level of intellectual honesty where we are no longer going to pretend to be certain about things we are not certain about".

He also rejects the claim that the Bible was inspired by an omniscient god. He insists that if that were the case, the book could "make specific, falsifiable predictions about human events". Instead, he notes, the Bible "does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century".

In The End of Faith, Harris suggests that religious dogma is flawed in that such beliefs are based on faith rather than on evidence and experience. He maintains that religion allows views that would otherwise be a sign of "madness" to become accepted or, in some cases, revered as "holy", citing as an example the doctrine of transubstantiation. Harris contends that if a lone individual developed this belief, he or she would be considered "mad", and that it is "merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window".p. 72.