Two short must-reads confronting the inherent dangers of popular mythologies
In January of 1776, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, sparked the powder kegs for not only the American, but the French Revolution as well. Paine’s original style of thinking was as straight-forward as it was original. As with the later Declaration of Independence, the revolutionary notion of Paine’s work was to declare simple truths as self-evident that had been anything but evident throughout all of human history. Paine not only challenged the notion that Kings were necessary for civilization, but completely ridiculous when viewed with fresh eyes and reason. “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
Most adults in the US have a vague recollection of reading (or at least being assigned to read) Common Sense in a High School government class, and, as with all assigned reading, it’s easy to think of reading such a thing as a cure for insomnia. Try taking a look at it as an adult, and you might be surprised at how the text retains the simple, straight-forward appeal that inspired two nations to oust their respective royal families. Paine’s prediction that his ideas would be met with criticism was of course correct, but his fearless promotion of reason led to a rapid gathering of like minds and bold actions. Like many great minds in the Age of Reason, Paine simultaneously criticized Christianity and spoke of God in a manner that seems to confuse (to put it charitably) today’s Fundamentalists into thinking that Paine was a religious man. On the contrary, in his later work, The Age of Reason, Paine quite plainly stated that “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” As a Deist, he took delight in natural order, and described his religion in characteristically simple form: “The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical.”
Nearly 230 years later, Fundamentalists are using Deist’s references to Nature’s God as evidence that this country is and always was a Christian Nation. If Thomas Paine were around today, he would probably have written something very much like Sam Harris’ Letter to A Christian Nation. Harris wrote this book as a response to the overwhelming outcry following the publication of his book, The End of Faith. At first, he responded more or less individually to the emails and letters, passionately defending Christianity from Reason. Harris, like Paine, doesn’t back down, but instead pushes the message even further. The most common complaint that religious people have of a reason-based rejection of religion is the cherished notion that religion provides people with morals. What are morals to an atheist? The idea that, without the threat of an invisible eye, surveying all of our actions and holding us to some ultimate account, human beings will be nothing more than depraved animals.
Harris’ dismisses this idea and completely explodes the notion that religion is even remotely moral. With a complete disregard for the traditional respect that people often show for the superstitions of others, Harris asks Christians to really look at the Bible and ask themselves- what is so moral about Christianity? He challenges them to ask themselves- is it just to condemn a child to death for showing disrespect to their parents? His tone carries with it the echo of Paine’s natural authority: “We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).”
Furthermore, Harris demands of Christian America, is it moral; is it intellectually valid to ignore reality, to attempt to twist facts in order to keep believing in ancient mythology? “Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue” he points out with some asperity. Is it not immoral to try to persuade people who are willing to die and kill for faith that defies reason? He explains that he was motivated in part by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and asks Christian America to really think about what they believe, and the natural consequences of religious beliefs: “It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion—to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources—is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity.” Harris goes on to encourage religious moderates and liberals to break with tradition and confront the consequences of tolerating religious extremists- the negative consequences to political, scientific and cultural progress: “In the year 2006, a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get seventy-two virgins in Paradise. Western secularists, liberals, and moderates have been very slow to understand this. The cause of their confusion is simple: they don’t know what is like to really believe in God.”
Harris’ short work, like Paine’s before him, is a clarion call for reasonable people to insist that reason be given greater weight, for a change, than the dangerous and antiquated superstitions of others: “According to the most common interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.” Clearly, it costs too much for us to live with those who can be so easily manipulated, those whose lives are based on a fantasy world in which the best possible outcome begins with Armageddon.
-Philadelphic
