Book Review
The End of Faith:
Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
By Sam Harris, W.W. Norton, NY. 2005. 348 pp. paperback
Reviewed by Roy Hanu Hart, M.D.
They say that opposites attract. I can't think of anything at the moment more opposed to my own book, Journey of Faith, than Sam Harris' The End of Faith. It was curiosity elicited by his title that led me on to read this winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction.
Natalie Angier of The New York Times wrote: "The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated, almost personally understood."
For Stephanie Merritt of The Observer [London]the book "is an eminently sensible rallying cry for a more ruthless secularisation of society."
Oi veh!
Harris can find nothing of value in the monotheistic religions, Christianity in particular. He is a true iconoclast, verbally attacking everything in sight that smacks of Western religion, which for him can't hold a candle to Buddhism, over which he oohs and aahs.
His problem is with religions of faith -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Hinduism. Buddhism, on the other hand, "is not a religion of faith, or a religion at all, in the Western sense." He adds that millions of Buddhists don't seem to know this, praying to Buddha "as though he were a numinous incarnation of Santa Claus." Indeed, as Homer Smith wrote in Man and His Gods more than half a century ago, people, wherever they are, need their gods.
I just happen to be writing this review in Books-A-Million in Alexandria, Louisiana, a few days before Christmas, listening as I write to Bing Crosby singing Jingle Bells. I'm seated in a comforatble lounge chair and next to me is a young lady reading a book on...well, well, Buddhism! Carl Jung, who was steeped in oriental religions, would have appreciated this bit of synchronicity (meaningful coincidence).
She was into Buddhist meditation, and chanted a mantra for me: "Sabbe salta sukhi hontu" (May all beings be happy). She had another one, which translated as: "Hail to the Jewel of the Lotus." What possibe meaning could "Jewel of the Lotus" hold for a Western-raised 21-year-old? I mused. How vulnerable are the young who have yet to assay the chlorophyll content of the grass on their side of the fence!
She was a lapsed (fallen-away) Roman Catholic who had turned her gaze eastward to find "true spirituality." Miss E explained enthusiastically that the Buddhist mantra was a device for developing focus, which she called "one-pointedness."
My response was to point out that she could find "focus" in her own abandoned religion through hesychastic contemplation. Hesychasm (from Greek hesychia, divine quietness) was part of Eastern Christianity spirituality, not Roman Catholicism, but it seemed worthwhile nevertheless to introduce her to it.
At its height in popularity in the 14th century, Hesychasm was (and still is, for that matter) a method of prayer involving control of one's body while concentrating on the Jesus Prayer in order to obtain peace of soul and union with God.
I had taught the Jesus Prayer to several Catholics in therapy with me during my career as a psychodynamic psychiatrist with a special interest in religiotherapy. As with the Buddhist mantra, the subject repeats a sentence, in this case, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," over and over, with eyes fixated on a point, such as a lighted candle (navel in medieval times).
The words are synchronized with breathing: on inspiration the subject says, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," which is an acknowledgement of his/her sins, and on expiration the sentence's last two words are uttered, thus expelling sin from the body.
Ultimately, the prayer leads one to peace of soul and, hopefully, an experience of the divine light, the Taboric light, reminiscent of the light that radiated from Jesus at the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor.
Returning to The End of Faith, Harris finds fault with just about everything he can think of in Western religion and the West's way of life. Nazi leaders, he mutters under his breath, were never excommunicated, but poor Galileo, numero uno on the Inquisition's dangerous thinkers list, wasn't absolved of heresy until 1992. Most of us indeed are aware that the Inquisition came down hard on Galileo. What we don't remember was that in his time 35 craters on the moon were named by star-gazing Jesuit priests.
What would probably rankle Harris is sociologist Rodney Stark's thesis, in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success, that Christianity was the driving force in Western advancement. The basis for capitalism's success in providing so many people with so much, he maintains, can be traced back to Catholic monks and lay Italians centuries before the Reformation.
Harris criticizes Pius XII for not saving Jews during World War II, but does add (misleadingly): "...Vatican aid was often contingent upon whether or not the Jews in question had been previously baptized." On the other hand, Rabbi David G. Dalin, in his The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis, shows to what extent Pius XII went to save Italy's Jews (80 percent of them).
I found page 294 to be a religious battleground. Harris states that "mystical Christianity was dead the day Saul set out for Damascus." Previously, on the same page, he paid due respect to such distinguished Christian contemplatives as Meister Eckhart, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, although he couldn't resist the pejorative addition that they "graced the sordid history of Christianity."
Also on page 294: "Though there is much in Buddhism that I do not pretend to understand -- as well as much that seems deeply implausible -- it would be intellectually dishonest not to acknowledge its preeminence as a system of spiritual instruction." A rather myopic view.
During my years in private practice in New York during the '70s, I treated several young JUBUs (Jewish Buddhists) back from India and Tibet. Buddhist meditation lays stress on acquiring a sense of detachment from the many human conflicts and frustrations that afflict us all; that is, the motivation is a desire to escape from suffering. But what my JUBU patients would learn in therapy was that it failed to teach them anything about the psyche and the soul.
A fundamental point that should be noted: there is no creator God in Buddhism. The Buddhist approach stresses "forgetfulness of self," but what my Jewish patients back from the hills of the East were now to discover was their need to integrate that very self into relationship with God.
And Jewish meditation, for those who aren't aware of it, is available to those who seek a meditative addition to their own religion. There is really no need to climb the highest mountain on the other side of the world in order to find a guru.
Still on page 294, Harris writes that "meetings between the Dalai Lama and Christian ecclesiastics to mutually honor their religious traditions are like meetings between physicists from Cambridge and the Bushmen of the Kalahari to mutually honor their respective understandings of the physical universe."
The Dalai Lama, in his book, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, shows himself to be at ease discussing Darwinism, big bang theory, DNA, RNA, quantum entanglement, etc. He and physicist-Anglican clergyman John Polkinghorne would find much to talk about were they to get together. He would also enjoy chatting with theoretical physicist Brandon Carter, who coined the term "anthropic principle" in 1973 to convey the idea that the universe is tailored to human life.
There is a deep sense of humanity in the Dalai Lama that we do not find in the pages of The End of Faith. The Dalai Lama writes that spirituality is "the union of wisdom and compassion." He describes spirituality as "the human journey into our internal resources." Those of different cultures utilize their internal resources in their own way. In this manner, the convergence of science and spirituality [his book's subtitle] will be achieved one day.
Harris is a champion of reason, and religious faith for him is its ultimate opposite, irrationality. But religion is what it is: a mystery. Judaism is the mystery of Mount Sinai. Christianity is the mystery of the Word made flesh. And the universe is God's mystery.
Down through the ages men and women have exhibited a mystical yearning. The everyday world does not provide what the soul seeks. Even astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, who introduced Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world in a 1919 article, ended one of his books with a chapter on mysticism.
Harris devotes many pages to discussing consciousness, a topic which would require pages of commentary here; but this review has already run too long. Suffice it to say that the Dalai Lama does not think science has succeeded in explaining consciousness, and most likely never will.
I am suddenly reminded of the story C.S. Lewis told about his brother, Warren, traveling through India. One day Warren paused somewhere to study a statue of Buddha. He spent hours gazing upon the figure, and as it turned out the experience would have a profound effect on his life. He returned to England and became...a Christian!
Harris' mind is in the realm of secularism/relativism/individualism, the emerging Trinity of our time, and where he has considerable company. Paul Rasor, a Unitarian Universalist minister, is a typical fellow traveler, to borrow that antiquated label from the Communist vocabulary.
In Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century, Rasor writes: "In the post-modern world...there is no such thing as certain knowledge or ultimate truth...Everything is relativized. What we used to think of as truth is now seen as interpretation."
We are getting this sort of nonsense from ivory-towered professors, who proclaim that they are absolutely sure they can't be sure about anything. Harris belongs to this clan. For most of us there are immutable standards and time-honored truths. Who will win the day?
The End of Faith is about a brave new world without God, where personal autonomy rules, meaning everyone will be free to be his/her own god/goddess. God save us from the neo-intellectuals!
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