Written by John D. Sutter
For the world to tackle truly important problems, people have to stop looking to religion to guide their moral compasses, the philosopher Sam Harris told CNN.
“We should be talking about real problems, like nuclear proliferation and genocide and poverty and the crisis in education,” Harris said in a recent interview at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. TED is a nonprofit group dedicated to “ideas worth spreading.”
“These are issues which tremendous swings in human well-being depend on. And it’s not at the center of our moral concern.”
Religion causes people to fixate on issues of less moral importance, said Harris, a well-known secularist, philosopher and neuroscientist who is the author of the books “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.”
“Religion has convinced us that there’s something else entirely other than concerns about suffering. There’s concerns about what God wants, there’s concerns about what’s going to happen in the afterlife,” he said.
“And, therefore, we talk about things like gay marriage as if it’s the greatest problem of the 21st century. We even have a liberal president who ostensibly is against gay marriage because his faith tells him it’s an abomination.
“It’s completely insane.”
Watch Harris’ talk at the TED Conference
Harris also said people should not be afraid to declare that certain acts are right and others are wrong. A person who would spill battery acid on a girl for trying to learn to read, for instance, he said, is objectively wrong by scientific standards.
“It’s not our job to not judge it and say, ‘Well, to each his own. Everyone has to work out their own strategy for human fulfillment.’ That’s just not true,” he said.
“There’s people who are wrong about human fulfillment.”
Harris placed no faith in the idea that Muslims and Christians will be able to put their differences aside and cooperate on global issues.
“There’s no way to reconcile Islam with Christianity,” he said. “This difference of opinion admits of compromise as much as a coin toss does.”
Atheism is a religion. It is the firm belief that there is no God and is not backed up by any more fact than a religious person’s belief that God does exist.
“Atheism is a religion.”
Sam Harris is right none the less. There are more important issues today than fake moral problems of religious origin.
Arguably, of course, with atheism it would be difficult to prove the idea of genocide as ‘wrong’. If you take emotional reasoning out of the argument like the ‘beauty’ of life, sometimes you are simply presented with a problem concerning natural resources and population size.
I wonder what Sam Harris’ views on genocide would be, and if he was against it, I wonder how we would be sure that his views are ‘scientific’ and not based upon growing up in a society with Judeo-Christian values?
And before any straw man arguments, I am not an atheist and am definitely against genocide. Also, I am not stating that all atheists automatically support genocide.
religion |ri?lij?n|
noun
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods
So, no, Atheism is NOT a religion. (Course that is based on Apple’s dictionary)
@The Major:
You’re right, it would be difficult to prove scientifically that genocide is wrong. The underlying issue is that the world never had the problems of genocide until religion (specifically Christianity and it’s various sibling) was invented. Religion is used to control people; when you control people you yield rebellion.
This position is often promoted by people who don’t understand religion. Religion is about more than just morals. It does have worthwhile contributions to make towards these “real” issues, if people would just put aside their anti-religious prejudice and consider them.
Hi E, thank you for your comments. I would like to raise a couple of points though.
“The underlying issue is that the world never had the problems of genocide until religion (specifically Christianity and it’s various sibling) was invented.”
I imagine that would be highly difficult to prove. Certainly long before Christianity came into being, genocide was an option often exercised by regimes.
It’s also worth noting that not all control is practised by religious groups. There will always be someone in charge. You might be replacing a religious-backed Royal family with an atheist, rational state such as in Russia but the repression remains the same.
In fact, I always find it a bit odd that religion gets blamed for many of today’s wars. Does anyone actually believe that the troubles in Northern Ireland actually have anything to do with religion? That is a war for independence or unity with Great Britain. If religion was disbanded tomorrow, that divide would still run strongly.
Also, it might be interesting to note this definition from dictionary.com
a·the·ism? –noun
1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
it might be simple..
all religion has their own rules..and im sure the rules is based on morality..im also sure that there are no religion that promotes genocide, or mass killing, or 1001 bad things in the world..
hence..when we follow the rules, we will, of course, living with more peaceful and harmony..the point is when there is someone who broke the rules and living with their own thought regardless what other people thinks..so this is where the problem starts..certain people agree that everything in the world exist by science but how far do they agree who creates science..? just like chicken and egg..who comes first..? still hard to crack rite..
all religions against genocide..but when there is someone who against religion and assume that genocide is the best way to control the world..so how was it..? do religions should have all to blame..?
it is not the religion who makes people thinks narrowly..but the people who breaks the rules is narrowing the scope of religions..
@The Mayor
“Arguably, of course, with atheism it would be difficult to prove the idea of genocide as ‘wrong’. If you take emotional reasoning out of the argument like the ‘beauty’ of life, sometimes you are simply presented with a problem concerning natural resources and population size.”
It’s no different to “proving” genocide is wrong if you are an atheist or religious. In order to state that genocide is wrong you need to appeal to some sort of ethical system. With Religion, if you are trying to show the wrongs of genocide, you would appeal to God, religious texts, natural law, the potential reward / punishment of an afterlife etc. As an atheist you can still have many things you can appeal to: what is ‘best’ for humanity, the value of human life, what is ‘best’ for the environment, the rewards of doing good actions, sympathy, etc etc. You can give decent “proofs” either way.
Cybrow, fair point. However..
“As an atheist you can still have many things you can appeal to: what is ‘best’ for humanity, the value of human life, what is ‘best’ for the environment, the rewards of doing good actions, sympathy, etc etc. You can give decent “proofs” either way.”
The problem is that it could be argued that genocide is the ‘best’ for humanity, and that human life is not of value. Of course, in a scientific sense, it would be difficult to argue that life has value because that is an opinion, not a fact. If it is decided that genocide would be a solution to over crowding and lack of resources, how could one argue from a scientific standpoint?
Religion, at its best, promotes the sanctity of life. That’s one thing that tends to get overlooked.
Science will take you to the moon, Religion will crash your plane into a tall building.
Squido
Science will also blow up Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
agreed, we should ditch religion
Beautifully followed there, Mike.
Let’s see, should we ditch religion? Well, let me see what the numbers say:
Religion caused 9/11 and the spanish inquisition.
Atheism caused the Great Purge, which is one of the worst moments in human history. The numbers range from 3 to 60 million. If they are the latter, that is 10 times the number of holocaust victims.
Sorry, but there is no correlation between religion and atrocity. All atrocities have been committed in the name of evil, be it religion or Atheism. Religion and Atheism are just vehicles used to create evil. Hitler used christianity to turn against the Jews, and Stalin enforced Atheism with the belief that it was nothing more than an illusion. So stop saying that religion is bad, because religion isn’t bad, people are just stupid. If you are genocidal, you are stupid. Atheism does not condone genocide, and religion does not condone genocide. When there are religions saying “god hates fags”, they are not doing something in the name of god, they are using the name of god as justification for their actions. That is not a religious thing, that is a thing that IDIOTS do.
Atheism didn't cause the great purge, it was political. There are no instances in history that I am aware of where a great atrocity has been carried out due to atheism; yet there is an abundance of inhumane behaviour carried out in the name of relgion.
However, I do not believe this is due to the essence of religion, I think it says more about the type of people who believe in religion fundamentally, instead of as an abstract guide about how to live a good life for the benefit of you're fellow animals.
“Atheism didn't cause the great purge, it was political. There are no instances in history that I am aware of where a great atrocity has been carried out due to atheism; yet there is an abundance of inhumane behaviour carried out in the name of relgion.”
Are not a lot of religious conflicts essentially political? Northern Ireland, Middle East v US, Crusades have as much to do with politics and wealth then religious differences.
“Atheism didn't cause the great purge, it was political. There are no instances in history that I am aware of where a great atrocity has been carried out due to atheism; yet there is an abundance of inhumane behaviour carried out in the name of relgion.”
Are not a lot of religious conflicts essentially political? Northern Ireland, Middle East v US, Crusades have as much to do with politics and wealth then religious differences.
calling atheism a religion is like calling baldness a hair color
Religion was not the origin of conciousness or of all these problems…but I do it believe will be the end of us if unable to focus on the real issues. No one needs to point at religion to see how it does perpetuate mankind's inherint problems. As a society we do need to stop tearing down the religions AND defending religions to really focus on what the worlds problems at hand are. No amount of faith is going to truly solve our current problems. Just mankind's desire to survive will do that. We are a global society now and survival depends on us all, not those of one religion or another. Getting past religion to do that will be one of the most difficult hurdles mankind faces.