Thorn: Atheist author fights back

New book tells religious right: 'You're wrong'

Published October 20, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Entertainment Columns & Blogs

With the religious right ascending the pulpit of political power these past years, a backlash was probably as predictable as a sermon on Sunday morning.

But who knew it would be such a doozy? If you think God's wrath can be savage, just listen to Sam Harris:

"You believe that Christianity is an unrivaled source of human goodness," he tells readers of his new book, Letter to a Christian Nation. "You believe that Jesus taught the virtues of love, compassion, and selflessness better than any teacher who has ever lived. You believe that the Bible is the most profound book ever written . . . .

"All of these beliefs," he continues in what will surely be considered heinous blasphemy by the pious, "are false."

Light a candle, hold up a cross, throw garlic over your shoulder, Harris doesn't care. His new book is a call to arms for atheists, a handbook for nonbelievers hoping to refute faith with facts.

And he's not alone. His book comes at a time when authors' responses to the Christian right are coming out like so many Hail Marys. Many of these take on the social implications of the Christian movement. But at least two - Harris' book and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion - go after God himself, with the boldness of Zeus throwing lightning bolts.

Let's just say, the meek may inherit the earth, but they probably won't make it to the best-seller list. By contrast, Harris' book will appear at No. 6 on this Sunday's list in The New York Times, two notches ahead of Dawkins' title. Letter to A Christian Nation has gone back to press six times, for a total of 120,000 copies in print.

While that pales in comparison to the market for religious titles (the faith-based Left Behind series, for example, sold more than 62 million copies), it's an event that justifiably raises eyebrows. "I'm not aware of any atheist books doing that before now," says Harris.

I caught up with the author on the phone before a recent Boulder appearance. A student of religious traditions who holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford, Harris isn't new to the game. His 2004 book, The End of Faith, offered many of the same arguments in a much longer format.

His new book might be considered the CliffsNotes for that title. In a trim 91 pages, he fires out arguments like bullets on why religion (Christianity in particular) is not only absurd, but dangerous as well. He wrote the book, he says, to address questions that came up after the publication of his previous book.

"I also wanted to write a book that would be much shorter and streamlined and could be given to someone on the other side of the argument in the way that The End of Faith can't."

He pulls no punches. Among other commonly held beliefs, Harris disputes that:

• The Bible is a guide to morality: He calls this assertion "simply astounding." The Bible, he notes, countenances slavery, parents beating (and even killing) their children and stoning deaths for heresy, adultery, homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, and more. Of the U.S. cities with the highest rates of violent crime, 76 percent are in "red" states, largely considered most religious.

• The Bible can prophesy the future: If that were true, he writes, it would speak with more omniscience. "You would expect it to contain a passage such as 'In the latter half of the 20th century, humankind will develop a globally linked system of computers - the principles of which I set forth in Leviticus - and this system shall be called the Internet.'"

• God is an intelligent designer: Au contraire,he says. The natural world contains ridiculous creatures: "flightless birds and snakes with pelvises"; species of fish, salamanders, and crustaceans with nonfunctional eyes, "because they continued to evolve in darkness for millions of years" and so on - all anomalies that can be easily explained by evolution.

Such assertions are fighting words in many circles, and if his e-mail box is any indication, Harris has clearly hit a nerve. He estimates he has more than 10,000 messages in his in-box - "maybe 20,000." Most, he insists, are supportive, but those that aren't often come in all capital letters and with a hostile edge. As he pointedly notes in his book: "The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism."

In this age of polarized politics, I couldn't help myself: I wanted to peg Harris. Is he liberal or conservative? He quite nicely obliged, noting he generally supports liberal causes. But that doesn't mean his views on religion will please only one side of the political aisle, he cautioned.

Ironically, on some issues he relates best to Christian fundamentalists. Liberals, for example, tend to ascribe recent Muslim violence to a reaction to America's "misadventures" in Iraq. Harris puts the blame, instead, on the religion itself.

"The problem is that liberals and moderates don't know what it's like to be certain of God. They lose touch with the fact that millions of people are certain of these facts . . . I think liberals are dangerously out of touch with the death cult brewing in the Muslim world and how religion is at its bottom."

That's an idea Christian fundamentalists can warm to - until Harris leads them into a broader discussion. "When you turn the conversation to Christianity," he says, "we run into a ditch."

Harris' book is a fast read, filled with arguments you've heard before, though presented with admirable and engaging passion. It isn't likely to convince the faithful, who have shunned such ideas as far back as the Crusades.

Still, you have to give the author credit for bringing up such a taboo topic in today's climate. And even if he's preaching to the choir, he says, the effort is worthwhile. He has received praise, he says, from "people in the reddest of red states who often said they'd never met anyone who openly doubts the perfect truth of the Bible . . . people expressing relief to know that they're not alone in the universe."

They'll have more company soon. Christopher Hitchens' title God is Not Great is expected in 2007.

Keep one eye on the sky for frogs and locusts - and another, dare I say it, on that holy arbiter of the publishing businesses: the best-seller list.

On the subject

Other new titles reacting to the current influence of religion in politics:

• Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right, by Mel White (Tarcher, $24.95)

• Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom, by Barry W. Lynn (Harmony, $24)

• The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege, by Damon Linker (Doubleday, $26)

• A World Ignited: How Apostles of Ethnic, Religious, and Racial Hatred Torch the Globe, by Martin and Susan J. Tolchin (Rowman & Littlefield, $24.95)

• Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority From the Religious Right, by Bob Edgar (Simon & Schuster, $25)

Patti Thorn is the books editor. thornp@RockyMountainNews.com 303-954-5419.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News