Letter to a Christian Nation
Here are some notes I made whilst reading Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation." I am reading this in preparation for a series of lectures I will be making to high school students about Christian apologetics. I wanted to do something a little more current than Evidence That Demands a Verdict, and Know Why You Believe. So I am trying to take some of the most recent affronts to Christianity and work on some defences from them. This book was published in 2007 and represents a very prevalent idea; that Christianity like, Islam is dangerous because it breeds fanatics who depart from reason, and kill in the name of God.
My notes follow. Please be kind. They are just notes, and I'm sure they are rife with all manner of errors. This is over the first 45 pages, tomorrow I will work on the last 45. Wednesday I will gather my thoughts into some coherency and put up something respectable.
Letter to a Christian Nation
Sam Harris
Note to the Reader:
vii) "The most hostile of these communications always comes from Christians."
Guilty.
viii) "Such a person believes that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and that only those who accept
the divinity of Christ will experience salvation after death."
Who else is a Christian?
ix) "...and that the first members of our species was fashioned out of dirt and divine breath."
Is it less fantastic to believe that we came spontaneously from an ape like creature?
He finishes the note with a discussion of what he believes that Christians believe about Christ's return.
He equates the belief that the world will end with the idea that America will regress from power and ability. It
is mystifying that while I cling to the idea that a departure of faith has led to our recent demise, there is a
very popular idea that renewed faith is the true cause of the same.
No Heading:
3-5) Here Harris introduces himself by flatly stating that he is not a relativist. This is very
important, and it sets this attack apart from the majority of attacks on Christianity today.
7) "Understand that the way you view Islam is precisely the way Muslims view Christianity. And that this
is the way I view all religions." MOHAMED WAS DOCUMENTED SINNER, HE WAS, HIS PROPHECIES AND TEACHINGS CONTRADICT
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. HE THEREFORE CANNOT BE FROM GOD.
The Wisdom of the Bible:
8) "Questions of morality are questions about happiness and suffering." WRONG. QUESTIONS OF MORALITY
ARE ABOUT WHAT IS PLEASING TO GOD, AND WHAT IS NOT. HUMAN HAPPINESS AND SUFFERING (ON EARTH) HAVE LITTLE TO DO
WITH MORALITY. He continues to quote Duet 13:6, 8-15. Next he quotes Christ, that the law will stand until it is
fulfilled (Matt 5:18-19)
11) "The problem, however, is that the teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self contradictory that
it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five centuries."
13) Quotes 2 Thess 1:6-9 and John 15:6 These passages describe the vengeance of God on the non believer.
But if God is God, then vengeance is His prerogative. He is holding God up to what he believes to be good, not what
God defines as good.
15-19) He concludes this section with examples of how the Bible "condones" slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46,
Exodus 21:7-11, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Tim 6:1-4). "The moment that one recognizes that Slaves are Human beings like
himself, enjoying the same capacity for suffering and happiness, he will understand that it is patently evil to
own and treat them like farm equipment." PRECISELY. BUT MY DOGS EXPERIENCE HAPPINESS AND SUFFERING AS WELL. IS
IT PATENTLY EVIL FOR ME TO OWN THEM, AND USE WATSON TO HELP ME FIND BIRDS? THE REASON SLAVERY IS WRONG IS BECAUSE
MAN IS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. HARRIS KNOWS THIS BUT DOESN'T REALIZE IT. IF THE BIBLE IS NOT TRUE, THEN HOW
COULD WE ARGUE AGAINST SLAVERY SHORT OF BECOMING HINDU?
The Ten Commandments:
19) "The first four have nothing whatsoever to do with morality." WHOSE MORALITY? HARRIS HAS YET TO GIVE
A SOLID DEFINITION OF MORALITY OTHER THAN "WHATEVER MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY IS GOOD" IF WE DEFINE MORALITY AS "THAT
WHICH IS PLEASING TO GOD" THEN THE FIRST FOUR COMMANDMENTS ARE ABSOLUTELY MORAL.
Real Morality:
24-25)OK, NOW HE IS GOING TO DEFINE MORALITY...WELL MAYBE NOT. HE MENTIONS SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE...AND
"better and worse ways to seek happiness." He spends these pages summarizing (I think) that Humans can find a
"guide" (my word, not Harris's) to morality programed into them. He even says that chimpanzees display a loose
idea of what is "right" and what is not. But how did this get in us? Did the Cosmos in their timeless randomness
program these ideas into the world? MANY QUESTIONS HERE LEFT UNANSWERED.
25) "One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality
of human and animal suffering." HE CONTINUES TO PAGE 29 WITH A DISCUSSION OF BAD POLICY ABOUT AIDS AND HPV, AND
ATTRIBUTES IT TO CHRISTIANITY. THIS MAY BE TRUE. BUT LETS REMEMBER THAT THE REASON THERE IS SUFFERING IS BECAUSE
THERE IS SIN. WHAT CHRISTIANS DO POLITICALLY IS OFTEN MISGUIDED, AND ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL. BUT CHRISTIANS KNOW
THAT THE ONLY WAY TO EXTERMINATE SUFFERING IS TO EXTERMINATE SIN.
29-32) IS A DISCUSSION OF STEM CELL RESEARCH. I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE DETAILS, BUT HE IS GOING AT
THIS WITH THE IDEA THAT WHATEVER CAUSES THE LEAST AMOUNT OF SUFFERING IS MORAL. IF THIS IS TRUE THEN HE IS
PROBABLY RIGHT. BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT IS MORAL.
Doing Good for God:
35) Here he quotes Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great) in saying that Mother Teresa furthered poverty
by apposing the empowerment of women. But Ghandi too furthered poverty by pushing India into a textile industry
and helping Sukarno into power. He goes on to extol Mother Teresa for proclaiming that abortion is the greatest
evil we face as a society. Then he argues against this by declaring that the suffering of a fetus is less than
the suffering of others. Here he demonstrates that what is moral, is what causes the least amount of suffering.
Are Atheists Evil:
35-46) First he attempts to refute the idea that the greatest genocides of recent history happened in
atheist societies. He attempts to explain that it was the leader (Hitler, Stalin eg.) who caused the genocide,
not the atheists. But what society allowed the maniac to take power. He goes so far as to say that these
societies actually had a "cult of personality" attached to their leader. THIS CULT OF PERSONALITY COULD ONLY ARISE
IN A PLACE WHERE GOD IS ABSENT.
