My Thoughts on Sam Harris' Latest Book!
So, Sam Harris recently made waves with a polemic entitled "Letter to a Christian Nation". I won't plot-summarize here. Go to Amazon and take a look, or browse the slender tome at your nearby independent bookstore. Briefly, the book deploys Harris' thoughts on how baseless Christianity is, with special focus on how hypocritical, unreasonable and intellectually vacuous conservative evangelical Christianity is as it manifests itself in the public sphere here in America. As you can tell, my bias is showing.
Sam Harris makes me ashamed to call myself a liberal. This is further evidence in support of my comments, a few posts ago, about how the American labels, "liberal" and "conservative" have blurred into toxic vague uselessness, at least for people like me.
First, he confuses one segment of Christianity with the whole of Christianity, misusing the straw man. He even utters a diss against those of us who are "liberal" Christians, calling us various names and attempting to attack our beliefs. However, his attempt to attack Christianity falls flat for the same reason that any attack on insubstantial, faith-based realms falls flat: you can't "prove" a faith-based idea, because that is the nature of faith: it's based on the unseen, the felt, the lived, the unquantifiable experience. Harris may as well attack the use of Brahms symphonies to uplift your soul on a Friday night after a tough week. He could also attack string theory, while he's at it. Ok, I'm vent here, and that's ok, because this is my blog, and not a nationally-published slim volume.
I think Harris destroys his case through non-credible attacks. Liberals and conservatives alike seem to enjoy publishing, and then reading, the kind of rant that serves no purpose other than to stir up hate, and vague yet intoxicating feelings of superiority. So, it serves no purpose for me to closely analyze and deconstruct Harris' slender manifesto here. He, and those who agree with him, won't listen, nor read, nor have any other response than the tight shutting of their minds. And the same goes for conservative writers who pour forth their prose in opposing rants.
If writers hope to gain respect, they need to remain above the primal, playground-level ad hominem attack.
So, Sam Harris recently made waves with a polemic entitled "Letter to a Christian Nation". I won't plot-summarize here. Go to Amazon and take a look, or browse the slender tome at your nearby independent bookstore. Briefly, the book deploys Harris' thoughts on how baseless Christianity is, with special focus on how hypocritical, unreasonable and intellectually vacuous conservative evangelical Christianity is as it manifests itself in the public sphere here in America. As you can tell, my bias is showing.
Sam Harris makes me ashamed to call myself a liberal. This is further evidence in support of my comments, a few posts ago, about how the American labels, "liberal" and "conservative" have blurred into toxic vague uselessness, at least for people like me.
First, he confuses one segment of Christianity with the whole of Christianity, misusing the straw man. He even utters a diss against those of us who are "liberal" Christians, calling us various names and attempting to attack our beliefs. However, his attempt to attack Christianity falls flat for the same reason that any attack on insubstantial, faith-based realms falls flat: you can't "prove" a faith-based idea, because that is the nature of faith: it's based on the unseen, the felt, the lived, the unquantifiable experience. Harris may as well attack the use of Brahms symphonies to uplift your soul on a Friday night after a tough week. He could also attack string theory, while he's at it. Ok, I'm vent here, and that's ok, because this is my blog, and not a nationally-published slim volume.
I think Harris destroys his case through non-credible attacks. Liberals and conservatives alike seem to enjoy publishing, and then reading, the kind of rant that serves no purpose other than to stir up hate, and vague yet intoxicating feelings of superiority. So, it serves no purpose for me to closely analyze and deconstruct Harris' slender manifesto here. He, and those who agree with him, won't listen, nor read, nor have any other response than the tight shutting of their minds. And the same goes for conservative writers who pour forth their prose in opposing rants.
If writers hope to gain respect, they need to remain above the primal, playground-level ad hominem attack.
posted by Vicky at 12:58 PM
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