Thursday, March 15, 2007

Sam Harris: God's Dupes

Sam Harris has an op-ed in today’s L.A. Times in which he congratulates Congressman Pete Stark for his bravery in acknowledging that he does not believe in God. Given the insanity of the Christian Right in this country, this took a great deal of courage. Good for you Congressman Stark!

Here’s an excerpt from Harris’s article:
The truth is, there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave. And yet billions of people claim to be certain about such things. As a result, Iron Age ideas about everything high and low — sex, cosmology, gender equality, immortal souls, the end of the world, the validity of prophecy, etc. — continue to divide our world and subvert our national discourse. Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science, inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources.

2 comments:

zen said...

Wow, that's pretty well said.

Anonymous said...

Big Sam Harris fan here. And Richard Dawkins, and PZ Myers. I'd reached their positions before I heard of them. Really reading the Bible does that sometimes.