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Sam Harris And The End Of Faith: A Muslim's Critical Response

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I was very disappointed to find Whitehouse continually and emptily asserting that Harris' rationalistic approach to factual claims is itself a form of faith. This does not apply to our experience with reality, as when for example a friend tells you that you probably have diabetes mellitus type 2--you don't just accept that this is true at face value; in fact, if you take it seriously at all, you go to the doctor and ask for verification and medical tests to show whether or not you've got it. This is not a form of faith, Bill. It is a solid approach to evaluating truth statements. Faith, to the contrary, is belief that does not rely on logical proof--a basic dicitionary definition, and also I believe the kind of faith that Harris and the "new atheists" refer to (how are they so different from the old atheists, by the way?). Harris' point is that the alternative form of thinking--believing in things without logical proof--leads to chaos and vacuousness and not infrequently promotes tribalism and violence. This is because where there is no logical standard of proof, all truth claims are equal. It is incumbent upon claimants who make statements of fact to show with evidence and argumentation that something is necessarily the case. I do not agree with many of Harris's statements but I believe the approach he takes is much more conducive to human happiness than saying sacred book X or Y is truly inspired by God, leaving all sorts of lunatics to misinterpret the holy books, as Whitehouse repeatedly points out that others (but not himself of course) are misinterpreting the Quran ("hermeneutical" is his favorite word). Isn't it terrible that such infallible sacred texts, presumably intended by the Creator for all humanity to follow, would be open to such easy, frequent and maniacal misinterpretations?

As a footnote, the reader should be advised that Mr. Whitehouse also questions the official story of 9-11 and feels that a rationalistic approach should consider the possibility that others, perhaps inside the US government, were involved in those mass murders. Many of the examples that he gives of evidence for this contention have already been disproven elsewhere but again, in Whitehouse's world, insisting on good evidence for truth claims is not a high priority and just another form of faith.

I was tempted to call this book worthless, but it may not be that. While it does not provide practically anything to prove any of the original claims in The End of Faith false, its complementary theories to the reasons of the current instability of the Middle East sound plausible and may offer some new insight.

From the title I expected an attack on Mr. Harris' principles, but although Mr. Whitehouse forms his text in a manner that suggest that he disagrees with Mr. Harris, reading the text actually shows that they agree on nearly all significant issues. The rest is mere bickering about relatively insignificant details.

To provide some examples, both are of the opinion that religious texts should not be interpreted literally. Mr. Whitehouse's solution is to live according to the general guidelines of religious articles, while Mr. Harris seems more apt to follow a wider range of philosophers and common sense. Both men acknowledge that the ancient scriptures have been edited by humans after their initial writing, and thus should not be taken as the word of a god. Both of them agree that we don't have to accept harmful behavior from anyone, no matter if they claim the reasons to be rooted in religion or not. They also seem to agree that people should be open to scientific evidence, even if it might contradict what is written in their scriptures.

One of the only things the writers seem to disagree on is the probability of the existence of a supernatural being. Mr. Whitehouse claims to believe in the existence, while Mr. Harris will only believe when conclusive, irrefutable evidence has been found. I find Mr. Whitehouse's demands for evidence on things like god's non-existence highly unreasonable. The burden of proof should be on the party that has a claim, rather than on the party that does not believe the claim. If I asserted that there is intelligent life on a certain planet 28 light-years from the Earth, it would be me who would have to provide the evidence, rather than the astronomers to disprove the claim. If science worked in this perverse manner, nothing would ever get done.

This rebuttal was wordy and mostly incoherent. The writer spent more time stating that Sam Harris was wrong than what should have been right.

All right folks, move along...nothing to see here. Certainly no arguments that would show any understanding of Sam Harris' book. Calling Sam Harris "intolerant" towards relgion shows a lack of understanding of the word. Sam Harris would have to go a long, long way to show the kind of intolerance that athiests have had to endure over the centuries and still endure today in many countries.

Trying to turn Mr. Harris' arguments back on him does, in no way, tender an excuse for a belief in a god or a religion. Nothing new here folks...move along.

The time is long past due to wake up to the fact that we (a collective human consciousness) is going through an awakening in which old Iron Age beliefs are simply not sustainable in today's high tech world. Many people are awakening to a new vision in which old world beliefs show themselves for what they are, a left over evolutionary way of processing thoughts. After all, what is a belief? A belief is simply "pretending you know something that most people know is Unknowable" at least at this point. It's simple...if you know something through experience or repeated tests and evidence, then you "know it" until someone proves differently, if you don't know it, then you "don't know".

I stopped believing in Santa Clause when I was old enough to realize that reindeer don't fly. I don't mean to be condescending to the author but really...grow up and catch up with the 21st Century...please, for our grandchildren's sake.

Rahasya Poe, Lotus Guide Magazine and Author of "To Believe Or Not To Believe: The Social & Neurological Consequences of Belief Systems"

This book is too polite.
The only reason I started to read any of this stuff is I kept getting insults, ridicule, profanity and more from people on the web who clearly tell you how stupid you are and how they are superior as atheists.

I like to put a good Sam Harris statement in context as a very easy High School or 101 level College essay topic. Take this statement: :" The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas." Place this quote in the context of the US internment of Japanese during WWII. Extra credit, compare and contrast the rise and fall of Nazi doctrine, power, and politics with that of historic
Islamic civilizations and cultures, the French Revolution, or the Spanish Inquisition.
You have to keep the topics in stark B&W contrast for the kids after all. Especially since the new atheists have them convinced that things like the Spanish Inquisition are recent history and are still a big threat to Western Civ.
I also like the absurdly simplistic reduction of something as complicated as fanaticism (unaware that perhaps this behavior may not be uniquely Muslim) to "what is, at bottom, a war of ideas." Obviously. Clearly the Taliban operate solely on inspiration from the Koran and their religion in a social, political and economic void fighting against the Religious ideas of the West, ideas which are similarly at the root of the conflict. Some of the most stupid garbage I think I have ever read. That is saying alot as I find stupid garbage pretty amusing. So that is my thumbs up for Prof. Sam.
On the thumbs down side and why this particular book could be more hard hitting, Harris is so stupid that he manages to provide Islamic radicals with at least some basis for pointing out how they can justify Fatwah. Starting with him thank you very much, for all Muslims who might be a bit justifiably angry at this point. That is no small feat. Generally we regard Fatwahs as being completely unjustified, irrational theocratic throwbacks. Anger at cartoons, that kind of thing. By Sam Harris rationale, if you can call it that, you or I could decide to issue our own Fatwah equivalent against him because we feel his ideas are too dangerous and a threat to what we decide is critical, lets say because they are contrary to our vision of world peace. Much less if you really ARE Islamic and sick of dealing with the Sam Harris kind of arrogant western BS, and Muslims do unfortunately have to read this stuff. The Muslim critical response here really goes out of the way to be rational in this book which is much more that you can say for Sam Harris.
The critical response here does have a nice dry sarcastic tone. If that is a characteristic of Sufi humor I enjoy it. Especially as an alternative to everything being stated as the most extreme inflammatory hyperbole and sophomoric generalizations like "Thousands of years have passed since any Western philosopher imagined that a person should be made happy, peaceful or wise, in the ordinary sense by his search for truth." Harris really likes the word "thousands" by the way. A book so over the top with everything from extremism to absurdity and new age babble really is not worthy of a thoughful treatment. A repsonse of 'Shut up Stupid!' or an eraser throw if you had a Sam Harris in your classroom is more like it.

Though I am neither Muslim nor an atheist, I found the book `Sam Harris and the End of Faith' an interesting and thought-provoking examination of some of the central ideas that revolve about the issues of faith, reason, and belief. While Whitehouse's book does tend to focus on critiquing what Harris has to say about Islam and Muslims, nonetheless, Whitehouse takes time to stress how there is a difference between, on the one hand, what he calls "toxic faith systems" that, unfortunately, are present in some individual interpretations of religious theology and which frequently play destructive roles within society, and, on the other hand, those faith systems which seek to be constructive and are positive forces within the community. Clearly, Whitehouse is of the belief that constructive forms of faith, irrespective of the specific nature of the religious traditions through which they arise, are very important to humanity. I also was somewhat surprised with the way in which Whitehouse was critical of not only Sam Harris, but, as well, certain facets of the Muslim community and the manner in which some of the latter individuals are far too rigid, dogmatic, and oppressive in their approaches to Islam.

This is a wonderful and much-needed book. The Islamophobia industry is working overtime these days, churning out false-flag terror attacks and other lies on a regular basis, and the people who should be able to see through it easily -- educated folks with a capacity for critical thinking -- are being lulled into utter mindlessness by propagandists who play on the secularist/atheist animus against religion of those well-educated in a purely secularist mode. The military-industrial complex fascists and their hard-line Zionist partners in crime have poured billions of dollars into their propaganda campaign against Islam, and people like Sam Harris and his uncritical readers are their witting or unwitting dupes.

Whitehouse's book is a thorough and convincing rejoinder to Harris. I agree almost entirely with its principles -- though I don't go quite as far as Whitehouse in downgrading the ahadith, since I haven't seen the evidence he cites. (Note to non-Muslims: The two sources of Islamic scripture are Qur'an and ahadeeth, the latter being reports of the words of the Prophet saas. Whitehouse strongly favors the former over the latter, arguing that the Prophet saas explicitly told his followers to destroy written reports of his sayings, because the real divine message was the Qur'an.)

Also, I may be paying too much attention to empirical reality and not enough to principles, but it seems to me that Whitehouse grants Harris a bit too much in conceding that the Islamic fundamentalist obscurantism Harris identifies with Islam is a huge problem. In the larger scheme of things, if we consider the scope of the kinds of "fundamentalist" abuses Harris attacks, I'm not sure they're all that large, compared to other abuses in the world. I've noticed that many Sufis, who may have had problems with anti-Sufi Muslim obscurantists/pedants, have bought into the exaggerated critique of "Islamic fundamentalism" post-9/11 based on their personal experience. So having read this book at the same time as Kaasem Khaleel's Wrongly Blamed, which is also brilliant but goes a bit too far in the other direction (blaming Zionists for everything) I think the reality may be somewhere in between. But this book is thoughtful, temperate, and wisdom-flavored, and would be ideal for non-Muslim readers of Harris, as well as for thoughtful Muslims. Overall it is a first-rate effort from one of America's most perceptive Muslim thinkers.
-Kevin Barrett, author, Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters

Anyone interested in the topic of faith and/or atheism who also wants to learn more about Islam (the real Islam, not what is portrayed in the western media or represented by closed-minded fundamentalists of all stripes, whether they be atheists, Christians, Muslims, et cetera) would benefit from reading this thoughtful and fair review of Sam Harris' book.

Dr. Whitehouse has once again demonstrated his brilliant and fair appraisal of a work presented by one whose work is much inferior to his own. Religion is not spirituality. While it easy for one who has experienced the rarity of true spiritual experience to understand the intellectual demise of an atheist, it is nearly impossible for an atheist to understand or give impartial comment on true spiritual knowledge and experience. It's a bit like a color blind person writing on the falsity of the color red. Dr. Whitehouse with wisdom and intelligence has shone the light on the absurd notions and conclusions set forth in Mr. Harris' book. May he continue to write and lead us to a higher view of an eternal landscape.