Response to Sam Harris on the Dangers of Religion

Image via Wikipedia

Here is an article in my series on Responding to Sam Harris on the "dangers" of Religion.




In this video, Harris is talking about how much (if not most or all) of the violence in the world can be traced back to people's competing ideas about God. I can agree with that assessment. Any time you base you ideas and life on something that is not true then you have a problem. I also agree that people do not confront the issues head on and will not criticize and evaluate the truth claims of other people's religions let alone their own. Harris seems to suggest the best solution is just to get rid of religion. I strongly disagree.

Why throw the Baby out with the bath water? If there is a true worldview shouldn't we adopt it and abandon all others? Shouldn't each religion be evaluated and critiqued to see if any of them is true? I mean what if you reject all of them and missed the true one? Or what if you pick the wrong one? I think too many people just go through the motions and never really bother to think if what they believe is true. All of the examples that Harris cites have nothing to do with what I believe or with what the Bible says. I would suggest that the truth claims for each religion should be verified where it can be and if its not up to snuff, it should be rejected. I've done this, and it could be done over and over again in different levels of detail. And when you do this, you find that Biblical Christianity where the Bible is honestly, logically, and consistently interpreted in it's own context can pass this test. All it would take is one contradiction or falsehood for a religion to fail the test. For example if there had never been a nation called the Philistines, then we know the Bible is false, but we know that they did exist. that does not prove that Christianity is true, but it does mean more research is needed. Islam says that Jesus was not crucified and died, but the Bible says He was and did. They both can't be true. History however tells us that Jesus was crucified and he did die. Some scholars say that it the most well attested fact from the first century AD. Therefore under the rules I had set, I've got to reject Islam. and it goes on like this. God ahead and try it. You may find some of these other links useful.

What If I Am Wrong