The Day in 2005 Sam Harris Brutally Told the Truth to Church Congregation

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-06

[00:00:00]Religious fundamentalists really think that God is letting people fly planes into our buildings because we're tolerating gay marriage. Now, we may question the wisdom and the desiraability of the Buddhist response, the this emphasis on compassion. I'm absolutely open to argument on this subject. And if you read my book, you'll discover I'm not a pacifist.

[00:00:23]But what I'm not open to argument on is this taboo that prevents us from noticing the difference between a doctrine of compassion and a doctrine of jihad.

[00:00:43]The the truth is in the Muslim world, we even see people who haven't suffered much of anything willing to spend their lives trying to figure out how to kill as many non-combatants as possible. You know, Osama bin Laden is really the the reductio adabsurdum of any argument that suggests that you need to be insane or poor or the victim of oppression to take up jihad.

[00:01:12]So this is an extraordinary circumstance we're in. We we have certain religious beliefs leading to the most nihilistic violence.

[00:01:21]What what could be more nihilistic than blowing yourself up in a crowd of children and having your mother approve of it.

[00:01:34]This is the situation we're in.

[00:01:44]Now, I really want to nail this down because many of you are are very likely still to believe, no, no, no, no. Islam is a religion of peace.

[00:01:54]These are these are economic and political issues. This is a result of the misadventures of of American foreign policy. America has a tremendous amount to apologize for in the world. There is no doubt, but this is a separate issue.

[00:02:11]Yes, they're related, but this is a separate issue.

[00:02:16]There is no possibility that we will ever have a problem with Jane suicide bombers.

[00:02:23]In so far as a Jane becomes more and more religious, even more and more deranged by his religious dogmas, he will become less and less violent. The doctrine of Janism is a is a doctrine of total pacifism. Janes drink every sip of water. Observant Janes drink every sip of water through cheesecloth so that they won't sm swallow a bug. They they sweep the the path upon which they walk so that they won't step on ants. They can scarcely figure out how to live in this world. They're so nonviolent.

[00:02:54]So if you don't think religion is the difference that makes the difference, you have to explain the James So where does that leave us?

[00:03:16]We have the situation where religious beliefs are inevitably dividing one community from another because they're incompatible.

[00:03:30]We have religious beliefs and the and the sheer divisions among communities leading to violence.

[00:03:38]And the most reasonable people in our societies, societies in the west, moderates and secularists are constrained by taboos from talking about this.

[00:03:55]We have really medieval superstitions deciding social policy in 21st century America.

[00:04:06]And what I argue in my book is that we cannot sufficiently criticize the encroach of medievalism and the spread of fundamentalism because of the lip service we pay to faith because of the validity we accord in our discourse.

[00:04:25]There's no one in the one in the White House press corps who can stand up when the president says something like we need common sense judges. I'm quoting now. We need common sense judges who realize that our rights are derived from God. And these are the kinds of judges I plan to put on the bench. Okay? No one in the White House press court can stand up and say, "Uh, Mr. President, how is that any different from needing common sense judges who understand that our rights are derived from Poseidon or Zeus?"

[00:05:00]Okay, that would be the the last question that journalist ever asks.

[00:05:08]And needless to say, we cannot possibly elect a president who openly doubts the existence of God.

[00:05:15]Openly doubts the existence of a personal God, who can hear our prayers, who takes an interest in our affairs.

[00:05:24]70% of Americans believe that it is important to have a president who is strongly religious.

[00:05:33]Over 50% of Americans claim to find atheists highly disagreeable.

[00:05:45]Now, I think we can all agree that if anyone was dying on account of Zeus, if people were organizing their lives around different dogmas about Mount Olympus, if books were being written trying to explain and constrain science in light of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this would be an obscene misuse of human I mean, it's but it's not like someone figured out in the third century that Zeus doesn't exist, but the biblical God does. That's not a discovery that anyone made.

[00:06:28]This is the situation we are in.

[00:06:34]People are dying for an imaginary God and we are not talking about it.

[00:06:44]I mean, you can read the the newspaper for a year and not be reminded that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a religious conflict. It is always framed as a conflict over land. It is only about land because the religious beliefs are incompatible.

[00:07:01]The the theological claims on the real estate are incompatible.

[00:07:11]And moderates like yourselves are uniquely unable to appreciate the the link between religious dogma and violence.

[00:07:24]You are blinded by your own moderation.

[00:07:30]When when the jihadi looks into the video camera and says, "We love death more than the infidel loves life." and then blows himself up.

[00:07:41]The religious dogmatists on our side, the Jerry Fwells of the world, they have no problem understanding that he was being quite candid.

[00:07:51]He really did have the courage of his convictions. This was not propaganda.

[00:07:56]He went to paradise, or so he thought.

[00:08:00]Turns out he has the wrong religion, but he was after the 72 virgins.

[00:08:09]So, one thing I argue in my book is that it's time we took these people at their word. They're telling us what they believe. And I don't know I don't know how many architects and mechanical engineers need to hit the wall at 400 mph before we take them at their word.

[00:08:26]Faith asks people to accept huge claims without real evidence. And that becomes dangerous when those claims control law, morality, and violence.

[00:08:35]Science changes when the evidence changes. Religion often protects belief even when reality says otherwise.

[00:08:43]Christianity has the same problem. The Bible says, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword." In Matthew 10:34 and Luke 14:26 says, "A disciple must hate even family to follow Jesus." When sacred texts teach absolute loyalty, people can excuse almost anything.

[00:09:03]Prayer studies have not shown supernatural healing power and one major heart surgery study found intercessory prayer did not improve recovery.

[00:09:16]So what is the alternative to religious faith?

[00:09:23]Now there are two answers to this. First the first answer is it's the wrong question to ask. Either God exists or he doesn't.

[00:09:33]If he doesn't exist, then we would be better off not believing in him.

[00:09:43]And what what is the alternative to a belief in Santa Claus?

[00:09:48]The answer really is nothing. Now, it's not that a belief in Santa Claus was doing nothing for a child. You know, a child is entranced and consoled and interested and happy that Santa Claus exists.

[00:10:01]You take the belief away. You've taken something away. You haven't replaced it with something. But whatever conspired to make the belief untenable, perhaps he saw that it was his present, his his parents wrapping the presents.

[00:10:19]The belief disappears. And we all know that no one wants to be the last kid in class who believes in Santa Claus. And imagine how untenable the position of a child would be if he if he claimed not to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He claimed to have found a moderate position on Santa Claus and he could keep the sleigh and the elves but but jettison the guy in the suit.

[00:10:51]So the first answer to the question, what are the alternatives to faith?

[00:10:56]There don't have to be alternatives. If these beliefs are false, if they're untenable, we can relinquish them as many countries in Western Europe have done. Only 10% of Swedes, 10 to 15% are believers of the sort we recognize in the States.

[00:11:17]Incidentally, 83% of Americans believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead.

[00:11:27]Now, again, it may seem insane. It may seem counterproductive.

[00:11:32]It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater to just say we can relinquish these beliefs without an alternative.

[00:11:38]But let me remind you about how easy it is to see the wisdom of this when we simply change the word God to Zeus.

[00:11:47]No one is feeling that we should be maybe we should hold on to Zeus.

[00:11:54]You know, when when we woke up the day after Christmas and turned on our televisions and saw that a killing wall of water had swept multitudes off the beaches of 12 countries, Nobody said, you know, I think maybe we should be praying to Poseidon.

[00:12:15]You know, it's just we just cover our bases.

[00:12:24]But another way of answering this question is that yes, clearly there are alternatives to faith.

[00:12:32]But whatever our spiritual possibilities are, they have to transcend culture and tradition. Whatever is true ultimately transcends culture and tradition.

[00:12:44]There is a very good reason why we don't talk about Christian physics or Muslim algebra.

[00:12:51]though the Christians invented physics as we know it as we know the Jews brought it to the next level but we don't talk about the cultural context in which these disciplines arose because there really is a there there really are legitimate domains of knowledge that transcend culture an experiment done in Los Angeles is going to work just like an experiment done in Baghdad if it in fact it really is teasing out some real truth about the nature of the world.

[00:13:34]Now, contemplatives in a variety of religious traditions have looked into the connection between how we use our attention and human happiness, how we behave among others, ethics and human happiness.

[00:13:51]There's a lot of wisdom in our religious traditions on these subjects, but invariably this testimony is mingled with dogma.

[00:14:05]There's no doubt that doing the Jesus prayer for 18 hours a day is going to radically transform your moment to moment experience of the world, very likely for the better.

[00:14:18]A Christian doing this practice will interpret these changes, these positive changes as a confirmation of Christian dogma, as a confirmation of the idea that Jesus really was the son of God, for instance.

[00:14:34]Now, it seems to me that there's a cure for this kind of provincialism.

[00:14:39]You only have to read about the identical experiences of Hindus to realize that the the conclusion that Jesus Jesus is the son of God is not the best interpretation of the data of your even of your own experience as a Christian.

[00:14:55]So the challenge for us as I see it is to find ways about t ways for talking about our deepest personal concerns about the inevitability of death about the inevitability of human suffering about whatever we can do to transcend suffering.

[00:15:14]Deepen communities.

[00:15:17]Use ritual to talk about all of this in terms that don't demand belief in anything on insufficient evidence.

[00:15:33]Because reason and evidence are our only link to one another.

[00:15:44]Our fundamental openness to evidence is the only thing that guarantees the human conversation is truly open-ended.

[00:15:56]And that said, I'd like to thank you for listening to my side of it. Thank you very much.

[00:16:08]questions.

[00:16:13]We're going to ask those who wish to ask questions to line up behind the microphone here. Uh and uh I'd like to begin and then Reverend Swopee of IUC will be making uh we'll be asking a question and then we really invite everyone here to comment. Uh Sam, your uh your critique of religion was chillingly clear, very precise. Uh, I don't think anyone would doubt that most of it is true. Uh, I was thinking that the one line you used was even more provocative than your provocative title for your book. And you said, "People are dying because of a belief in an imaginary god." That would have been a more provocative title for the book.

[00:16:54]Here's the problem. Christianity asks for special treatment instead of evidence. If Zeus, Thor, or Poseidon sound fake, then the Christian God has to meet the same test. The resurrection is the center of the faith. And even Paul says Christianity collapses if it never happened.

[00:17:12]But dead bodies do not rise in biology.

[00:17:16]Powerful feelings do not prove truth either because every religion has them.

[00:17:20]That means Christianity is not proven.

[00:17:23]It is inherited belief protected from normal questioning.

[00:17:27]>> Uh you spoke about religious moderates.

[00:17:30]That's about as far as you took it to the left. I would dare say that most of us in this room are religious liberals and and we think most of us we think of God the term God many of I don't want to say most because I don't know everybody in the room but many of us think of God that term as a metaphor for a force or power inside people that lead them to goodness to being caring and loving people pe a as a path towards fulfillment self-actualization altruism that's how God or godliness works through us. Right? And we don't think of texts as coming from God, but rather being human products where human beings wrote those texts asserting what they thought was the highest and truest in their era. But for us, the texts raise questions, not give answers. We don't think of the Torah as a giant Ouija board, you know, that we open up and it has answers.

[00:18:31]So my question for you is what should liberal religionists do in the face of these alarming numbers statistics you quoted about the number of religious fundamentalists and some truly uh scary beliefs about reality?

[00:18:51]What should liberal Jews and Christians and people of other faiths do uh to combat that level of what I would call spiritual ignorance? It might be religious faith, but it's spiritual and intellectual ignorance.

[00:19:11]>> Can you hear me for this one?

[00:19:15]>> Well, really what I I'm arguing for I'm arguing for a kind of intolerance there.

[00:19:21]There's no way around it. But it is conversational intolerance. I'm arguing for new rules of conversation.

[00:19:29]You know, this is not the intolerance that gave us the goolog in the former Soviet Union.

[00:19:35]I'm not advocating that people be jailed for believing the wrong thing about God.

[00:19:39]But I'm arguing that the rules that apply in every other area of our lives apply on matters of faithly apply on matters of of spirituality and ethics and the kinds of claims people make under the ages of religion.

[00:19:58]Take one example stem cell research.

[00:20:04]Now, you can be a senator standing on the floor of the Senate saying things like, "God creates life. Man should not meddle in it."

[00:20:15]The end end of argument. That's the ethical argument.

[00:20:21]As I said, faith is a conversation stopper. As long as you don't have to give real reason and real arguments for your position, then the sky's is the limit. you just you can stand in the way of what is undoubtedly one of the most promising lines in biology of research as far as generating medical therapies and you can stand there smuggly and stupidly as a college educated politician and undoubtedly not lose any sleep over it. I mean it's not that these people are are sinister. They they have their beliefs but their their beliefs are arising in a context that is not criticizing them that is not putting them to the kinds of challenges that we put beliefs in any other area of our lives. So the stem cell research conversation should go more like this.

[00:21:13]We should talk about what these human embryos that will be destroyed in stem cell research really are. A human blastoyst, a three-day old embryo is a collection of 150 cells.

[00:21:28]That may sound like a lot of cells.

[00:21:30]There are 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly.

[00:21:35]Okay, we're talking about 150 cells arranged in a sphere without any nervous system.

[00:21:42]These this this collection of cells is not discernably human in any way apart from its genome.

[00:21:50]And the interests of these cells are being used to trump really the interests of little girls with diabetes and men and women with Parkinson's disease, people with full body burns and and and a score of other scores really of other conditions that could very likely be remediated if stem cell research proceeded completely without hindrance. Now, stem cell research is not outlawed, as you know. It's just being impeded by lack of funding. But 35% of Americans want it outlawed.

[00:22:29]35% of Americans, you know, you can raise the bar as high as you want on the side of benefit. No matter what possible benefit we could get from stencil research, those are those are souls. Those blasts are are fully insolled and souls are equivalent. So what I'm arguing is that religious moderates can't stand for this discourse and I think it's a it's a very difficult game to play as a religious moderate because as long as you want to dignify the claim that it makes sense to organize your life around the Bible say because it really is such a good book uniquely inscribed in our tradition uniquely wise then you really have very little to very little purchase on a criticism of the people who are going to take the Bible far more literally because the Bible doesn't say don't take me literally on this. God doesn't say when when you get to the new world and you develop your three branches of government, you can jettison all the barbarism I talked about in Leviticus.

[00:23:44]>> Thanks Sam. Uh for those of you who don't know me, I'm Steve Swope, pastor for the interim at Irvine United Congregational Church. And and uh as an introduction, I want to say again to Arie that we are thrilled to continue this long relationship and particularly to be part of this discussion. I would invite any of you who are interested in asking questions to begin forming a line at the microphones. It looks like Arie and I are are monopolizing things here, but we really don't mean to. Sam, I I appreciate the enormous amount of research and and thought that you put into this project. One of the things that we have been talking about at Irvine United Congregational is how we might begin really a conversation with uh Christians of other faith styles of fundamentalist Christians, evangelical Christians because one of the things that we discover uh on a regular basis as progressive liberal Christians is that we get shut down. Christianity is about X. It's about signing on to a list of belief statements. Uh, and you don't buy the whole package and you're damned for all eternity.

[00:24:57]And it seems to us that there ought to be some other way of of con of conceptualizing our faith, but there ought to be a way to to translate progressive religious concepts into a common language. and and one of the things that that that I appreciate about your book and your comments is that you really throw it out there. But the thing that I'm concerned about um with my own experience of discussion with with fundamentalist and conservative Christians is that it's real easy to shut the dialogue off as well. And and I fear that as constructive as you desire to be um that the door the door would easily be closed with the kind of approach that that you seem to be taking.

[00:25:49]>> How can we maintain an openness so that we begin can begin to discuss and and develop the kind of common uh approach that you'd like to have?

[00:25:59]>> Religion becomes dangerous when it gets a veto over science. Look at stem cell research. A blastoyst is about 150 cells with no brain, no nervous system, and no ability to feel pain. Yet, Christian politics treated it like a full person while real patients with diabetes, burns, and Parkinson's were waiting for better treatments. That is not morality.

[00:26:23]That is theology blocking medicine. If an argument needs God says so to survive, it has already failed the evidence test. Right. Right.

[00:26:34]Well, I see your point. I've had uh this attempt at dialogue that has been this book and and subsequent communication about the book has demonstrated to me that yeah, it it is a it is a challenge given how radical my criticism of faith faith is to meet people. It's not a matter of meeting people halfway. I really, as you see this, I really think it's an all or nothing game here. And I think that we have 50 years to uh 50 years more or less to sort this out given the given the spread of of uh of the weapons of of mass destruction and just disruptive technology, you know, just just the ability to write a computer virus that confounds a country for some days. you know this we are being so pressed together by technology now and this that the pace of this consolidation of our world is only increasing so I I don't think we have a lot of time and I am mindful of how of the effect of my criticism on people and the truth is I think it would be a terrible thing if the president of the United States suddenly started speaking the way I speak we cannot he the president cannot get up and say, "We're at war with Islam. I got news for you."

[00:28:04]But we need a clear appraisal of our situation in the world. And I don't hear that appraisal coming from religious moderates and religious liberals. And I don't see the purchase point theologically where they can stand and say, "Listen, guys, you have it wrong because your interpretation is is false." that because that's really what it is. There is nothing more sacred than the facts. There's nothing more sacred than the truth. And we have rival conceptions of what is true.

[00:28:37]Religious fundamentalists really think that God is letting people fly planes into our buildings because we're tolerating gay marriage.

[00:28:46]Okay. So it seems to me that to combat that, you really need a place to stand where you can argue about about how unseammly that view of the world is in in logical terms, in factual terms, and in moral terms.

[00:29:01]But and this is where I I think you're you're going uh and this is really where I can meet you halfway. I think there is a a huge role for people who talk the talk you talk. I mean that that my language is not really fashioned for export very well and and and we need religious moderates who find some way to articulate the traditional game of religion in ways that are not offensive to reason and in ways that do not distort our social policies. But it it has to be much more radical than it seems to be. And it, you know, it's a real challenge. I I am someone who wrote this book and gives talks like this really without any hope that I'm going to make a bit of difference. There's just no I I just can't.

[00:30:03]This these are the noises I make when I open my mouth. But there's there it's not based on any expectation that it's really going to change the world in any sense at all.

[00:30:13]Well, I I hope you do make a difference.

[00:30:15]You mentioned that 10% of people in Sweden are believers and that the trend in Europe seems to be going in a more secular direction. Could you talk a little bit about why in this country the trend seems to be in the opposite direction if that's true and why why that is?

[00:30:37]>> Right.

[00:30:38]Well, the trend, you know, religiosity, fundamentalist religiosity became very visible obviously in this last election, but the trend has really been stable for many many years. We the Gallup polling on religious conviction in this country has really been flat for 80 years or so since they they've been doing it. The you ask questions like, "Do you believe that Satan literally exists?" 65% of Americans say yes. And that's been true, you know, give or take a few percentage points for for decades. So, uh, the question about Sweden and and Western Europe in general is interesting. There there are some theories about it. I don't know what really explains it. One one theory is that when you have state religions, when you have no marketplace that that requires the the competition among denominations, then religion kind of gets oified and uncarismatic and people stop going to church. Whereas here we have this marketplace of religions and everyone is hanging up a shingle and then you have this vibrant uh you know ecosystem of ignorance.

[00:31:51]to mix metaphors therapy.

[00:31:54]>> Thanks.

[00:31:54]>> But I I'm not entirely satisfied with that hypothesis about Western Europe.

[00:32:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. Sam, thank you for for all this. I'm one of your one of your pen pals on email. I based part of my um dissertation on my essay paper on you.

[00:32:11]Uh for a uh a secular humanist such as myself, what value, if any, does the uh Bible have in in our lives, in my life?

[00:32:24]>> Well, I think it has the same value as Shakespeare has.

[00:32:28]>> It's not written as well.

[00:32:30]>> Well, yeah. Parts of it are written very well. C you know Shakespeare this is a line in my book but you it's it's strange that Shakes that God made Shakespeare a better writer than himself. That should be troubling to us.

[00:32:46]So yeah it's literature. I would look at it as literature.

[00:32:51]>> Okay. Thank you.

[00:32:52]>> And and there's a lot of wisdom in it.

[00:32:53]You know the Bible the Bible would not be the Bible. It would not have influenced us as much as it has if it if there were nothing in there.

[00:33:03]>> Well, it's a moral template, but uh I wonder if it's a good template really.

[00:33:08]>> Well, you take Jesus in half his moods and it's it's about as good as you get.

[00:33:12]you know, the the golden rule and uh much of what was said on the mount. It's Jesus that the the literary Jesus, if that was in fact the historical Jesus, that there's no doubt that Jesus was a spiritual genius. There's no doubt that he had realized something really profound about the link between ethics and spiritual experience. But he's one of thousands.

[00:33:40]This is the other thing that's quite surprising when you get into Eastern religion. When you read the Buddhist cannon, you it is just the wealth of testimony about compassion and about uh the possibilities of ordinary people realizing the most profound insights that any mystic ever articulated. This is has been sketched out in the east in a way that is really quite comprehensive and uh and there there are shards of that in every tradition. You know in Islam you have Roomie the great Sufi poet who was an absolute genius and clearly seeing the world with shocking clarity and occasionally mentioning the Quran or or Allah as the touchstone for his vision.

[00:34:37]But there's just this there's a capacity of the human mind to realize deeper and redeeming truths about the present moment.

[00:34:46]uh and every one of our religions has been the the vehicle of discussing that th those kinds of realizations. But there is so much other stuff dogmatism and so many other commitments, ideological commitments in these traditions that uh you know the if the baby's in that bathwater uh he's not doing too well. Thanks.

[00:35:15]>> Moderate religion tries to soften the Bible, but that exposes the problem.

[00:35:20]If the book is truly from God, why does it need modern people to rescue it from itself?

[00:35:26]Leviticus 2013 calls for death over samesex relations. Exodus 21 gives rules for owning slaves. Deuteronomy 22 28-29 treats a violated woman like property to be paid for. That is not timeless wisdom. That is ancient human morality dressed up as divine truth. The Bible may have poetry, stories, and a few good ideas, but Shakespeare has that, too.

[00:35:54]Literature is not evidence from God.

[00:35:59]>> Hello. Thank you for coming to speak with us this evening. Um, I have a few questions. Hoping you can articulate on them. Though I don't have a fully organized question. I'm just going to kind of throw things out if that's okay and do what you will with them. Um my first comment or question is you you mentioned that spirituality must transcend culture. Uh and you also mentioned the benefit of perhaps of community and whatnot. Uh, is there a viable future for a community-based spirituality that is expressed other than a religious organization that perhaps could uh project a universal maxim or whatever around the world at best achieving a universal utopia and most more realistically perhaps uh achieving open dialogue. Can you think of any opportunity that would come about for that for perhaps liberal people like ourselves who are more religious persuaded? And my second question is um going along the idea of perhaps eastern Buddhist philosophies being healthier or more advanced than western. um given the fact that there are some expressions of Buddhist fundamentalism that we see including patriarchy and misogynistic expressions and also secular ideologies and their uh disruptive technology perhaps that in general they sell to religious fundamentalists.

[00:37:22]So to tie things up, my main question is if religion is accountable for religious fundamentalism, can secularism be accountable for secular ideological fundamentalism that we get perhaps in Lenin and Stalin or Nazism or whatever that have been responsible for so many wars. So >> okay, >> I think >> yeah, good. Um I'll take your last question first.

[00:37:47]Clearly I am not claiming that religion is the only source of violence.

[00:37:52]People have killed one another for perfectly secular reasons and will continue to no doubt.

[00:37:59]Now, it's often this this the challenge to my thesis is often raised that the worst offenders in the genocide game have been secular ideologies. Nazism, Stalinism, communist China.

[00:38:19]My piouette on this subject is really I'm arguing against dogma. You know, religion just has more than its fair share of dogma. I'm I'm arguing against unsubstantiated beliefs to which people hold in the face of any contrary evidence.

[00:38:38]So taking that heruristic you look at Stalinism you see very quickly Stalinism was not a rational enterprise. This is not what happens to people when they get too rational and Nazism I mean Hinrich Himmler thought that the Aryans had descended from outer space and were preserved in ice since the beginning of time and he created a meteorological division of the Reich to go look for this ice evidence.

[00:39:08]These are not highly rational people.

[00:39:10]This the the pseudocience that that was the basis of Nazism, this sort of weird tweak on Darwinism and all of this all this religion really of pureblooded Germanism and all of this was a kind of religion really. It was a political religion. It just didn't it just wasn't otherworldly.

[00:39:30]And the same is true of of Stalomism.

[00:39:33]So, one thing I say in my book is that when you see people killing mass numbers of non-combatants, intentionally killing non-combatants, committing genocide, ask yourself what these people believe.

[00:39:54]I think you will find that it is always preposterous.

[00:39:58]This is this is practically a truism because there's just no good reason to kill non-combatants indiscriminately.

[00:40:08]Now, the other issue of community and you asked about Buddhist uh the possibility of Buddhism or Eastern philosophy inspiring violence. There's an example. The the uh kamicazi pilots were inspired by a very perverse Zen uh form of other worldliness and you know there was Renzai Zen masters basically signing off on their kamicazi mission. So Buddhism is not exempt and there are lots of weird stories about theocracy and Tibet and uh there there are my faith is that you you can put your faith in seems to me you can only put your faith in the human conversation.

[00:40:56]And the question is are you going to put your faith in the 21st century human conversation? Are you going to get in your time machine and go back and put your faith in some other centuries conversation in the seventh century if you're a Muslim or the you know way back if you're a Christian or a Jew? I mean really the iron age.

[00:41:20]Uh so it really and community is community is all we have. Science is just is a complete is a communal enterprise. All we have is dialogue. And it seems to me that the the rules of dialogue should not change from discipline to discipline when when the truth is what's being talked about.

[00:41:42]>> Thank you for coming. If you were suddenly in the position of advising the president of the United States on policy, >> God forbid, >> how would your positions inform what you would advise him or her to do with regard to the current status of conflict, let's say, in the Middle East?

[00:42:12]Well, I've actually thought about this.

[00:42:15]Um, my pos my position really cuts across ideological lines. And it's it's very strange for me to talk about my book in the media because, you know, you I'll get on a a right-wing AM talk show and everything I say about Islam, they just love it. You know, then I turn the spotlight on Christianity and we run completely into the ditch. Then I get on liberal radio and everything I say about Islam, they just they just recoil at it.

[00:42:49]Way too politically incorrect. But I turn the spotlight on Christianity and they love it. So we are really quite stratified here. And my argument cuts across that. It's really orthogonal to right and left. And uh I'm not a pacifist. I think there really are people in this world who are beyond conversation at this point. Osama bin Laden is a great example. I don't think there's anything we're going to say to him that is going to basically change his orientation.

[00:43:18]Uh now what subset it's to speak specifically about the war on terror and the problem in the Middle East. We have an issue with Islam and the West, Islam and and Jews. We have an issue with with Jew the Jewish settlers. I mean, the the Jewish settlers, their their theological claims on that real estate have to be completely repudiated by the Israeli government.

[00:43:45]I'm I'm a a great supporter of Israel really only because of the anti-semitism of the rest of the world. The only thing that that justifies the existence of Israel is the omnipresence of anti-semitism.

[00:44:03]Otherwise, Israel it is an obnoxious idea to have a state organized around a religion.

[00:44:10]So, uh the short answer is I think that we have to one acknowledge the role that religion is playing. We have to solicit the involvement of moderate Muslims wherever they exist. If we if they don't exist, we have to create them.

[00:44:35]You know, we're all very hopeful that that the vast vast majority of Muslims are are exquisitly moderate and and would just repudiate everything that Osama bin Laden stands for. I think that's far too hopeful. We we have to find some way of winning a war of ideas with Islam or get or getting a subset of the Muslim world to win a war of ideas with itself. And what is one thing that is incredibly clear now given that George Bush is in charge for four more years is that we cannot do this alone.

[00:45:05]We have alienated even our allies. So to take an example like Iraq, intelligent people could disagree about whether it was the right thing to to do to go into Iraq. But one thing is is pretty clear going in. We should have gone in with everybody. I mean we need a truly international effort. We need to convince civilized democracies everywhere that civilization itself has genuine enemies.

[00:45:34]These totalitarian theocratic tribal eruptions in many parts of the globe on 100 fronts. Many most at this moment are are Muslim.

[00:45:48]Uh so it's just we need a part of the problem part of the reason why we are so isolated from the rest of the world from our allies is our own religiosity. I mean we look incredibly retrograde from the perspective of Western Europe our air allies in Western Europe. We look like a deranged theocracy in the making with all the bombs. It we have to be terrifying to the rest of the world. So until we put our own house in order, it seems to me that, you know, we we're hardly the the kingdom of reason to be clubbing everyone over the head, saying um you can't be theocrats anymore.

[00:46:30]>> Religion loves to blame atheism for Stalin, Mao, and other dictators. But that is a dodge.

[00:46:36]The real problem was not too much reason. It was blind ideology.

[00:46:41]Stalinism and Nazism worked like religions. sacred leaders, forbidden questions, fake history, and punishment for doubt. That is the same poison Christianity uses when it tells people to obey first and question later. Truth does not need threats. Science survives criticism.

[00:47:02]Religion fears it because once the questions are allowed, the spell starts breaking.

[00:47:07]>> Hi, thank you for being here. Um, you stated that as moderates, uh, our rationalization of the Bible is improper, that we really should face the fact that that's wrong.

[00:47:20]I agree with you that it's a rationalization, and I agree with you that the Christians who are doing the same thing are rationalizing.

[00:47:29]There are also Muslims who I've heard rationalize in the same way. Mhm.

[00:47:34]>> The I I happen to dialogue with many different religions and what I find is that what moderates can do is dialogue.

[00:47:43]We can dialogue by talking about the similarities in each religion. The schizophrenic god that's really good and not the one that's bad.

[00:47:53]>> Right?

[00:47:54]>> And we do look for the good in our religions. We look for the similarities in that good. And I think it's a binding influence. and perhaps can grow. Uh, do you think that maybe that kind of thing would could happen?

[00:48:09]>> Well, this touches Steve's question. I think it it should grow. It has to grow.

[00:48:16]It's the most likely approach given what everyone believes.

[00:48:21]But I also think that it's not good enough. I think it it has to unwind itself ultimately because the religions are not the same really and the fundamentalists really have no reason to listen to the moderates. You know, the moderate discourse is not so compelling that the fundamentalists are going to wake up and say, "Whoa, they they're really on to something." You know, that the fundamentalists read the books. You know, they know what's in the books.

[00:48:51]Right.

[00:48:52]>> It's that's that's certainly true of fundamentalists. But what I'm saying is uh do you feel that there could be a growing movement among moderates in all the religions >> seeing all this bloodshed and seeing the ridiculousness of the wars?

[00:49:06]>> One would hope. Yeah. I you know I think it's clearly moderates are better than fundamentalists. I mean if I could wave a magic wand I'd make us all moderates.

[00:49:15]There's no you know that be no hesitation.

[00:49:18]It's just it's interesting to consider the example of a place like Sweden where it's it's beyond being moderate. They're really people who are living uh virtually in an atheistic state and they're the most gen as far as the the their level of altru altruism. They they are among the most generous nations in the world. You know, it's not like they're just pulled up there and and and uh their atheism has somehow sapped them of moral vigor and they have almost every leading indicator of of the health of a nation apart from suicide incidentally and I would attribute the light up there and and the cold to that but everything else literacy and infant mortal mortality and and gender issues and um violence on crime. The top 20 atheist nations are are the best on all those UN indices and the worst nations are inevitably theocracies.

[00:50:26]So this idea that somehow without religious dogmatism, however undogmatic, we we're going to lose the fiber of society uh or or personal morality. I just think there's no evidence for that.

[00:50:43]>> We're going to give you the last question, but there will be time at the reception afterwards for people to come up informally and speak to Mr. Harris.

[00:50:53]>> Sam, you've been talking about the book and talking about others. How about yourself? Okay. What's your background and what brought you to this topic and why the interest in this topic?

[00:51:07]Well, the topic I literally started writing this book on September 12th, 2001. It was my immediate reaction to that event.

[00:51:17]Uh it just so happened I had been spending a lot of time studying religion and studying the what seemed to me to be the the rational alternatives to religious faith. I was very interested in meditation and and uh that interest brought me into neuroscience and I'm now studying the brain basis of belief. I'm looking for the difference in a brain in a in a living human being. Right? We do this with what's called functional MRI.

[00:51:46]uh the difference between a person who believes and disbelieves a proposition irrespective of of what that proposition is whether it's religious whether it's math uh and so I'm very interested in in just what belief is at the at the level of the brain and >> okay so before 9/11 did you have a belief system did you have faith um you know did you have religion were you involved in religion and and at what level and then did you change prior to that and then all of a sudden 9/11 really put you over the edge. That's my my question is what happened be before that?

[00:52:21]>> Okay. Well, I was raised in a very secular household. My mother gave me a choice at the age of 10. Uh Sam, do you want to go to Sunday school like your friends? And I said no. And that basically sealed my fate as far as being bar mitzvah was concerned.

[00:52:38]Um but I've I have been always I've been interested in religion from you know my my teenage years and got very into Buddhism and Hindu meditation at a certain point made many trips to India and Nepal and spent probably two years on silent meditation retreats just well you just meditate you do nothing but meditate for 12 18 hours a day. So I I I the concerns of of the faithful and of seekers of spiritual experience are really well known to me. Not not so much in a Jewish context, but I you know I at various points I was a a dogmatic Buddhist and a dogmatic Hindu believing all manner of of nonsense really from my point of view. Now uh but this is not to say that I I think we have all the mysteries solved. There are fundamental mysteries about the nature of this universe. And I am quite open to the data. I've been pillaried by atheists for a few footnotes in my book that declare an open-mindedness to data on psychic phenomenon and and other spooky things that most scientists don't want to touch. But there there is data there. And it seems to me that we just can't close our accounts as as James said with reality until we we fully uh vet all the data. So anyway, I hope that answers the question.

[00:54:06]>> Thank you.

[00:54:07]>> It's not too late for that bar mitzvah.

[00:54:10]Sam, >> do it now.

[00:54:13]There w there was there was a young woman standing behind Ellen and I and I would like to ask her to come up again and give her the last question. All right. So because she was patiently waiting I have two questions for you. One for my friend and one for me. Um, based on your statistics about voting for a president because of religion, do you think that we are violating the law of the separation of church and state?

[00:54:48]>> No, I don't think we're violating the law, but I just don't think the law is good enough. I I think the I think belief is more powerful and inevitable than any law is going to protect us from. If if people really believe that God wrote one of our books and people really believe that that uh for instance God hates homosexuals, they're going to find some way to conform our policies and our laws to that even if we have the first amendment saying you you can't respect you can't establish a law respecting any one religion.

[00:55:23]>> Okay. Okay. And my second question, do you think that the facts that we have in the Bible about events are coincidences or modified beliefs?

[00:55:32]>> Oh, wait. Can you repeat that?

[00:55:34]>> Do you think that the facts that we have in the Bible about events are coincidences or modified beliefs?

[00:55:42]>> The the facts in the Bible.

[00:55:45]>> Yeah. Like I don't know.

[00:55:47]>> No, I I wasn't being chatty.

[00:55:50]>> The events.

[00:55:50]>> The events in the Bible. Um well I you know undoubtedly some of the Bible is is history you know or I would expect that some of it is actually happened. There are other texts that that corroborate claims in the Bible. Uh much of it is is probably a novel like like any other novel. You some writer sat down and said wouldn't be wouldn't this be nice this happened. So, and it's difficult to tell the difference at this distance. Uh, we know that when you when you study how the Bible actually became the Bible and how certain books were included and others thrown out and certain certain books were in there for hundreds of years and then thrown out.

[00:56:34]The Bible is this this grabag of of ancient texts that that uh I mean how anyone can read about his composition and think that it probably is perfect in every syllable that that's that's quite a stretch. So >> thank you very much. Thank you.

[00:56:56]>> Thank you very much.

[00:57:01]The fear that society collapses without religion does not match reality. Some of the most secular countries are also among the safest, healthiest, and most educated. Morality can come from empathy, reason, law, and human well-being, not fear of hell.

[00:57:18]Christianity also pretends the Bible dropped from heaven fully formed. But history says otherwise. It is a collection of ancient writings chosen, debated, edited and translated by human beings. That is not divine perfection.

[00:57:33]That is religious branding. So what do you think? Does morality need God or does religion take credit for human decency? Comment below. This is part two. You can watch part one of this debate on this channel. Don't forget to like and subscribe.