Spiritual Health Learning Community Center Exploring Life's Horizons »   About Islam Menu Sam Harris, The End of Faith, & Absence of Reason - Part 7 On page 113 of The End of Faith, Mr. Harris states: “In the Muslim perception, conversion to Islam is a benefit to the convert and a merit to those who convert him.” I would like to know which Muslims have the audacity to suppose that they, rather than God, bring anyone to Islam. Even the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not have the power or capacity to convert anyone to Islam. This is entirely a matter between an individual soul and the Creator of that soul, and for Mr. Harris to suggest otherwise is a small indication of how little he understands about the nature of Islam and faith. To be sure, there are those Muslim theologians who swagger about with the belief that what they say, do, or write brings people to Islam. It doesn't, and it never has. So, in effect, Mr. Harris has permitted himself to come under the sphere of influence of those kinds of Muslims who don't even understand their own spiritual tradition. And, then, he is foolish enough to try to claim that what he is writing is an accurate reflection of what Islam actually teaches. A short while later on page 113, Mr. Harris claims: “In Islamic law, conversion from Islam is apostasy – a capital offense for both the one who is misled and the one who misleads him. On this question, the law is clear and unequivocal. If a Muslim renounces Islam, even if a new convert reverts to his previous faith, the penalty is death.” Throughout The End of Faith Mr. Harris likes to play these little “gotcha” games. However, ultimately, he is engaging in such past times only with his own problematic understanding of Islam, spirituality, sacred texts, and faith. First of all, there is no such thing as Islamic law in the sense of a system of political and legal precepts which must be imposed on people in order to regulate society. This is so despite the misunderstanding of many Muslim legalists, theologians, muftis, imams, and religious scholars concerning this issue. The Qur'an is a book on which to reflect and contemplate. The Qur'an is a book of good-tidings and warnings. The Qur'an is a reminder. The Qur'an is a book of guidance, wisdom, insight, understanding, discernment, and knowledge. The Qur'an is not a book of religious law. In fact, I know of no place in the Qur'an where it refers to itself as a book of religious law. Various Muslims may seek to create legal systems based on this or than facet of the Qur'an. However, this is their doing and not what the Qur'an has necessarily directed such people to do. There is, indeed, something called Muslim law. Nevertheless, one would be both presumptuous and arrogant to try to claim that such Muslim law not only constitutes the best way to engage the Qur'an, but, as well, it is a way that must be imposed on everyone despite the fact that the Qur'an clearly says there can be no compulsion in matters of deen or religion. The Qur'an does not exist for the purpose of permitting people to generate systems of legal rulings, Rather, the Qur'an exists to help people struggle toward realizing the purpose for which they have been created … to fulfill the potential of their fitra – their primordial spiritual capacity – and there is no legal system which is capable of doing this. One cannot legally force people to be good and, then, claim that this has anything to do with spirituality or faith or the engagement of Divine guidance. One cannot legally force people to make moral decisions and call this spirituality, and even if one did do this, such moral decisions are not likely to carry any spiritual value because the individual would have been compelled to be “good” or “moral” rather than having arrived at such spiritual stations through his or her own struggles and efforts. One cannot legally force someone who first became Muslim and, then decided, for whatever reason, to become a non-Muslim, to have faith in Islam. If the threat of death is the only thing keeping such a person from renouncing his or her faith, then, what kind of faith is this? Well, someone might wish to argue, although the death penalty may not help the apostate to believe in Islam, nonetheless, such a penalty will protect the faith of other Muslims from such apostasy. What kind of a faith is it that is influenced by what others might do, or not do, with respect to the matter of commitment to Islam? Faith should be a function of one's relation to God and not a function of what this or that imam, theologian, or person in the street says or does concerning Islam. There may be any number of Muslim theologians and legalists who believe that the death penalty is an appropriate way of handling the issue of apostasy. However, I am rather unclear about what it means to be an apostate, and, furthermore, to the best of my recollection, nowhere does the Qur'an indicate that execution is the penalty for apostasy although the Qur'an does sound warnings concerning what may await such individuals in the world to come. In any event, if an individual were so disgusted, frustrated, outraged, and upset by the stupid, cruel, and inconsiderate ways in which all too many Muslims carry on with respect to life (for example, in relation to, say, suicide bombings, honor killings, genital mutilation of women, Taliban-like and al-Qaeda-like oppressive political systems, and so on) and, as a result, the person who was reflecting on such matters decided that she or he did not want to be part of this kind of system any more if that is what so many Muslims consider Islam to be, and, consequently, such an individual: discontinued reading the Qur'an, stopped saying ritual prayers, refused to fast any more during the month of Ramazan, did not give zakat or charity, and, yet, such an individual continued to believe in God in his or her own fashion, can one say that such an individual is an apostate? Or, even if such a person totally renounced his faith in the existence of God because of doubts that arose due to wondering how a loving God permits people who call themselves Muslim to behave in such cruel, oppressive, and barbaric ways, how could anyone condemn such a person to death without feeling some sense of responsibility for having assisted the individual to reach such a condition because of one's failure to stop or, at least, speak out against, those who betray Islam through such things as honor killings or female genital mutilation or suicide bombing? In addition, what would the criteria be for determining what constitutes an apostate and who gets to establish what such criteria should be? Who should be given the authority to evaluate any particular case, and what is the justification for ceding authority to such an individual? Who has the spiritual wisdom to understand the dynamics of such situations with sufficient depth, insight, and certainty that they could, without the slightest hesitation and in full truth, say they knew God was demanding that such a person must die? If so-called Islamic law is unequivocal on the matter that not only the person who leaves Islam but those who induced the person to leave Islam must face the punishment of capital punishment, then, one might have to execute a good number of Muslims on the face of the Earth due to the manner in which their shabby ways of observing Islam may have played a role in helping to induce or convince someone to become an apostate. Under such circumstances, perhaps, the jurists should start with executing the rioters in Nigeria in relation to the Miss World Pageant, and, then, the court administrators might want to take steps to execute the religious police in Mecca, and, then, those jurists could go in search of the people who induced suicide bombers to kill innocent people, and, then, the courts could go after all those who countenanced and did nothing to stop the commission of honor killings and genital mutilation, and, then, finally, when all the foregoing individuals were executed for helping to induce someone to become an apostate, the legal jurists could begin doing themselves in for helping to contribute to the apostate's sense of disgust and revulsion due to the arrogant belief of such legalists that they possessed either the spiritual wisdom or authority to go around executing people because certain individuals were having difficulty swallowing what such people were trying to attribute to the teachings of the Qur'an. Would anyone be safe from such a witch hunt? Would any of us be legitimately free of responsibility for -- in however small a way due to our individual, as well as collective, weaknesses and imperfections – having assisted such an individual to stumble to a decision to distance himself or herself due to what they saw all too many Muslims were proclaiming in the name of Islam? What may have transpired on a few occasions with respect to the issue of apostasy during the times of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) carries no necessary precedent for how we must conduct ourselves today with respect to the same issue. The stresses, pressures, distractions, temptations, abilities, needs, role models, supports (or lack of them), and confusions which exist today are very different from the stresses, abilities, and so on which existed among Muslims during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Many Muslims like to proudly point to Islam as being the fastest growing spiritual tradition on Earth. Whatever the truth of such an assertion may, or may not, be, I also know about many people who are leaving Islam due to, among other things, precisely the sort of aforementioned issues of cruel, barbaric, hypocritical, and oppressive treatment toward other human beings on the part of all too many Muslims who have ceded their moral, spiritual and intellectual authority to so-called religious scholars and legalists who are claiming that suicide bombing, honor killings, genital mutilation, and Taliban-like, theologically-driven, oppressive government is perfectly consistent with what is taught in the Qur'an. Or, let's look at this matter from another direction. If I do not engage Islam in the same way that a Muslim theologian or legalist engages Islam, does this make either of us apostates? Where are we going to draw the line, and on what basis, with respect to the issue of apostasy? If a person does not admit to being an apostate, but some discerning soul believes that he or she can infer from the former person's behavior or appearance whether, or not, such an individual is an apostate – for example, if a given person doesn't have a beard or doesn't wear a head covering – should we consider this evidence of apostasy? Why are we even wasting time on such an issue when so many people – both Muslim and non-Muslim -- are homeless, unemployed, hungry, traumatized, in need of medical attention, and oppressed? Whatever the realities of apostasy may be, it pales as an issue compared to the many other serious challenges and problems facing humankind. Muslim religious leaders need to learn, among other things, how to prioritize the resources of the Muslim community better than presently is the case, and quite frankly, the issue of apostasy seems to be a matter which carries few, if any, benefits with the respect to the problems surrounding the allocation of such resources – especially when one considers all the other constructive ways in which such resources might be utilized. On the other hand, people like Mr. Harris might want to begin considering prioritizing their own time in a more constructive fashion by applying their considerable skills and intellect to something besides seeking to depict Islam in a manner which is intended to serve their agenda for declaring war on Islam, Muslims, and faith. In reality, Mr. Harris is not much better in this respect than are the Muslim theologians who have preoccupied themselves with whether someone's faith concerning Islam is sufficiently pure enough to withstand a charge of apostasy, while Mr. Harris spends his time concocting false allegations concerning how Muslims and other people of spiritual faith should, in effect, be charged with apostasy in relation to Mr. Harris' species of faith involving rationality and secularism. On page 112 of The End of Faith, Mr. Harris notes: “Those looking for ways to leaven the intrinsic militancy of Islam have observed that there are a few lines in the Koran that seem to speak directly against indiscriminate violence. Those who wage jihad are enjoined not to attack first (Koran 2:190) since “God does not love aggressors.” But this injunction restrains no one. Given the long history of conflict between Islam and the West, almost any act of violence against infidels can now be plausibly construed as an action in defense of faith.” The only “intrinsic militancy” which can be associated with Islam is that which people like Mr. Harris fabricate through the manner in which they frame their arguments – arguments which the discussion throughout my current commentary has pointed out tend to be filled with error, misunderstanding, distortion, ignorance, and bias. Mr. Harris states things in a misleading way when he says that there are only a few lines in the Qur'an which “seem to speak directly against indiscriminate violence”. Indeed, among other things, his use of the term “seem” is a way of casting doubt on what is said in the Qur'an without introducing any evidence to validate the use of that term In point of fact, there are quite a few verses in the Qur'an which counsel human beings to be equitable in their dealings with one another and to not transgress boundaries of propriety and, in point of fact, indiscriminate violence constitutes both a violation of equitability and a transgression of boundaries of propriety. Unfortunately, there are all too many individuals who are literalists and, as a result, such individuals appear to have difficulty grasping the way in which a principle concerning, say, equitability actually encompasses a lot of things -- including the issue of indiscriminate violence – that are not specifically mentioned and, therefore, is quite unlike a rule which needs to specify everything that is to be included in the rule. However, let's just stick to the part of the Quranic verse which Mr. Harris does cite. Even when he cites the Quranic injunction against indiscriminate violence he continues to seek to frame his argument by dismissing what the Qur'an has to say with respect to the issue of not being the first to attack anyone and of not being an aggressor by claiming that such injunctions restrain no one. One wonders what the evidential basis is for Mr. Harris' foregoing assertion. What data can he point to which demonstrates that among the more than one billion Muslims on the face of the Earth that the injunction in question constrains no one? For starters, the injunction certainly constrains me, and I am a Muslim. So, it is obvious that Mr. Harris' statement is factually incorrect as it stands. Mr. Harris also misrepresents issues when he claims that there has been a “long history of conflict between Islam and the West”. Islam is neither a person nor a community nor a government. It is a methodology for helping individuals to realize their spiritual potential as individuals. So, just how has Islam had a history of conflict with the West? Islam is one thing, and people's understanding of Islam is quite another matter. Both Muslims and non-Muslims (e.g., Mr. Harris) have sought to arbitrarily impose their own agendas, interests, and biases onto Islam, and such people – both in the Muslim world and the West – have used those problematic hermeneutical renderings of Islam to provoke conflicts with whomever they considered to be standing in the way of what they wanted to acquire, control, or accomplish … just as Mr. Harris is doing now through his book The End of Faith. Mr. Harris introduces further distortion and misrepresentation into the discussion when he argues that because of the alleged long history of conflict between Islam and the West, “almost any act of violence against infidels can now be plausibly construed as an action in defense of faith.” Among other things, Mr. Harris has failed to stipulate what the criteria are for determining what constitutes the conditions of 'plausibility', or who it is that has advanced such conditions and with what justification. In addition Mr. Harris glosses over the whole issue of what constitutes an “infidel”. The manner in which Mr. Harris frames his argument is intended to give the impression that both Islam and Muslims consider everybody in the West to be infidels, and, therefore, there can never be peace between Muslims and the West, but this is a way of framing things which cannot be substantiated – either with respect to the issue of what constitutes being an infidel or in relation to the claim that almost any act of violence can now be plausibly construed as an action in defense of faith.” Christians and Jews are not infidels. The Qur'an makes this very clear in any number of verses, and this remains so even if there are beliefs and practices to which the Qur'an refers and to which some Christians and Jews are committed that are different from some of the beliefs and practices to which Muslims are committed. Furthermore, there are other spiritual faith traditions which, despite the fact they may not be specifically mentioned in the Qur'an, this, in and of itself, does not automatically qualify the followers of such faith traditions to be considered as infidels. Unfortunately, Mr. Harris tries to give the impression that in Islam anyone who does not act and believe in precisely the way that this or that Muslim does is, by definition, an infidel, and this is just not the case, and, indeed, Mr. Harris is simply being an irresponsible provocateur when he tries to create such misleading and error-ridden impressions. On pages 118 through 122 of The End of Faith, Mr. Harris cites translated verse after translated verse of the Qur'an in an effort to shore up his claims concerning what a terrible spiritual tradition he is alleging Islam to be in his book. However, when one reads down through those verses, one persistent theme runs through them – namely, they are a series of warnings which are being issued to Muslims with respect to situations, actions, conditions, individuals, and beliefs about which a person should exercise caution lest a Muslim fall prey to the many problems and consequences which ensue from loss of faith, understanding, and discernment. One, of course, is free to pay heed to such warnings or not. Time will bring the evidence that will disclose whatever the nature of the truth is which is being given expression through such verses. However, shortly after listing the five pages of Quranic verses, Mr. Harris goes on to say: “I cannot judge the quality of the Arabic; perhaps it is sublime. But, the book's contents are not. On almost every page, the Koran instructs observant Muslims to despise non-believers.” Actually, the Qur'an does none of what Mr. Harris erroneously claims it does. Among the many Quranic verses contained in the five pages of verses which Mr. Harris cites, not one of those verses instructs or encourages Muslims to despise, hate, ridicule, judge, or show contempt for, non-believers. Instead, Muslims are being counseled in those verses to reflect on the following: if they do not want to experience the problematic consequences that may be in store – whether in this life or the life to come -- for those who reject Divine guidance, then, listen and pay attention to what is being said in the Qur'an. The Quranic verses which Mr. Harris cites do not counsel Muslims with respect to how they should act toward non-believers, but rather Muslims are being counseled in relation to how and why they should be concerned with becoming actively engaged with putting their own individual spiritual houses in order. On pages 124 through 126 of The End of Faith, Mr. Harris provides an overview about, along with a brief analysis of, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center with respect to the issue of suicide bombing. One of the questions asked of the participants contained the following: “Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified.” Mr. Harris breaks the Pew survey data down in an effort to show that when one asks whether suicide bombing is 'ever justifiable' one gets more survey participants who are willing to answer in the affirmative than if one just asks whether, or not, suicide bombing is justifiable. He points out that a majority of the survey participants in Lebanon, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Jordan, Bangladesh, and Mali indicated that they agreed with the possibility that there might be some set of circumstances in which suicide bombing might be justifiable, whereas a majority of participants in Senegal, Ghana, Indonesia, Uganda, and Turkey indicated that there would ever be any circumstances in which suicide bombing was justifiable. In most cases, the countries where a majority of the people polled indicated that there might be circumstances in which suicide bombing was justified, there were sizable portions of the polling sample who disagreed with such a possibility. The number of people in Pakistan who agreed with or disagreed with the idea that there could be circumstances in which they believed that suicide bombing would be justifiable was split at about 38% each. There were a sizable number of individuals who refused to answer the question – some 23%. What exactly does it mean to say that one could conceive of circumstances in which suicide bombing was justified? The question is highly hypothetical, and, as are result, one really has no idea of what is going through a person's mind when she or he answers such a question in the affirmative. Among other things, we have no idea of how plausible or realistic any of the scenarios are which might run through a person's mind when responding in the affirmative to such a question. Suppose, for example, that a person thought to himself or herself that suicide bombing would be justifiable when Hell freezes over, and, then proceeded to answer the question in the affirmative. To what has the individual actually committed himself or herself? One could even raise questions in relation to those hypothetical musings about what a person might actually do with respect to some set of circumstances in which an individual believed that suicide bombing might be justifiable. For instance, let us assume that some such set of contingent conditions were, suddenly, to become a reality, would that individual necessarily go ahead and become a suicide bomber? Lots of people say many things about doing violence to others. Only a very small percentage of people voicing such threats ever carry through on what they have said. Mr. Harris does not further break down the Pew survey data – assuming such data were even collected by the Pew researchers – with respect to such things as gender differences, if any, when responding to such questions. Moreover, nothing is said about whether there were any differences among adherents who subscribe to different approaches to Islam -- such as Sunni, Shi'a, Sufi, and so on. Somewhat ironically, when one takes a look at the countries which participated in the Pew survey and to which Mr. Harris refers in his book, most of them do not have a problem with suicide bombing. So, one is faced with something of an oddity in which people claim they are in support of suicide bombing, but they do not do so in their own countries. Such an oddity tends to raise questions concerning the meaning of such research, and, more importantly, the sort of irresponsible conclusions which Mr. Harris is anxious to draw from such research. Another factor which is not explored during Mr. Harris's discussion of the Pew survey data is whether the researchers made any attempt to find out whether the respondents were merely nominal Muslims or whether such Muslim respondents actually sought to live in accordance with the teachings of Islam. Furthermore, with respect to the latter group, it might prove instructive to determine how many of them had arrived at their opinions on the issue of suicide bombing based on their own reading of the Qur'an and how many of those opinions simply reflected what some ignorant religious leader was telling them was justifiable during Friday sermons. To illustrate the relevancy of such considerations, one might wish to reflect, for a moment, on some polling which has been done in conjunction with people who are regular viewers of Fox news. Some five or six years after 9/11 and despite the many public revelations which have been brought forth by journalist and other investigators indicating that neither Sadaam Hussein nor Iraq had anything to do with the events of 9/11, nevertheless, one survey indicated that a sizable majority of Fox news watchers are still convinced of the link between Iraq and 9/11 and believe this “fact” justified attacking Iraq and killing tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Use of techniques of undue influence with respect to the shaping of people's opinions about things can and does occur in Muslim countries. On the other hand, such techniques of undue influence also are used in America, and the above noted poll concerning viewers of Fox news is but one piece of evidence concerning the truth of what is being said here. Consequently, when one analyzes survey data, one has to ask questions about the sorts of factors which might be shaping and influencing the answer of a respondent. Mr. Harris didn't do this, and I am not certain that the original Pew research did either, and, therefore, the significance of the polling data is indeterminate in any number of ways. Some questions which need to be asked concerning the manner in which the survey research was conducted are the following. Were the questions written or verbal? Did the pollsters contact the participants in person or through the mail or by phone or at a center? Were the researchers Muslim? If questions were asked of participants in person, were the ones asking the questions men or women? In what language were the questions asked? Were other people present, beside the researchers and the respondent, when the questions were asked and answered? At what time of day were the questions asked? How busy were the respondents when they were asked the questions? How long did participants have to respond? At what time of day were the questions asked? Where were the questions asked (e.g., At home; outside a mosque; at their place of business; in a community center.)? What factors were most influential with respect to any given respondent giving the answers they did? Were there on-going events in the country which may have shaped a person's response? Were the results replicated and consistent over time? All of the foregoing considerations and quite a few others are important things to know when analyzing survey data. Without such information, one may get a response from a person, but one may not truly understand to what a participant's response is actually giving expression. Even the manner in which a question is phrased may lead to very different results. For example, the Pew research cited by Mr. Harris began with: “Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam”, and, then, the question goes on to mention that there are others who do not agree with such a perspective. If one switched the order of alternative around, it is possible that one might come up with different results although if there was an order effect, it is hard to know whether it would be significant, minor, or altogether negligible. Furthermore, as is the case with almost all survey research a great deal depends on how questions are asked. For example, one wonders what the results of the Pew survey would have been if the participants had been asked any of the following questions instead of the one – noted above – that was asked: Where in the Qur'an does it say that suicide bombing is ever justified? One might, then, follow up with the following question: Where in the Qur'an does it say that the reward for martyrdom is 70 virgins (and, in fact, nowhere in the Qur'an is such a reward mentioned but, rather, the term “virgin” is an interpretation which arbitrarily has been imposed on a certain verse of the Qur'an in order to seduce impressionable young people to serve someone else's agenda)? Or, how about this possibility: Where in the Qur'an does it say that the killing of innocent people or the killing of women, children, old people and non-combatants is ever justified? Or, what if Pew researchers were to ask the following question: if there were peaceable ways of settling conflict, would you choose such ways in preference to violence? Or, maybe the Pew people should have asked: Do you believe that blinding, maiming, crippling, murdering, dismembering, crushing and traumatizing women, children, and other innocents is a good thing to do? Or, perhaps, the following question should have been asked: Can you cite even one instance where suicide bombing can be shown to have been the primary reason for the establishing of peace, harmony, and the cessation of violence? Or, maybe, even more telling would be a question such as: if a participant in the survey were asked today to become a suicide bomber, would that participant be willing to kill and injure innocent people right now? Finally, how about this question: If you knew that people like Mr. Harris were trying to gather evidence which would justify using a first strike nuclear option to wipe out millions of Muslims – irrespective of how those individuals thought about the issue of suicide bombing, would you be answering this question in the same way? Mr. Harris claims that: “We now live in a world in which Muslims have been scientifically polled” concerning the issue of suicide bombing.” As is true of almost everything else he says, Mr. Harris is both incorrect and misleading in what he says. The only scientific part of the survey to which Mr. Harris refers is the fact that statistical tools were used to compile and characterize the data which arose through the survey. The questions which were asked during the survey were not even remotely scientific but, rather, were framed in a way that actually manipulates and forces participants to respond in accordance with the predilections of the researchers. Even more importantly, and as has long been demonstrated with respect to survey research, what people claim they support and what they actually would be willing to do if given the opportunity to, say, be a suicide bomber themselves, does not necessarily coincide with earlier pronouncements. To be sure, many of the participants in the Pew research were likely to have been more than a little angry and emotional concerning the ways in which the United States – either directly and/or through surrogates -- has militarily attacked Muslims in, among other places, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Libya, the Balkans, Palestine, and Tunisia, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people in the process – many of whom were women, children, and non-combatants. If a survey researcher punched a potential respondent in the mouth, and, then, asked the individual if she or he felt violence toward researchers would ever be justified, one might get answers very much like what the Pew researchers obtained, but this doesn't mean the participant would actually do violence to the researcher in question. Feelings of being transgressed against do not always translate into violent actions. Indeed, one of the functions of faith is to help resist the tendency to act just because we have emotional feelings about a situation. Halfway through his analysis of the Pew research data concerning suicide bombing, Mr. Harris states on page 125 that: “If you do not find those numbers sufficiently disturbing consider that places like Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories were not included in the survey. Had they been, it is safe to say that Lebanon would have lost their place at the top of the list several times over.” Typical of Mr. Harris, he likes to jump to conclusions without actually doing the research necessary to be in a position to know what the empirical data is. One might also raise another question in relation to Mr. Harris's foregoing contention: that is, why weren't the countries he mentioned included in the Pew survey research, and what about countries such as Malaysia, or even countries like Britain, France, Canada, or the United States where sizable numbers of Muslims live? Moreover, while we are on the topic of surveys and the United States, if Mr. Harris wants to speak about disturbing numbers, he and others should reflect on several, relatively recent surveys conducted in the United States. For example, based on the results of a May, 2006 poll conducted by Zogby, it is estimated that 70 million voting-age citizens of the United States do not accept the 9/11 Commission's version of what transpired before, during, and after September 11th, 2001. 45% of the Zogby sample felt there should be a new investigation into the events of 9/11. A Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll conducted in August of 2006 asked a different set of questions from the aforementioned Zogby poll in relation to 9/11 but came up with somewhat similar results indicating that approximately 36% of the American people reject the findings of The 9/11 Commission Report. In addition, over a third of the respondents to this latter survey indicated that they harbored deeper anxieties concerning the possibility that unknown individuals from within the U.S. government, military, intelligence community, and/or corporate worlds may have actively betrayed all Americans by having had some form of complicity with respect to the events that unfolded on 9/11. Mr. Harris loves to cite survey statistics and wag his finger at the Muslim world. Yet, he doesn't even seem to know what is going on in his own country or understand how what is taking place in the United States may have a very direct and considerable causal connection concerning that which is going on elsewhere in the world. The horror toward which Mr. Harris wishes to manipulate his reading audience is summed up in the following quote on page 128 of The End of Faith: “What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weapons? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and, so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime – as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day – but it may be the only course of action available to us given what Islamists believe.” It is hard to know where to begin with such irresponsible foolishness. I suppose one could begin with the following facts: It is the United States that invented nuclear weapons and, then, permitted the technology associated with such weapon systems to proliferate to other countries; it is the United States that actually has used such weapons on innocent civilians who lived in a country that had no nuclear program; it is the United States which has built thousands of nuclear warheads and insists on spending trillions of dollars on maintaining them, replacing them, and developing new generations of such nuclear systems along with many other exotic forms of weapons. While I would not be in favor of misguided Muslims – or even rightly guided Muslims -- gaining access to nuclear weapons capabilities, similarly I am not in favor of misguided or rightly guided Americans having access to such weapons either. Misguided Muslims want nuclear weapon capabilities because misguided Americans already possess such capabilities and have a proven track record of being willing to use those weapons against innocent civilians – so why shouldn't misguided Muslims (irrespective of how wrong they may be with respect to what they claim Islam to be about) have a justifiable fear of the monstrous potential for destruction that the United States already has shown it is willing to unleash on the world – not hypothetically but in actuality? The United States has helped to create the mess in which the world finds itself. Furthermore, the United States refuses to take responsibility for its sins of commission and omission in relation to its considerable assistance in the formation and perpetuation of such an international mess. Instead, the United States would rather talk about how this country or that country is seeking to destabilize the international state of affairs – when, in point of fact, the United States has been destabilizing those same state of affairs for more than half a century through its military, political, and economic policies. If the United States wants other countries to stop acting in what are considered to be irresponsible ways, then, the United States must cease and desist with respect to its own actions of irresponsibility – which are many. Mr. Harris claims that if “history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and, so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them.” To what history is Mr. Harris referring that is supposedly guiding us with respect to being unable to determine where such offending weapons are located or what their state of readiness is? Is he referring to the infamous non-existent weapons of mass destruction which were “possessed” by Sadaam Hussein? Is he referring to the forged documents involving Niger yellow cake that was to be used in the development of non-existent nuclear weapons programs? Or, is he referring to the failed intelligence concerning the nuclear capabilities of Pakistan, India, and Israel? Moreover, although one might wish to raise questions about the legal and moral propriety of what the Israeli air force did in relation to the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, the fact of the matter is that the Israeli's were able to use conventional weapons to accomplish their goal. Consequently, the logic of Mr. Harris' argument escapes me not only in relation to his claim that conventional weapons could not be used to target such systems, but the logic of his alleged argument also escapes me as to why he believes the United States would be morally or legally justified to attack a country that was seeking to defend itself against a country – namely, the United States -- which has been pursuing a consistent course of aggressive belligerence concerning many parts of the Muslim world for a great many years now. Mr. Harris acknowledges the terrible loss of innocent lives which would occur if the United States were to make a first nuclear strike against some country about which we didn't even know if they had nuclear weapons [and if you don't know where those weapons are located or what their state of readiness is, then, how does one know such weapons even exist at all?]. However, despite conceding that such an act would be a crime, nonetheless, he merrily skips along to his conclusion that such an act would be “the only course of action available to us given what Islamists believe.” Firstly, if by the term “Islamist” Mr. Harris is alluding to the way any given Muslim's faith relates to Islam, then, I believe the previous pages of commentary indicate, in rather stark terms, that Mr. Harris has an extremely limited, skewed, error-ridden, and biased understanding of what such individuals may actually believe. He defines Islam from the perspective of his own faith system and, then, insists that what he claims Muslims believe is what they believe, and, this simply is not true. Are there some set of Muslims who believe things in the way which Mr. Harris depicts in The End of Faith? Yes, I am sure there are, but Mr. Harris fails to demonstrate how the mistaken beliefs of such individuals have anything to do with what is actually taught in Islam, and he also fails to demonstrate what numbers we are actually talking about with respect to people who do not just talk about suicide bombing but who are actually prepared to follow through on what they say. Secondly, and in contrast to what Mr. Harris claims in the foregoing quote, there is not just one course of action to take (i.e., a first-strike nuclear holocaust against Muslims), but, rather, there are many alternative courses of action to take in an effort to head off the sort of hypothetical nuclear scenario to which Mr. Harris is alluding. For example, the United States could enter into serious discussions to eliminate all nuclear weapons, including its own. The United States could dismantle its 700 military bases around the world which serve as threats to defenseless people in many parts of the world. The United States could stop being the world's biggest seller and supplier of military weapons – weapons which are used to oppress people and destabilize regions around the world. The United States could insist that Israel stop violating international law and a variety of resolutions of the United Nation. The United States could stop kowtowing to multinational corporations and, instead, hold those companies accountable for the manner which they exploit, corrupt, and destabilize countries and governments around the world. The United States could stop invading and overthrowing Muslim governments when those governments have not attacked the United States or its people. In addition to the foregoing steps, people like Mr. Harris could stop their demagoguery in relation to their misunderstandings, biases, errors, confusions, and ignorance concerning Islam. What Mr. Harris is attempting to do through books like The End of Faith is to whip up hysteria, hatred, and fear concerning Muslims, Islam, or anyone who is committed to a spiritual faith which is different from the species of rationalistic and secularist faith being espoused by Mr. Harris. In this respect, Mr. Harris' actions are virtually, if not entirely, indistinguishable from the actions of various Muslim theologians or religious scholars who, out of a sense of misplaced self-importance, seek to use their own form of demagoguery to induce Muslims to become consumed with hatred, enmity, hostility, and blood-lust with respect to Americans. Such so-called Muslim leaders should be ashamed of themselves and so should Mr. Harris and those who share his faith in spewing these sorts of toxic belief systems. The irony which resides at the core of books like The End of Faith -- along with books such as The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, and god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens – is that while each of the authors of these books purports to be a rationalist, all too frequently, reason seems to be absent from their respective modes of thinking … at least this appears to be so when considered in the context of issues concerning God's existence. | Return to Menu | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Copyright © 2008 Interrogative Imperative Institute. All Rights Reserved.