A Letter to Sam Harris
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
2/10 & 2/11/07

“I was raised an atheist.  Every Sunday, we went nowhere.  We prayed for nothing.  And all our prayers were answered.” –Heidi Joyce, comedienne

Call to Gather

Welcome to another hour to be together in this familiar hall
a time to wonder, to question,
to take stock of what we believe,
and what matters most in life.
As we begin,

know that regardless of your theology or religious background
there is space for you here.
No matter what you doubt, no matter what you trust
No matter how literally you may take words, or how metaphorically,

There is space for you here.
No matter how seriously you hold to your perception of the mystery, or how lightly,
No matter your gender, class, race or sexual orientation…
No matter the pain you have experienced in your life,
no matter the joy,
There is space for you here.

How wonderful to have a place such as this…

where there can be space for us all.

 

 

Meditation Excerpt from a 1994 public lecture offered by Carl Sagan

 

In 1994 at Cornell University, the famous astronomer Carl Sagan delivered a public lecture during which, he presented a photo taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it sailed away from Earth, more than 4 billion miles in the distance. Having completed its primary mission, Voyager at that time was on its way out of the Solar System, on a trajectory of approximately 32 degrees above the plane of the Solar System. Ground Control issued a command for the distant spacecraft to turn around and, looking back, take photos of each of the planets it had visited. From Voyager's vast distance, the Earth was captured as a infinitesimal point of light about 1/10^th the size of a single pixel of the photo.

 

To begin our meditation time today, I will offer an excerpt of Sagan’s reflection on that photo.  Following his words, we will share a quiet time together in the noisy silence of this room.  A time to center ourselves in this time and place…as we ride together on this “pale blue dot” we call home.

 

Sagan said:

 

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

 

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."[1]

 

Reading 

An excerpt from the Sam Harris book Letter to a Christian Nation.  Harris wrote the book in response to letters he received after the publication of his book The End of Faith in which he claims that religion is not only irrational, but dangerous to society.  He addresses his “letter” to those from whom he received the most opposition:  Christians, in a narrow sense of the term, who believe “at a minimum, that the Bible is the inspired word of God and that only those who accept the divinity of Jesus will experience salvation after death….”[2]

 

Harris writes:

 

It seems profoundly unlikely that we will heal the divisions in our world through interfaith dialogue.  Devout Muslims are as convinced as you are that their religion is perfect and that any deviation leads directly to hell.  It is easy, of course, for the representatives of the major religions to occasionally meet and agree that there should be peace on earth, or that compassion is the common thread that unites all the world’s faiths.  But there is no escaping the fact that a person’s religious beliefs uniquely determine what he thinks peace is good for, as well as what he means by a term like ‘compassion.’  There are millions—maybe hundreds of millions—of Muslims who would be willing to die before they allow your version of compassion to gain a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula.   How can interfaith dialogue, even at the highest level, reconcile worldviews that are fundamentally incompatible and, in principle, immune to revision?  The truth is, it really matters what billions of human beings believe and why they believe it.[3]

 

Reading         An excerpt from Practicing Peace in Times of War, a book by American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron.

 

If you look back at history or you look at any place in the world where religious groups or ethnic groups or racial groups or political groups are killing each other, or families have been feuding for years and years, you can see—because you’re not invested in that particular argument—that there will never be peace until somebody softens what is rigid in their heart.  So it’s necessary to take a big perspective on your own righteousness and your own fundamentalism when it begins to kick in and you think your own aggression and prejudice are reasonable….

 

The other night, I was getting hard-hearted, closed-minded, and fundamentalist about somebody else, and I remembered this expression that you can never hate somebody if you stand in that person’s shoes.  I was angry at him because he was holding such a rigid view.  In that instant I was able to put myself in his shoes, and I realized, “I’m just as riled up and self-righteous and closed-minded about this as he is.  We’re in exactly the same place!”  And I saw that the more I held on to my view, the more polarized we would become, and the more we’d be just mirror images of one another—two people with closed minds and hard hearts who both think they’re right, screaming at each other.  It changed for me when I saw it from his side, and I was able to see my own aggression and ridiculousness.

 

If you could have a bird’s-eye perspective on the earth and could look down at all the conflicts that are happening, all you’d see are two sides to a story where both sides think they’re right.  So the solutions have to come from a change of heart, from softening what is rigid in our hearts and minds.[4]

 

Sermon

 

Dear Sam Harris,

 

It’s OK if I call you Sam, isn’t it?  I hope so.  Writing Mr. Harris over and over just seems too formal for what I have in mind with this letter.  I decided to write you because you have written a couple of books that have captured the attention of lots of people who are concerned about the role of religion in our lives, and the impact religion (especially dogmatic, exclusionary religion) has had and could have on the future of our planet.  In fact, many people in the church I serve have read at least some of your work.  And a few, I think, are considering putting bronzed copies of your book The End of Faith on their mantles.  Yes, Sam, it seems you have struck a chord with folks.  Congratulations.  I’m sure you are now reaping the rewards of your provocative approach to religious critique.

 

I, of course, noticed the attention you’ve been getting and have been intrigued by the passion with which people have reacted to your work.  I’ve heard from people who think you are the greatest thing since American Idol and I’ve heard from people who wonder if you may be a little (if not a lot) over the top.

 

So, I figured I had to read your thoughts myself and, since I am a minister of a church and all, I’d better let the congregation I serve know what I think about your ideas.  (I hope you don’t mind that I read this letter to them).

 

So, first let me say, “Wow!”  It is a word that I found myself thinking a lot as I made my way through your books.  “Wow” as in “Wow, he is really going after religion.”  “Wow, I can’t believe he just wrote that.”  “Wow, that’s certainly one way to look at it.”

 

Here are a few examples of your writing that got me saying “wow.”

 

In Letter to a Christian Nation you wrote:

 

“20 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.  There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgement: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.”[5] 

 

Wow.

 

To explain why religion is not inherently helpful to society you wrote “Seventy percent of inmates in French jails…are Muslim.”[6] 

 

Wow.

 

To highlight how a Christian God obviously does not care for his followers you wrote,

“What was God doing while Katrina laid waste to…[New Orleans]? Surely He heard the prayers of…elderly men and women who…[eventually] drowned.  Do you have the courage [you asked your readers] to admit the obvious?  These poor people died talking to an imaginary friend.”[7]

 

Wow.

 

You wrote,

“The choice before us is simple: we can either have a twenty-first century conversation about morality and human well-being—a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible.  Why would anyone want to take the latter approach?”[8]

 

Wow. 

 

I suppose you may want to know why I would say “wow” to that last quote.  On the surface, it seems really sensible, I know.  I, for one, certainly wouldn’t want us to confine ourselves to a first-century conversation about the Bible.  Indeed, all of the Christian clergy and laity I know in town (admittedly moderate or liberal in perspective) wouldn’t want us to do that either.  I think I get your point that we have to keep ourselves open to all arguments rather than limit ourselves to just one.  However, elsewhere you suggest that religious moderates are nothing more than “failed fundamentalists” and that “attempting to hold on to what is still serviceable in orthodox religion closes the door on more sophisticated approaches to spirituality, ethics, and the building of strong communities.”[9] In essence, you suggest that all Christian, Islamic, Hindu (and many more) religions need to be eradicated so that we might be led to the promised land of science, ethics, and innate human insight.

 

I know I’m probably going to sound defensive here, Sam, but I don’t think you can have it both ways.  Either you are open to all insights and arguments and means by which humans make sense of the world or you are not.

 

And I think this is where I have to let out the biggest “wow” of all. 

 

Sam, you have put me in the difficult position of having to disagree with you.  I don’t want to disagree with you.  The fact is I concur that we need to be able to openly discuss religion and to think together about the consequences of what and how we believe. Furthermore, I, too, share at least some of the fear and concern you express about overly dogmatic and restrictive approaches to religion, which, through their teachings, can inspire people to do some dreadful things. 

 

However, I don’t think that you can ask for thoughtfulness when it comes to religion when the picture you draw of religious faith is so limited that you aren’t willing to acknowledge (other than a few quick dismissals) that there are many different ways of interpreting life theistically other than via restrictive dogmatic theologies.  I could not find one reference in your work, for example, to the ideas of process theologians like Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne or Henry Nelson Wieman.  You do briefly mention Paul Tillich, the influential 20^th century Christian theologian who spoke of God as the “ground of being” and who questioned “idolatrous faith,” opting rather for an existentially-oriented faith focused on symbolic understanding of the Bible rather than biblical literalism. However, you suggest that Tillich’s approach is a “blameless parish of one” and is, therefore, outside your argument, which is aimed, you say, “at the majority of the faithful in every religious tradition.”[10]

 

OK, so you are, in fact, focused on the religious fundamentalists among us, those who proclaim absolute certainty about the next life, which you say is antithetical to tolerance.  And yet, having identified a disconnect between these fundamentalist theologies and your own understandings of faith and reason, you then proceed to denounce religious moderates who have moved beyond these definitive certainties, but who still find meaning in the metaphors of their traditions.  You include the moderates in your polemic against religion, because you say they basically enable the religious fascists among us to go unchallenged.  You write in the End of Faith: 

“It is time we recognized that the only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts.  Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us.”[11] 

 

I couldn’t agree more. However, I respectfully suggest that you can’t expect any kind of open dialogue when the only way you are willing to engage those holding fundamentalist views is to say, “You are wrong.”   And when you categorize those who want to have the dialogue (the religious moderates) as part of the problem. The essential discussion about how humans can better live together and treat each other will not be furthered by simply dismissing the ways in which millions of people find meaning, especially when you do so with what I find to be an infuriatingly arrogant tone, as if you are any more certain of the mysteries of life than anyone else is.

 

I have to pause here to tell you a joke that I’ve shared at church before.

 

In a town not all that unlike this one, there is an elderly woman who every morning for years has gone out onto her porch, raised her arms to the sky and shouted “Praise God!”  One day an atheist moves in next door to the woman, sees her morning ritual, and is predictably irritated.  So every morning he waits for the woman to shout her praises, so that he can shout back at her “There is no God!”  This daily exchange goes on for years.  One winter, though, the woman experiences some hardships and this time goes out onto her porch to holler “Praise God!  I spent the food money on heat and now I am going hungry.  Provide for me, God!”  The next morning she steps out onto her porch and discovers two full bags of groceries have been left by the door.  “Praise God!” she proclaims.  “God has provided me with groceries!”  Just then the atheist neighbor jumps out and shouts back “There is no God!  I bought those groceries!”  The woman throws her arms into the air and shouts “Praise God! Who provided me with groceries and made the devil pay for them!”

 

Back to my point, Sam.  I need to say that when you declare that overly dogmatic religion is too dangerous to accept as a valid lens through which to view the world and our lives in it, you strike a chord with me.  I, too, have concerns about the ways in which religious belief can foster divisions between people and create tribes and fiefdoms that seem more concerned with limiting understanding of our fellow humans, rather than developing insight into our differences and, perhaps more importantly, our similarities.

 

The fact is, I chose Unitarian Universalism as my religious home, and felt called to minister in service to its principles and people, in large part because I saw its potential for being an alternative to exclusionary religion.   I saw in Unitarian Universalism a religious perspective that encourages a different kind of faith, actually more of a faith journey, to be precise.  A journey not necessarily tied to a specific dogma or belief system, but rather a journey that is as unique as each of the people who travel it.  A journey more in keeping with our always unfolding understandings of the universe and our places in it.  A journey that acknowledges in a real way that we are more than breathing bags of skin and bones bumping up against one another from time to time.  We are thinking, feeling, doubting, hurting, yearning, fearing, loving, confusing, and confounding creatures capable of great coldness and great compassion, spiraling through a finite life that we can never fully comprehend toward an unknown destination.  And I still believe ten years after first finding a UU church, that Unitarian Universalism holds the possibility for a boldly open approach to religion that does not ignore the perceptions or understandings of those who have come before us but that also is not limited to them.  I believe that Unitarian Universalism offers a means by which we can respectfully search the religious ideas of the past, both good and bad, so that we might do our part to help create a better future.  You would no doubt look down on this approach as “cherry picking” religion, Sam…as trying to have our cake and eat it, too.  You would say that religion is inherently opposed to this kind of picking and choosing.  And I don’t disagree.  But that’s why I’m here, serving as a UU minister.  I agree with you that exclusionary religion is dangerous and I want to be part of another way.  As Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine and a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian, who would agree with much of what you have to say about the dangers of religion, has put it, “The answer to bad religion is not ‘no religion,’ but ‘better religion.’

 

The answer to bad religion is not “no religion” but “better religion.”

 

Does Unitarian Universalism always fulfill the potential I have assigned it?  Of course not.  I don’t fulfill my own potential, so why should I expect my religion to?  After all, when humans run the show, we can’t really expect perfection now can we?  The fact is that even as our Unitarian Universalist congregations are made up of people who are trying to be open to religion, even with all of its flaws and foibles, our congregations also have their fair share of people who are trying to run away from religion, who are drawn to our approach because it offers a safe haven for their own predispositions and, dare I say it,  bigotry.

 

In other words, Sam, I think you would fit right in. 

 

Just as I hope we all do. 

 

This is both the good news and the bad news of our UU approach to faith.  But Sam, I suppose, this is the good news and bad news of this life we share, too.  If each person has inherent worth and dignity no matter what she thinks about God, (which most of us UUs believe), then we have to find a way to not restrict or discount the ways in which people make and find meaning just because we find their beliefs “silly.”  Now when someone’s faith perspective endangers others, I agree that we are obliged to speak up, to name the danger and do what we can to stop it.  But we should be speaking up not against others’ right to believe as they choose, but against the way that they act.  To attack religion as a whole to make a point about restrictive or oppressive religion is kind of like attacking the practice of medicine because of drug abuse.  No matter how much we may want to think that we are being logical in our conclusions, there will be others who will see our “logic” as irrational.  No matter how sound our arguments may seem in the bubble of our own lives and experiences, there are others who, by virtue of their own unique life stories, will find little of value or comfort in the same arguments. 

 

Another pause for a story.

 

One of my colleagues told me recently of a member of his congregation, who, at one time, would have been at your side, Sam, on the front lines of arguments against all religious belief.  And then, his 10-year-old daughter was killed in an auto accident.  Did he suddenly believe in a benevolent God?  Hardly.  “But,” he confessed to his minister, “I now believe in an afterlife…that I will see my daughter again. Not because it is likely.  But because it is the only thing that gets me through the day.”

 

So, Sam, pardon me for inserting that emotion-laden anecdote to our philosophical discussion, but I have to ask, are you going to be the one to take away the possibility of heaven from this man, just because you think the idea is silly?  What would be the point?  What other metaphors and religious symbols should also go away to satisfy your rationality…as if the fact that we are alive at all is rational.

 

You imply that the day humanity gives up theistic religion once and for all will be the day when we will all frolic in happiness at last, never again to be dragged down by our penchant for supernatural answers to the unfathomable mysteries of our existence.  And you may be right.  But, how, I wonder, will we ever get there when people like you are leading the way with proclamations that religious moderation is as dangerous as fundamentalism? 

 

You write a lot about logical arguments.  But when you choose to ignore or toss aside the fact that religion, throughout time, has been the source of inspiration for extraordinary acts of compassion and humble self-sacrifice in service to humanity, not to mention the means by which people throughout time have simply made it through one more day toward a better tomorrow, you are essentially suggesting that humans should abandon a significant component of our heritage and comfort because some of our ancestors and peers have been drawn toward exclusionary, dogmatic beliefs. 

 

None of us would argue, I think, that religion in nearly all its variations, hasn’t been the vehicle for injustice of all sorts.  If we thumb through any world history text, we will quickly see that as long as humans have looked to religion for guidance and support, it has been utilized to inflict suffering, to maintain an unjust status quo, or to justify the appropriation (or stealing) of land or natural resources. But a closer look at the stories of these abuses of religion will mostly show that the people pulling the strings were merely using religious dogma as a tool to manipulate others for their own selfish interests…including the translators of the Bible itself.  Let’s not be fooled into believing that religion was behind these atrocities, when religion was merely the vehicle by which they were perpetrated.

 

Does this mean that religion is not worthy of critique?  I don’t think so.  However, suggesting that religion be wiped from our consciousness in order for us to move forward in our development as a people is not the way to do it, especially because you want us to put our faith, if you’ll pardon the expression, in humanity at the same time you that condemn the religious expressions of the very humanity you want us to trust.  It just doesn’t work.  At least not for me.

 

So what does work for me?  Well, unlike you, I do think there is a hopeful purpose to interfaith dialogue, to having people with different faith perspectives sharing their views with one another.  Not because they will agree, but because we need to see that there are others who share our world.  Others who care about their children. Others who are struggling to make sense of existence and to fill the emptiness that often accompanies life with some system of belief (whether it be religious, scientific, or both) that helps them carry on from day to day.  I cannot be convinced that we are better off avoiding or demeaning one another (or our religious perspectives).  Rather, I contend that the only thing that can save us is for us to see that we are in this life together…that we are sharing a journey on our pale blue dot, whether we like it or not…and that the only way to approach peace is for us soften what is rigid in our hearts and minds.

 

Let me be clear.  I am not suggesting that you, Sam, are on the same level as an Islamic jihadist ready to be martyred for your beliefs, or a Christian extremist who would prefer that homosexuals forever remain as second class citizens.  However, I do think the manner in which you convey your anti-faith position is dogmatic in dangerous ways and will embolden people to remain tied to rigid anti-religious perspectives that offer very little possibility for the kind of real dialogue that could be our greatest hope.

 

The president of the UUA, the Rev. Bill Sinkford, offers what I think is a solid UU response to your work.  He says that to do anything other than respect the beliefs of others, even as we condemn their actions, would “violate our religious principles so deeply that it’s simply not an option.  We have to remain as we are as a religious people.  The least helpful kind of discourse is one which tries to prove who is right theologically.”[12]

 

What do I mean by respect?  I mean acknowledging that others can  (and will!) believe as they choose.  I can’t do anything about that.  I can, however, challenge what they do.

 

So, know that I respect your beliefs, Sam.  Even as I must disagree with some of them.

 

One more thing.  I hope you’ll be happy to know that, once our building project leaves room for adult classes on Sundays again, there will be a class for those who want to read and discuss your work.

 

And I hope you’ll come to church with us if you are ever in Des Moines.  You are welcome here.  Just as everyone else is.