Readers React: Good and godless: Readers on Sam Harris, atheism and spirituality

Sam Harris -- author, outspoken atheist and neuroscientist -- has made several appearances on The Times’ Op-Ed pages, most recently in an interview with Patt Morrison this week in which he reconciles his practice of “spirituality” with his advocacy of atheism. And as in the past, readers are responding in droves to Harris, a few in agreement, most not.

Several readers, including those who describe themselves as atheists, find problems with Harris’ brand of “spiritual but not religious”; believers say a lack of an objective source of morality makes any godless spirituality morally problematic. Others accuse Harris of oversimplifying the practices of believers to take a cheap shot at the religious.

A handful of those letters -- including one from a reader who uses Morrison’s interview with Harris to take a broad swipe at religion -- are below, and some may appear in print later this week.

(Full disclosure: I am an atheist who briefly participated in this debate years ago.)

Long Beach resident Ronald Webster, a nonbeliever, has a problem with calling himself “spiritual”:

My problem with saying that I’m spiritual and not religious would be the same as with saying that I’m religious: I would probably mislead the listener. I don’t believe in the existence of spirits any more than believe in the existence of any deity.

Being too literal is just as problematic, of course. Too much is often assumed when it’s learned that I call myself an atheist.

I remember atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair once telling Johnny Carson that she believed in the existence of “this table” because she could see and touch it -- thereby, it could be argued, denying the existence of everything not immediately evident to the senses.

Atheism is a simple disbelief; it’s not a belief system in and of itself. I could imagine the proverbial Zen monk picking up the table and saying, “Wrong, ‘table’ is a word, and this,” hitting her over the head with it, “is not a word.”

I’ve met too many of my fellow atheists who are also anti-religion. Can’t we all just get along and share our individual beliefs without trying to force them on everyone else?

Greg Fry of Los Angeles warns of the moral perils of “spiritual but not religious”:

Of course one can be “spiritual” in a purely selfish sense. And, of course atheists can have a sense of “morality” -- we all do, whatever our perspectives. Of course an individual atheist might choose to act self-sacrificially -- we can all make whatever choices we want.

What atheism cannot provide -- and what only a cooperation-motivating religion can -- is an objective source of morality, as in a higher moral frame of reference that all (or many) in a society are motivated to subscribe to. If all we are are accidental bits of protoplasm in an uncaring, meaningless universe, there is no common basis for societal cooperation. One’s personal moral choices are merely one’s own opinion, no more or less valid than one with a malevolent bent.

There have been many atheistic movements throughout history which began with the highest of ideals, and some were successful, including the French and Russian revolutions. But their initial idealism proved to be unsustainable. They devolved into reigns of terror. Without a motivator for society to act justly, brute force and terror become the default means of societal control.

It is no accident that religion is making its greatest comeback in areas that have been subjected to state atheism. They know what the real price to pay for such a morally devolved society actually is.

Lynn Aldrich of Glendale says you don’t have to be crazy to believe in God:

Whatever happened to last century’s muscular atheists who were willing to admit that life is meaningless without God? As young and attractive and rational as Harris is, he just can’t resist cooking up his own recipe for self-transcendence.

Call me crazy, but I believe in the omnipotent, omni-benevolent God who doesn’t grow back arms and legs on amputees at prayer meetings. I think Harris is frustrated that science explains as much of reality as we can observe, but it will never make us feel as good as surfing, a fresh pot of coffee or, oh my God, Ecstasy.

Spirituality without content is a harmless pursuit, but will always lack the dramatic rigor of Pascal’s wager that God is real and might be the reason we long to feel spiritual in the first place.

And, call me rational, but I like evolution, and thankfully my religion no longer includes witch burning.

Long Beach resident Julie-Beth Adele finds no use for religion:

“But this is preposterous? A character is either ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’? If you think that, hypocrite lecteur, I can only smile. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it ... fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf -- your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from real reality. That is the basic definition of Homo sapiens.”

-- John Fowles

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

-- Socrates

For more than 20 years these have sufficed as life guides to do what religions don’t: improving my individual self. Instead, religions turn followers into intolerant, warring soldiers ruled by religious leaders bent on their political, social and economic agendas that promote hate and subjugation of various groups of human beings under the guise of obeying their particularized deity.

William Josephs of Encino accuses Harris of charicaturizing prayer:

Although Harris seems to please himself with the absurd notion of people praying for someone’s foot to regrow, it is cynical.

P.T. Barnum said, “There is a sucker born every minute.” There are no doubt people who would spend their time and even money expecting such tricks; after all, television prayer has been a big business.

However, 12th century Bible scholar and physician Maimonides taught rationally that each person should see himself as though the entire world is on a delicate balance, and with one deed, including prayer, he or she can tip the scales. That is miraculous.

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