Sam Harris and others on 9/11

Written by Tom Beasley in News, Opinion at September 12, 2011

Sam Harris came into the spotlight with his works like Letter to a Christian Nation continuing to his newer work The Moral Landscape. Now, along with Hitchens, Dennet and Dawkins, Harris is considered one of the “four horsemen of atheism.” Harris has repeatedly spoken about why he began to be so critical about religion in such an open and significant way, and Harris has consistently responded with a discussion of 9/11. So, it is particularly meaningful that he made a special post on his blog for 9/11:

Ten years have passed since a group of mostly educated and middle-class men decided to obliterate themselves, along with three thousand innocents, to gain entrance to an imaginary Paradise.

Harris, with his surgeon-like rhetoric, often tries to show the link between religion and acts like 9/11. Recently, pictures of the twin towers have circulated the internet to try to strengthen the links of religion with the 9/11 event with the words from Lennon’s song inscribed below: “Imagine no religion.” This discussion also follows a recent study that describes the rates at which Christians or Muslims are willing to concede whether or not a terrorist is “truly Christian” or “truly Muslim.” This delves into the no true Scotsman fallacy, as well. The debate over to what degree religion played a role in 9/11 rages on in the atheist community as well — does the terrorism stem from cultural or social ailments, isn’t religion simply a product of circumstances, and could U.S. foreign policy inevitably cause violence to generate abroad?

When critics illustrate the religious motivation for terrorism or malignant activity, they do not set out to rip that which is dear from the many thousands of religious followers around the globe. Nor do critics, as is often made as a straw man, argue that there would be no terrorism or violence without religion. Indeed, critics readily concede that religion is far from the source of all of our problems — one can cite all too many examples of human destruction without the augment of religion. The critics merely urge for removal of a catalyst; in particular critics urge for this evaluation because the catalyst for this destruction, namely religion, is based entirely on falsehoods.