A leading atheist says people must embrace rationalism, not faith–or they will never overcome their differences.

Interview by Laura Sheahen

Sam Harris is not your grandfather’s atheist. The award-winning writer practices Zen meditation and believes in the value of mystical experiences. But he’s adamant in his belief that religion does more harm than good in the world, and has sparked controversy by suggesting that when it comes to faith-based violence, religious moderates are part of the problem, not the solution. Beliefnet editor Laura Sheahen spoke with him about his provocative book “The End of Faith” and his comments at the World Congress of Secular Humanism, where this interview was conducted.

You’ve said that nonbelievers must try to convince religious people “of the illegitimacy of their core beliefs.” Why are these beliefs dangerous?

On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of our lives. We relax so totally that people believe the most ludicrous propositions, and are willing to organize their lives around them. Propositions like “Jesus is going to come back in the next fifty years and rectify every problem that human beings create”–or, in the Muslim world, “death in the right circumstances leads directly to Paradise.” These beliefs are not very contaminated with good evidence.

There are beliefs–like kids believing in the tooth fairy–that I wouldn’t say are dangerous.

Right. Those are not as consequential. But this whole style of believing and talking about beliefs leaves us powerless to overcome our differences from one another. We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole.

You’re saying we should be part of the human race, not part of any particular religious or national group?

Yeah. It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we’re not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.

Read the Rest of this Controversial Interview Here >>