Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren

By Mimi Rothschild

In one corner we have the it-boy of evangelical Christendom, Rick Warren. Pastor of the 25,000-stronhigg Saddleback mega-church, Warren is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

In the other corner, Sam Harris, prominent atheist author and student of neuroscience.

When these two power-players square off, it is bound to be interesting.

I’m disappointed in Warren for invoking so many cliched and emotionally-based arguments. I would have liked to see a more logical approach. Then again, I think Sam Harris did not do nearly as good a job evaluating the historical effects of Christianity vs atheism.

What folks like Harris and fellow author Richard Dawkins must realize is that dogma exists on both sides.

Here are some highlights:

WARREN: You have common grace. Even in people who don’t believe in God, there is a spark God has put in you that says, “There’s got to be more to life than just make money and die.” I think that that spark does not come from evolution.

I believe this to be inarguable. In nature, we may find mothers protecting their young. However, have you ever seen a lion nursing the wounds of a wounded gazelle? The “Good Samaritan” phenomenon is a unique to humanity. Altruism is most certainly the product of man being created in God’s image.

WARREN: I don’t feel duty-bound to defend stuff that’s done in the name of God which I don’t think God approved or advocated. Have things been done wrong in the name of Christianity? Yes. Sam makes the statement in his book that religion is bad for the world, but far more people have been killed through atheists than through all the religious wars put together. Thousands died in the Inquisition; millions died under Mao, and under Stalin and Pol Pot. There is a home for atheists in the world today—it’s called North Korea. I don’t know any atheists who want to go there. I’d much rather live under Tony Blair, or even George Bush.

I like to focus on Pol Pot when making similar arguments. Here is a guy who brutally annihilated 80% of his country’s population in the name of socialism. This violence was not motivated by religion whatsoever, but in anti-religious dogmatism. Those who think that society would be better off if no one believed in God should merely turn their eyes to Soviet Russia, North Korea, or Cambodia.

The argument that Christianity is responsible for the world’s woes is half-baked. I would argue that people’s misinterpretation of Christianity, or the character of Christ, is responsible for much of the atrocities we see today.

Read the full debate at Newsweek.

3 Responses to “Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren”

1. names of jesus says:

   April 18, 2010 at 12:42 pm

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2. admin says:

   April 4, 2007 at 2:31 pm

   Good point, Shag!

   I would argue that removing God from the equation does effectively create a vacuum that must be filled by something else. The situation in North Korea would be the extreme (but perhaps logical end) of the absence of belief in a higher power.

   In the words of Bob Dylan, “You gotta serve somebody.”

   Thank you so much for your articulate and constructive response!

   ~Mimi
3. ShagBoon says:

   April 3, 2007 at 4:48 pm

   Thank you for posting this, and for inviting comments.

   I feel compelled to make one observation with respect to Mr. Warren’s quoted passage above, specifically where he states that “there is a home for atheists today – it’s called North Korea”. This is bizarre. I suspect he has either a rather inappropriate understanding of atheism, or knows nothing about North Korea (or both). The cult of personality and hero worship that dominate North Korean society make typical mainstream religious thought look positively weak-kneed.

   I’m no expert but I think it is incorrect to perceive atheism as simply a zero-sum proposition – that is, if there is no god, then something/someone else must consequently be substituted in its place. Harris may have alluded to this when he said elsewhere in the debate that “the killing fields and the gulag were not the product of people being too reluctant to believe things on insufficient evidence”. The Soviets and the Khmer Rouge were not proponents of critical thinking.

   Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to post here.