Before proceeding it is necessary to make a point about critically discussing what Harris has written. Previously I noted the difficult prose which mars any meaningful contribution the texts may seek to make. As PZ Myers puts it, “one of the problems with grappling with the objectionable ideas Harris has thrown out is that they’re fuzzily presented and laced with caveats to hide behind” [1]. Given the amount of time Harris spends telling people that they (or others) are misrepresenting his views one wonders just how able he is to communicate a point [see: 2]. Not oblivious to that fact Harris even says, "I can’t shake the feeling that if I just wrote or spoke more clearly, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen" [2]. Indeed.
Such open awareness of his propensity for poor communication gives me cause to speculate. I suspect that accusations of misrepresentation may well be a built in retort which Harris deploys whenever he’s seen to be making statements that are of factually dubious or unsavoury character. Instances of such shall be considered when discussing Moral Landscape and Free Will in subsequent posts.
Additionally, when misunderstanding is claimed, something in the way of a genuine clarification should be forthcoming. Not something Harris does in the majority of cases. He appears instead to claim that the reader is mistaken and then proceed without anything resembling a more precise articulation. Again, that leads me to question whether his opaque deliveries, equivocation, and lack of clarity are deliberate.
So we have a problem when engaging with Harris’ work. One can avoid these though when focusing on basic points. Rather than addressing an aspect of End of Faith that could lead to claims of misrepresentation I shall herein focus on a contention so simple that even Sam Harris can communicate it clearly: that Buddhism is not a religion. My argument here is that Buddhism is a religion. In the following post I will argue in greater detail that it also serves as the basis of Harris’ own religiosity.
In a debate concerning the benefits or lack thereof from belief in God held earlier this year in Canberra, Lawrence Krauss said the following:
"Clearly, not every religious belief can be rational. It is generally true, from my experience in addressing audiences of people of faith, that that fact is accepted. But what is always accepted is that the other peoples' faiths are irrational and the peoples' own faith is rational." [3]
Such is the case with Harris. Despite having written a book titled The End of Faith and frequently criticising “religion”, Harris nevertheless possesses his own brand of religiosity against which he measures all others, asserting his own to be empirical and valid. To be absolutely clear: I am certainly not referring to ‘atheism’ as a religion, nor do I mean to suggest that science can be read as such; I mean to say Harris has beliefs derived from Buddhism that are not founded on evidence, and thus are faith-based beliefs linked to a recognised religion.
Of course, Harris’ counter is that Buddhism is not a religion. In the notes to End of Faith (another recurrent feature of Harris’ work is that significant points are buried in the endnotes rather than included in the main text), he writes:
“Attentive readers will have noticed that I have been very hard on religious faith – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Hinduism – and have not said much that is derogatory of Buddhism. This is not an accident. While Buddhism has also been a source of ignorance and occasional violence, it is not a religion of faith, or a religion at all, in the Western sense.” (End of Faith, p.283)
Unhelpfully, Harris doesn’t establish what religion “in a Western sense” actually constitutes. Nowhere are we shown a difference between Western and (presumably) Eastern ‘religion’ nor why this should actually matter. I suspect a basic principle of distinction is being used by Harris, something along the lines of: ‘all these other examples have deities, Buddhism does not therefore it is not a religion’; or, ‘all these possess a supernatural dimension, (my) Buddhism does not therefore it is not religion’. In regards to the latter principle, AC Grayling has stated that Theravada Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy because it has no supernatural "beings" [4]. Implied therein is the concession that not all Buddhism merits exclusion from the label ‘religion’. However, Harris remains general and sees all Buddhism as exempt.
Whether Buddhism is sufficiently akin to the Abrahamic traditions or Hinduism (it is in fact a derivative of it) is not the point. I could easily get into the range of academic definitions of ‘religion’ but instead will remain in the popular Harris-friendly sphere of discourse. Let’s consult the vernacular atheist’s bible – Wikipedia – for a definition: “Religion is a collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral value” [5]. Notice also that supernaturalism is not required by this definition. Indeed, if we are to call Raelianism or Scientology religions then we need a definition that does not require the supernatural. After describing Buddhists as the physicists of spirituality, Harris proceeds to state:
“Though there is much in Buddhism that I do not pretend to understand – as well as much that seems deeply implausible – it would be intellectually dishonest not to acknowledge its preeminence [sic] as a system of spiritual instruction.” (End of Faith, p.284).
Without introducing any new phraseology we automatically see confluence: a “system of spiritual instruction” would by the definition be a religion. It warrants noting that the Wikipedia page includes Buddhism. Returning to the suggestion that Buddhism is not a religion in the “Western sense” it also warrants noting that Buddhism is part of the subject matter in Studies in Religion departments at major Western universities. Buddhist representatives also attend inter-faith chaplaincies and dialogues in at least this Western country.
If pushed Harris may say that he is 'spiritual' and not 'religious', a common reprise in this day. Presently though that is a way of being religious to one's own individualised faith rather than an institutional framework. In other words, spatiality and religion are different by degree, not kind. This is especially so given both rest on faith. Spirituality assumes a spiritual dimension without evidence. Once again, Harris offers no verification of the claim that Buddhism is preeminent. It is dishonest in any sense, including intellectually, to cast a system of belief as superior to all others (clearly Harris’ language extends the scope beyond religious systems) without at least providing a case first.
Thus, Harris is rebutted on a rather clear point. Whatever his, or other Buddhist proponents opinions, Buddhism is regarded as a religion and fits a broadly available definition of such that may quite easily enter the kind of public, non-academic discourse in which Harris resides.
In the next post I will further examine how Harris treats Buddhism to show that he has a certain faith-based (i.e. evidential unsubstantiated) conviction which undermines his general anti-religion stance.
[1] http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/08/addressing-sam-harris/
[2] http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/wrestling-the-troll
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YKrLab0IWg
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1QnbM
To quote: "Theravada Buddhism is not a religion, it doesn't have any supernatural beings in it - it's a philosophy". However, there's no clear reason why a philosophy cannot equally become, or in some cases legitimately be called, a religion. Such certainly seems the case with the majority of Buddhism.
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