Letter to a Christian Nation

I just finished this interesting book by Sam Harris a well-published atheist who dislikes the term "atheist". His reasoning is, "I think that “atheist” is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people “non-astrologers.” His point is duly noted.

This is a book dripping with anger and resentment towards Christians and in some ways I can understand his perspective. Here is how the book starts,

"Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse."

I enjoyed reading this book to gain some insight into why someone legitimately doesn't believe in God. I like hearing reasons and think it is vital that we are open enough to genuinely listen to others whose views differ from our own.

The section of the book that was most interesting to me was about Doing Good for God.

"If compassion were really dependent on religious dogmatism, how could we explain the work of secular doctors in the most war-ravaged regions of the developing world? Many doctors are moved simply to alleviate human suffering, without any thought of God. ... Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the needy.... By contrast, volunteers for secular organizations like Doctors Without Borders do not waste any time telling people about the virgin birth of Jesus. Nor do they tell people in sub-Saharan Africa-where nearly four million people die from AIDS every year- that condom use is sinful. Christian missionaries have been known to preach the sinfulness of condom use in villages where no other information about condoms is available. This kind of piety is genocidal. We might also wonder, in passing, which is more moral: helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think the creator of the universe will reward you for it?"

Several thoughts on this:

• Of my friends in medicine who are also interested in international health work I can't think of one (myself included) who is motivated by some reward from God. We are involved because the inequality and tremendous suffering is unnecessary and wrong. Of course I am motivated by the fact that I know God loves these individuals and doesn't want to see them suffer, but it has nothing to do with rewards.
  
• I agree that it is genocidal to try and tell people not to use condoms that could help slow the spread of HIV. At the same time, I think education needs to go deeper than condom use to the root issues affecting the rapid growth of HIV.
  
• Being a Christian means more not less (something I learned all about at Taylor University). It means that in addition to providing health care we will teach them about a God who loves them. It doesn't take away from the medicine, but it adds to it. In many situations I have witnessed, everyone is involved in the ministry but the physicians aren't taking time away from the medicine to do this but are allowing others that aren't actively involved in the medical side of the ministry to spend more time doing this.
  
• While I don't set aside much time to read articles or books with such opposite viewpoints as my own I think it is important to do so every once in a while. I'm glad I didn't pay for this book, but I understand more of where some who don't believe are coming from and that was definitely worth the time investment.