The book is written by the neo-atheist Sam Harris. I am a passionate sunni Muslim. I would like to learn and review some of his work, and judge them from my personal view based on Islamic theological perspective. It shall be interesting because as you would know, the neo-athiests
want to abolish religions altogether and suggest a world where things are based on science and logic. How is that coherent and how is it relavent? Let's see for ourselves. I would like to thank the local Muslim handles and atheist handles who actively participate in discussions.
I would advice everyone to stick to a more academic discussions and not to deviate the discussion with mockery of Islamic and atheistic beliefs.
This book talks about lying and it's ill effects on the individuals and at large on the society. In a nutshell here are some of the gists of the book. The book basically identified specific ways in which lying is detrimental and why we should avoid lying.
So, on one hand one might say, look here we see the morality being drawn from science. Here Sam Harris has identified the lying and it's dangers without any religious text. Does this notion applies? Can we say science can define morality?
I would say, it's too early to conclude anything of that sort yet, as this is just one of the cases of objective morality, where we say lying is bad. I agree that the information provided in the book are convincing that lying infact is bad, and should be avoided.
In this case, Harris did not refer to any religious text about how they define lying, obviously because he wants to ban religions and show that we don't need religion to live as good people. Do we agree to this? Again. It too early to conclude anything of this sort. Let's just
Talk about lying only for instance. Does religious scripture define lying smiliar to how Sam Harris has defined? On a basic level, it does. On an advanced level, religious scriptures does not detail out sections of it just for lying, which is not really essential, because the
Scriptures idenify on a general level things as being moral or not. God orders how lying is bad and should be avoided, via his book and via prophethood. So fundamentally both sources identity them as being wrong. Sam Harris is an author, and just because he is a neuroscientist
Does not make all of his work scientifically accurate. Infact the book as a whole is philosophical. There is no single grounded theory. But so are many written work. So as a good philosophical work, I would definitely think the book will help people, convince them to stop lying
And make them better people. On the other hand, I would also think that the effect the same concept brings about via religious scripture is far more effective and obligates people from stop lying. Now, believers and unbelievers, both lie. All the time, people lie. The difference
Is people who are follow strict religious guidelines will lie less and probably are more honest people. A work written by an author does not gurantee or obligate anyone. It just is no better than me writing a book named 'opposable thumbs'. It does not obligate poeple to use them.
The conclusion : this is a good book. It encourages people to stop lying. It motivates one to be honest person. So does religious scripture, and the effect is huge from religion, as people are obligated to obey God and his messengers rather than learning a 'nice to have' opinion.
