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Sam Harris: Mythunderstandings Part 2 of 7

Sam Harris charges theists with arrogance since, according to him:

“One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows.”1

Incidentally, we may note that we have responded to Sam Harris’ denial of the alleged myth that “Atheists are arrogant” in part six of my essay: Sam Harris-Myth Buster or Myth Maker?.
Firstly, Sam Harris should not think that no one can know something just because he does not know it-we have termed this: “the fallacy of presumed ubiquitous ignorance” or “the fallacy of presumed omni-ignorance.”

Secondly, let us offer some examples that will call into question whether Judeo-Christian believers are arrogant in the way that Sam Harris claims:

For millennia Jews and Christians claimed that the universe had a beginning. This was viewed, by some, as superstitious ignorance by the scientifically enlightened, to the point that some of them concocted, for example, the Steady State Theory. Then scientists “discovered” that the universe had a beginning.

Therefore, did Judeo-Christianity “claim” to know something that it did not know? Weren’t they right? Was it arrogant to do so? The most brilliant of modern scientists have discovered that the universe had a beginning, that it consists of time, space and matter, that it expands, that the Earth hangs of nothing, that it is spherical and that it possesses a hydrologic cycle and condensation, that the Pleiadian star system is bound together by mutual gravitational attraction, that that the Orion system has a “belt” (to name a few modern discoveries). Yet, can we really refer to something as a “discovery” if it has been known for millennia upon millennia?

The Bible states, “In the beginning God created_” this was the beginning of the universe (Genesis 1:1). It states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth,” “beginning, ” “heavens” and “Earth” = time, space and matter.

2universe-5502308While some ancient cultures believed that the Earth was on the backs of elephants, turtles or was being held up by Atlas, the Bible refers to God as, “He who hangs the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7).

The Bible referred to God as, “He who sits above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22) not the flat plain of the Earth.

In the Bible God is said to have stretched out the universe, “_who stretches out the heavens like a curtain” (Psalm 104:2).

Hydrology is described thusly, “All rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the river flows, there they flow again” (Ecclesiastes 1:7) and “For_the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth” (Isaiah 55:10).

Condensation thusly, “He draws up the drops of water, they distill rain from the mist, which the clouds pour down, they drip upon man abundantly” (Job 36:27-28).

The Pleiades and Orion are referred to in Job 38:31 (for more on this whilst responding to Prof. Richard Dawkins please see this essay).

Ultimately however, Sam Harris is setting up a straw man and skirting the issue (of his arguments in the above mentioned part six). When people refer to atheists are arrogant they are not referring to cosmology, chemistry or biology. One of the things that they are referring to is that, just as Sam Harris does, some atheists think that atheists are the enlightened, the rational, the intellectual, the scientific, the philosophic and certainly that atheists are right and everyone else is wrong, everyone else is ignorant and superstitious. Apparently, believing that no one made everything out of nothing is brilliant but believing that someone made everything out of nothing is ignorant.


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