Subject Index
A
abortion, 59-60
and moral value of life, 106-11 absolute morality, 99 accident, 31 Acts 17:24 -28, 124 aesthetic design, 118-19 alienation, 17 Andrews, Lori, 113 answers, ultimate, 41 -44 Aristotle, 81 atheism
atheists and the new atheism, 23-24 author’s study of, 29-30 classification of, 49-50 and death, 74 definition of love, 69-72 and hope, 74 and morality, 64 -65 no ultimate answers,
41 -44
as refusal to deny the obvious, 47 starting point of, 32 taken to logical
conclusions, 44 -46 Atran, Scott, 23, 76
B
belief, 79-80 Bible, 43 prophecy, 86 -88 Big Bang, 31 bomb, 115 -16 Boreham, F. W., 103 Buddhism, 89 -91, 93, 96
C
Cameron, Nigel, 112 -13, 114
Camus, Albert, 27 caste system, 100 catastrophe, 48 Chancey, Geary and Mary Jean, 71
Chesterton, G. K., 39 -40 children, exploited, 72, 73 Cho, Seung-Hui, 81 choice, 59 Christianity
anxiety about sex, 83 -84 Harris’s claim of
superiority of other religions, 93 and slavery, 97 -99 CIPA (Congenital
Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis),
66-67
cloning, human, 103, 111-14 compenetration, 84 Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA), 66-67 Copleston, Frederick, 54 core ethic, 81 cosmology, 31 creator, 37 -38 Crick, Francis, 34 Cupitt, Don, 29
D
Daniel 11, 87
DaVinci Code, The, 64, 78
Dawkins, Richard, 16, 23,
38, 65, 105 death, 26, 66, 74 depravity, 68 design, aesthetic, 118 -19 despair, 28, 40 determinism, 38 disappointment, 41 discrimination, 100
diversity, 123-27 divorce, 99 DNA, 35
Doctor and the Soul, The (Frankl), 62-63 Does God Exist? (Willard), 117
doubt, 59, 101 E
egalitarianism, 98, 99 Einstein, Albert, 31, 116 embryo research, 112 empirical test for belief, 79-80 emptiness, 17 End of Faith, The (Harris),
22, 91, 123-24 entity, physical, 117-18 equality, 98 ethic, core, 81 Eucharist, 123-24 evil
existence of, 55, 56 and human heart, 68 -69 and pain, 66 -67 relation to existence of God, 50 -55 evolution, 37, 52 excluded middle, law of, 110 existence
pointlessness of, 36 without God, 27 existential test for belief, 79-80
exploitation, sexual, 72-74 extraterrestrial existence, 36
F
faith, 75-76, 90 felt reality, 66 -67 1 Corinthians 11:26, 124
1 Kings 3:16-28, 103-4 7:23 -28, 87 Flew, Antony, 37, 44 Foucault, Michel, 44-45 Frankl, Viktor, 62 -63 free will, 58-59 freedom, 75-76 fundamentalism, 63
G
Gandhi, Mahatma, 92-93, 100
genetic engineering, 103-5, 113
George, Robert, 112 Gingras, Gabby, 66 -67 Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 107 God
argument for existence of, 56, 117 -21 and death, 66 denying existence of,
67 -68 difference from accident,
31
evidence of existence, 88 existence without, 27 failure to protect humanity, 48 and moral reasoning, 94 and relation to reality of evil, 50-55
God Delusion, The (Dawkins), 23 good, 101-102 good, intrinsic, 56 Good Samaritan, 96-97 Gould, Stephen Jay, 32 -33,
45
guruism, 26
H
Hamas, 126 happiness, 48
hardness of human heart, 99 Harkin, Tom, 109 Harris, Sam, 14-18, 21, 22 and Christ of Scripture,
82 -85
derision of Mother Teresa, 101-102 and Eucharist, 123-24 and faith, 90 and genetic engineering, 103-4 misunderstanding of
Pascal’s wager, 80 -81 and morality, 46-49 and origin, 31 prejudice against Muslims, 76-77 and slavery, 97 -98 and stem cell research,
108-10 and worship, 94-95 Hawking, Stephen, 31 heart, human, 68 -69 changing, 99-102 Hebrew prophecy, 84 Hinduism, 24, 90, 93
Hitchens, Christopher, 16, 101, 102 Hitler, Adolf, 51-52 Holloway, Roger, 127 -28 Holocaust, 50-51, 62, 99 hope, 28, 74 - 79 hopelessness, 74 Hoyle, Fred, 35 Hume, David, 39 Hurricane Katrina, 48, 50 Huxley, Aldous, 61-62 hypocrisy, 96
I
imaginary time, 31 India, 24, 25 -27, 100, 108 individual self, 90-91 infinite nothing, 27 innocents, killing of, 57 -58 Institute for Advanced Science, 35 intelligence, 36 -37, 118-20 intrinsic good, 56 intrinsic worth, 53, 55, 56, 58
Isaiah, 84-85 7:14, 82 8:3, 84-85 9:6, 85 Islam, 63, 76, 122-23, 126-27
J
Jainism, 92-93 Jeremiah 19:4, 86 Jesus
in the course of human events, 120 -21
method for changing human hearts, 99-102 and nature of reality, 28 resurrection of, 74-75 in Scripture, 82 -85 and slavery, 99 teachings about hope, 78 teachings about worship, 95 -96 Job 31:13-15, 98 John, 83 -84 justice, ultimate, 80 -82
K
Keirstead, Hans, 110-11
killing, 57 -58
Kilner, John, 111
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 92
knowledge, 63
Krauthammer, Charles, 112
L
Last Temptation of Christ, The, 64, 78 law of the excluded middle, 110
lawgiver, moral, 55 -56 Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris), 14-18, 21, 22,
46 -49 Lewis, C. S., 37, 100, 121 life
beginning of, 34 innocent, 58 intrinsic worth of, 53 moral value of, 106 -11 random, 34 -37 without purpose, 41
loneliness, 40 -41 love, 59
definition of, 69-72 mother’s, 70-71 sacrificial, 71-72 as way to change human hearts, 99 Luke 10:25-37, 96
M
MacDonald, George, 100 Mackie, J. L., 56 Mahavira, 92 Marx, Karl, 68-69 Mary Magdalene, 78 mathematics, 105 Matthew, 86 4:3, 6, 9, 88 19:8, 99 22:37, 39, 96 27:9-10, 86 meaning, 39-46, 61 meaninglessness, 17 memes, 38 Miracles (Lewis), 37 Missionary Position, The (Hitchens), 101 moral framework, 57-58 moral lawgiver, 55-56 moral order, 52, 60 -63 moral reasoning, 46, 81, 94 moral value, 106 -11 morality, 26, 46-74 absolute, 99 and atheists, 64-65 and moral lawgiver, 55-56 objective, 54 and redemption, 94
and Ten Commandments, 93 -97 Mother Teresa, 101 -2 mother’s love, 70-71 Mowrer, O. Hobart, 67 Muggeridge, Malcolm, 39,
68
Muslims, 76 -78 “Myth of Sisyphus, The” (Camus), 27
N
natural selection, 52, 72 New Orleans, 48, 50 Nielsen, Kai, 57 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 26-27, 98
Norsigian, Judy, 113 nothing infinite, 27 relation to something,
32 -34, 118
O
objective morality, 54 oblivion, 26
One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology (Polkinghorne), 31, 124-26 origin, 31 -38 Oxford University, 65
P
Padmasambhava, 89 Page, Donald, 35 pain, 39-41, 66-67 partial birth abortion, 107 Pascal’s wager, 79 -81
Paul, 83
physical entity, 117-18 pleasure, 39-41 fleeting, 80 -82 without boundaries, 41, 82 Polanyi, Michael, 62 Polkinghorne, John, 31, 124-26 Porco, Carolyn, 95 pornography, 73 prejudice, 77 prophecy Hebrew, 84 nature of, 86 -88 punishment, 100 purpose, 26, 32, 41
R
racism, 100
radical secularism, 122 -23 random life, 34-37 reality
felt, 66-67 nature of, 28 reason, 37 -38
as provider of moral framework, 57 -58 reasoning, moral, 46, 94 redemption, 94 relativity, 31 religion, 25 -27 comparisons, 120 and radical secularism, 122-23 and science, 124 Revelation 5:9, 124 righteousness, 94, 100 RNA, 35
Ross, Hugh, 59 Ruse, Michael, 23 Russell, Bertrand, 32,
52 -54, 71, 92 -93, 116
S
sacrificial love, 71-72 Sagan, Carl, 34, 36 Sakharov, Andrei, 115 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 39, 43 science
and moral decisions, 106 moral incapacity of, 61 -62 and religion, 124
2 Chronicles 4:2-5, 87 secularism, 122 -23, 126-27 self
and Buddhism, 89 -91 individual, 90 -91 self-fulfillment, 79 Selfish Gene, The (Dawkins), 38
sensual bankruptcy, 82 Serrano, Andres, 64 sex, anxiety about, 83-84 sexual exploitation, 72-74 Sharansky, Natan, 115 significance, 36 Singer, Peter, 72, 107 slavery, 97 -99 Solomon, 103 -4 something
relation to nothing,
32 -34, 118 special pleading, 90 specificity, intelligent, 118-19 stem cells, 107, 109, 110-11
suffering, 15, 48, 58 -59 suicide, 16, 27 -28 Sullivan, Andrew, 101 supernatural, 24 survival of the fittest, 52 “Sword of Solomon, The” (Boreham), 103
T
Ten Commandments, 93 -97 theism, Christian, 37 thirty silver coins, 86 time, imaginary, 31 transcending value, 56 trust, 59
truth, 115-16, 117 U
ultimate answers, 41 -44 ultimate justice, 80 -82 unity, 123 -27
V
value
intrinsic, 58 of life, 106 -11 transcending, 56 violence, 64
virgin birth, 72-73, 83-85
Virginia Tech University, 81, 91 “Viruses of the Mind” (Dawkins), 38 Voltaire, 42-43, 52
W
Wahid, Abdurrahman, 63 Warren, Rick, 79 Wickramasinghe, N. C., 35 Wilde, Oscar, 40 Willard, Dallas, 117 women, 72, 73, 79 world ensemble cosmology, 31
world religions, 25 -27 worldview, 30-31 worship, 94-95 worth
intrinsic, 53, 55, 56, 58 transcending, 56
Y
Yamanaka, Shinya, 111 Yancey, Philip, 100 Z
Zacharias, Ravi
introduction to, 23 -30 Zechariah 11:12, 86
1 Unless, of course, Harris wants to philosophize, as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking does, about a universe without boundary or edge and go the route of a “world ensemble cosmology” and imaginary time. John Polkinghorne, professor of mathematical physics at Queens College, Cambridge, a colleague of Hawking, had just one response to that proposition for those of us studying under him: “Let’s recognize imagination for what it is.” (The quote is from my class notes, but I found a similar statement in his book One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology [London: SPCK, 1986], 80: “Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics but, in the strictest sense, metaphysics.”) Hawking does grant a “beginning.” He just lacks a beginning point. In his extensions, Hawking is simply engaging in bad metaphysics.
2 Francis Crick is the codiscoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule.
3 Richard Dawkins first introduced the term memes in his book The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976). He argues that religion is a “mental virus of faith” in his essay “Viruses of the Mind,” Free Inquiry (Summer 1993), 34-41.
The words of the epitaph come from Oscar Wilde’s poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.”
4 See Thomas Molnar, “Jean-Paul Sartre, RIP: A Late Return,” National Review 34 (June 11, 1982): 677: “It is sufficient to quote a single sentence from what Sartre said then to measure the degree of his acceptance of the grace of God and the ereatureliness of man: ‘I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.’ ” Quoted in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, “Existentialism,” http://www.greatcom.org/resources/ secular_religions/chO4/default.htm (accessed October 1, 2007).
5 Naturalism’s assumption is that nature is all we have.
6 “Faith,” Harris writes, “is rather like a rhinoceros, in fact: it won’t do much in the way of real work for you, and yet at close quarters it will make spectacular claims upon your attention” [End of Faith, 215}.
7 In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg declared that the majority’s opinion “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away a right declared again and again by this court, and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.” Quoted in Bill Mears, “Justices Uphold Ban on Abortion Procedure,” http:// www. cnn. com/2007/LAW/04/18/scotus. abortion/index, html (September 18, 2007).
8 No, these are not proofs. Proof for metaphysical assertions is a misuse of the term.
9 See especially Jesus among Other Gods (Nashville: Nelson, 2000).