There has been a debate on belief.net between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan. I think the recent rounds of books by Atheists are good for people of faith. It helps to see your own logic through the eyes of outsiders and this is a wake up call that liberal faith isn’t making its views well known. Fundamentalists seem to have the monopoly on faith these days. It sucks that in this debate Andrew Sullivan is the one making the case for faith. Sam makes great points and Andrew doesn't seem to have the information to make a good case for liberal forms of faith.

The problem with Sam's argument and even his latest book is that he confuses "faith" with "belief". They are 2 different concepts. He is right to shoot down belief in unbelievable things and I agree that fundamentalists in all religions make that mistake, but he must understand faith in a modern and post-modern liberal context is about being confident that you and the world can be transformed into something better by following a particular path (religion). Faith should not be limited to belief that certain events happened as described in ancient texts. Beliefs (about afterlife, miracles, a theistic God, etc) are often combined with faith but are not essential to faith. The main idea behind modern/liberal theology is that we accept ancient beliefs are indeed problematic but we look to incorporate their ancient concepts of faith into a modern (and now post-modern) world view.

I agree with Sam in being anti-belief but I am not anit-faith. I have "faith" that we can change the world and I know that as a result, my faith in that idea has changed me. By changing me I don't mean it "saved me for some better status in an after-life". Instead I mean it changed my priorities and is still changing my character.

I’m convinced that better adult education (Marcus Borg likes to use the term “Adult RE-education”) can solve this problem. We need better theology taught in our churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples, etc. Atheists like Sam Harris won’t have the respect within faith communities to combat bad theology from outside the faith however clear and concise theological education from within the world’s religions can make strides by re-educating the masses with a better foundation of faith.

The first step is for all religions to stop proclaiming their own ancient texts as “the one true divinely inspired Words of God”. Faith isn’t to be confused with the super bowl and no single faith group gets to “win”. All the major religions make this mistake and it is divisive as well as horribly damning to God’s image. Viewing scripture as literal history and literal words of God paints an evil picture of God. It transfers all the mistakes of earthly authors onto God. It also thrusts every interpretive mistake onto God. It forces us to think God is a redneck from Tennessee that was on the loosing side of the Scopes Monkey trial. It forces us to try and reason that God commanded Israel to kill innocent women and children or that God can’t transform our lives without spilling the blood of an innocent man in our place. With that view of God in hand it is no wonder people end up launching violent crusades or declaring jihad in God’s name.