Category: Christian Scientists behaving badly

Sam Harris is still explaining why religion is bad

December 12, 2024 • 11:30 am

Every once in a while Sam Harris, who must be overwhelmed with his writing on Substack, his podcast, and his complex meditation site, gets back to what brought him public notice: criticism of religion. And even if you know his views from The End of Faith or Letter to a Christian Nation, you’ll benefit if you’re able to read the two pieces below. (These two Substack essays have titles clearly drawn from the latter book.)

Apparently some high-handed Christian, just called “X,” wrote to Sam chewing him out for dissing Christianity, saying that atheism didn’t disprove God’s existence, claiming that Sam didn’t understand modern religion or sophisticated theology, asserting that religion makes people behave better, and arguing that Sam’s criticism of religion—Christianity in particularly—showed that he was intolerant.

Well, this is all meat for Sam’s grinder, and the poor “X” got it ten ways from Sunday, in two posts on Sam’s site. You won’t be able to access them all unless you’re a member of his Substack, but I’ve linked to them anyway and will give some of the delicious quotes I found. And, in case you haven’t read Sam’s first two books and can read these essays, they’re a decent substitute. (But you should read the books.) Click on the headlines to go to the site.

 

First, a response to X’s claim that Sam was arguing against religious extremists, not moderates (this in fact was taken up in The End of Faith). I’ve indented Sam’s comments.

So let me address my longstanding frustration with religious moderates, to which you alluded. It is true that their “sophisticated” theology has generally taught me to appreciate the candor of religious fanatics. Whenever someone like me or Richard Dawkins criticizes Christians for believing in the imminent return of Christ, or Muslims for believing in martyrdom, moderates like yourself claim that we have caricatured Christianity and Islam, taken extremists to be the sole representatives of these great faiths, or otherwise overlooked a shimmering ocean of nuance. We are invariably told that a mature understanding of the historical and literary contexts of scripture renders faith perfectly compatible with reason and contemporary ethics, and that our attack upon religion is, therefore, “simplistic,” “dogmatic,” or even “fundamentalist.” Needless to say, such casuistry generally comes moistened by great sighs of condescension.

. . . . The problem, as I see it, is that religious moderates don’t tend to know what it is like to be truly convinced that death is an illusion and that an eternity of happiness awaits the faithful beyond the grave. They have, as you say, “integrated doubt” into their faith. Another way of putting this is that they just have less faith—and for good reason. The result, however, is that your fellow moderates tend to doubt that anybody is ever motivated to sacrifice his life, or the lives of others, on the basis of religion. Moderate doubt—which I agree is an improvement over fundamentalist certainty in most respects—often blinds a person to the reality of full-tilt religious lunacy. Such blindness is now especially unhelpful, given the hideous collision between modern doubt and Islamic certainty that we are witnessing across the globe.

Second, many religious moderates imagine, as you do, that there is some clear line of separation between their faith and extremism. But there isn’t. Scripture itself remains a perpetual engine of extremism: because, while He may be many things, the God of the Bible and the Qur’an is not a moderate. Read scripture as closely as you like, you will not find reasons for religious moderation. On the contrary, you will find reasons to live like a maniac from the 14th century—to fear the fires of hell, to despise nonbelievers, to persecute homosexuals, and to hunt witches (good luck). Of course, you can cherry-pick scripture and find inspiration to love your neighbor and turn the other cheek, but the truth is, the pickings are slim, and the more fully one grants credence to these books, the more fully one will be committed to the view that infidels, heretics, and apostates are fit only to be crushed in God’s loving machinery of justice.

Part 2 of the evisceration of X:

Here, Sam argues why religion is not a net good.

-To be clear, I do not “disdain” religious moderates. I do, however, disdain bad ideas and bad arguments—which, I’m afraid, religious moderates tend to produce in great quantities. I’d like to point out that you didn’t rebut any of the substantial challenges I made in my last volley. Rather, you went on to make other points, most of which I find irrelevant to the case I made against religious faith. For instance, you remind me that many people find religion—both its doctrines and its institutions—important sources of comfort and inspiration. You also insist that many devoutly religious people do good things on the basis of their religious beliefs. I do not doubt either of these propositions. But you could gather such facts until the end of time, and they wouldn’t begin to suggest that the God of Abraham actually exists, or that the Bible is his Word, or that he came to Earth in the person of Jesus Christ to redeem our sins.

I have no doubt that there are millions of nice Mormons who imagine themselves to be dependent upon their church for a sense of purpose and community, and who do good things wherever their missionary work takes them. Does this, in your view, even slightly increase the probability that the Book of Mormon was delivered on golden plates to Joseph Smith Jr.—that a very randy and unscrupulous dowser—by the angel Moroni? Do all the good Muslims in the world lend credence to the claim that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse? And what of the Scientologist next door, who appears to be living his best possible life? Does his success in Hollywood increase your admiration for that patent charlatan, L. Ron Hubbard?

Something that often gets neglected in these discussions is that if one religion is absolutely true, all the others are wrong. And Sam, like the other New Atheists, is absolutely concerned with religious truth, for at bottom most religious behavior is based on the conviction that the tenets of one’s faith are true. If you believe that Christ wasn’t resurrected, you can hardly call yourself a Christian. One important reason for seeing if a religion is “true” is given below: you need good reasons for behaving as you do. But first this:

If Christianity is right, all other religions are wrong:

  • Jesus Christ was the Messiah—so the Jews are wrong.
  • Jesus was divine and resurrected—so the Muslims are wrong (“Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger—they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them.” Qur’an, 4:157).
  • There is only one God—so the Hindus are wrong.

But, of course, the Christians have no better reason to think they’re right than Jews, Muslims, or Hindus do.

And here’s my favorite bit, which tells you why the truth of one’s religion is crucial:

As I have argued elsewhere, the alleged usefulness of religion—the fact that people find it consoling or that it sometimes gets them to do good things—is not an argument for its truth.

And, of course, the utility of religious faith can also be disputed. Wherever religion makes people feel better, or gets them to do good things, it does so for bad reasons—when good reasons are available. Which strikes you as more moral, helping people out of a sincere concern for their suffering, or helping them because you believe God wants you to do it? Personally, I’d prefer that my children acquire the former attitude.

And religion often inspires people to do bad things that they would not otherwise do. For instance, at this very moment in Syria and Iraq, perfectly ordinary Shia and Sunni Muslims can be found drilling holes into each other’s skulls with power tools. What are the chances they would be doing this without the “benefit” of their incompatible religious beliefs and identities?

As the late Steven Weinberg said, “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.”

On to “sophisticated philosophy” and exegesis:

The Bible, as you suggest, “defies easy synthesis” and “can be hard to understand.” But it is worse than that. No, I haven’t argued that the book “is principally about owning slaves”—just that it gets the ethics of slavery wrong, which is a terrible flaw in a book that is widely imagined to be perfect.

The truth is that even with Jesus holding forth in defense of the poor, the meek, and the persecuted, the Bible basically condones slavery. As I argued in Letter to a Christian Nation, the slaveholders of the South were on the winning side of a theological argument—and they knew it. And they made a hell of a lot of noise about it. We got rid of slavery despite the moral inadequacy of the Bible, not because it is the greatest repository of wisdom we have.

Below is the only part of the essays that confuses me. Sam thinks we have no free will (he has a book called Free Will that’s well worth reading). If that’s the case, how can he say this?

It is true that many atheists are convinced that they know what this relationship is, and that it is one of absolute dependence of the one upon the other. Those who have read the last chapters of The End of Faith or Waking Up know that I am not convinced of this. While I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about the brain, I do not think that the reducibility of consciousness to unconscious information processing has been established. It may be that the very concepts of mind and matter are fundamentally misleading us. But this doesn’t justify crazy ideas about miraculous books, virgin births, and saviors ushering in the end of the world.

It sounds to me that he is separating mind and matter, not a stand that comports with determinism.  It’s always seemed to me palpably unscientific to say, knowing that the brain is made of matter and that our thoughts and behaviors stem almost entirely from the brain, that consciousness (a brain product) must also come from matter and its physical behavior. In fact, this is the point that Sam seems to make repeatedly on his meditation website. But maybe I’m not understanding something,

In the end, Sam gives “X” a final drubbing after “X” calls Sam intolerant for criticizing Christianity.   Sam’s superb writing and thinking make it sting all the harder:

What if I told you that I am confident that I have an even number of cells in my body? Would it be intolerant of you to doubt me? What are the chances that I am in a position to have counted my cells and counted them correctly? Note that, unlike claims about virgin births and resurrections, my claim has a 50% chance of being true—and yet it is clearly ridiculous.

Forgive me for stating the obvious: No Christian has ever been in a position to be confident (much less certain) that Jesus was born of a virgin or that he will one day return to Earth wielding magic powers. Observing this fact is not a form of intolerance.

You seem to have taken special offense at my imputing self-deception and/or dishonesty to the faithful. I make no apologies for this. One of the greatest problems with religion is that it is built, to a remarkable degree, upon lies. Mommy claims to know that Granny went straight to heaven after she died. But Mommy doesn’t actually know this. The truth is that, while Mommy may be honest on every other topic, in this instance, she doesn’t want to distinguish what she really knows (i.e. what she has good reasons to believe) from (1) what she wants to be true or (2) what will keep her children from being too sad in Granny’s absence. So Mommy is lying—either to herself or to her kids—and we’ve all agreed not to talk about it. Rather than learn how to grieve, we learn to lie to ourselves, or to those we love.

You can complain about the intolerance of atheists all you want, but that won’t make unjustified claims to knowledge appear more reasonable; it won’t differentiate your religious beliefs from the beliefs of others which you consider illegitimate; and it won’t constitute an adequate response to anything I have written here, or am likely to write in the future.

Harris is a gifted man, and I’m baffled at the number of people who seem to intensely dislike him.

The Bible’s prescience?

August 6, 2015 • 12:00 pm

Yesterday I got an email from a reader in Illinois who claims that the Bible’s truth is attested by its prescience about later events. In Faith Versus Fact, I claimed that if the Bible had been uncannily accurate about things that were to happen in the distant future, that would be some evidence for an Abrahamic divinity.

But see how prescient this guy thought it was!:

How does the Big Bang/”Let there be light” not pass the uncannily priescient [sic] test you lay out for religion?  Or the placebo effect in medicine?  Or the Book of Daniel prediction that “Grecia” will be a great Middle East power, 400 years before Alexander the Great?  Or David writing “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want” 750 years before Siddhartha said that desire is the cause of suffering?  (No archaeological proof of David?  Have you read the Book of Psalms?  We have more insight into the heart of David, and more proof he had a heart, than we do into that of, say, Hillary Clinton or Ronald Reagan.)

The part about David and Psalm 23 cracks me up. As for the “placebo effect,” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

The Spectator: Christianity is the foundation of “our” civilization

April 10, 2015 • 1:17 pm

Religious rump-osculation among anglophones isn’t limited to Americans. For a prime example from the other side of the pond, see the new piece by Michael Gove, a British conservative MP, in The Spectator: “Why I’m proud to be a Christian (and Jeremy Paxman should be ashamed)“. (The subtitle is “Despite a tidal wave of prejudice and negativity, faith remains the foundation of our civilisation.”)

Gove’s article can be seen only as a defense against the waning tide of religion in Britain, or as the defensive snarl of a fatally trapped animal. He begins by excoriating Paxman (an ascerbic BBC newsman and interviewer) for making fun of Christianity:

Was it true, Jeremy inquired [of Tony Blair], that he had prayed together with his fellow Christian George W. Bush?

The question was asked in a tone of Old Malvernian hauteur which implied that spending time in religious contemplation was clearly deviant behaviour of the most disgusting kind. Jeremy seemed to be suggesting that it would probably be less scandalous if we discovered the two men had sought relief from the pressures of high office by smoking crack together.

Praying? What kind of people are you?

Well, the kind of people who built our civilisation, founded our democracies, developed our modern ideas of rights and justice, ended slavery, established universal education and who are, even as I write, in the forefront of the fight against poverty, prejudice and ignorance. In a word, Christians.

But to call yourself a Christian in contemporary Britain is to invite pity, condescension or cool dismissal. In a culture that prizes sophistication, non-judgmentalism, irony and detachment, it is to declare yourself intolerant, naive, superstitious and backward.

And yes, it sort of is. It certainly brands you as someone who is superstitious (albeit not necessarily intolerant: after all, this is the UK!), and somewhat backwards in at least what you believe to be true. And of course Christians built a lot of British civilization because everybody was a Christian for the last millennium and a half.  You can’t give Christianity any more credit for that than you can racism, for most of the people who built “our” civilization were racists, classists, and sexists.

Gove then goes on, citing Francis Spufford (see here for my critiques of that man) to defend Christianity, asserting that not all Christians believe in creationism, the afterlife, and “fairly tales.”  But a surprising number of them do, at least if you believe Julian Baggini’s two surveys of churchgoers whose results appeared in the Guardian (see here for some data). Yes, Spufford and Gove may both adhere to Sophisticated Theology™, but the data show that they’re not the rule but the exception. By and large, Christians, including British Christians, do believe in fairy tales.

He then goes on, and I’ll finish here, with the old canard that because Christianity supposedly inspires acts of charity, it is a good thing regardless of its truth, an argument that reader Sastra calls “The Little People Argument” and that Dan Dennett calls “Belief in Belief”

The contrast between the Christianity I see our culture belittle nightly, and the Christianity I see our country benefit from daily, could not be greater.

The reality of Christian mission in today’s churches is a story of thousands of quiet kindnesses. In many of our most disadvantaged communities it is the churches that provide warmth, food, friendship and support for individuals who have fallen on the worst of times. The homeless, those in the grip of alcoholism or drug addiction, individuals with undiagnosed mental health problems and those overwhelmed by multiple crises are all helped — in innumerable ways — by Christians.

Churches provide debt counselling, marriage guidance, childcare, English language lessons, after-school clubs, food banks, emergency accommodation and, sometimes most importantly of all, someone to listen. The lives of most clergy and the thoughts of most churchgoers are not occupied with agonising over sexual morality but with helping others in practical ways — in proving their commitment to Christ through service to others.

That may be so, but right over the North Sea, the countries of Scandinavia and northern Europe have all that, and more. Those countries benefit not from Christianity, but from socialism and secular morality. In other words, you can have the good stuff without the fairy tales? To the West, Ireland, still ridden with Catholicism, prohibits most abortions, still has anti-blasphemy laws on the books, and terrifies its children with threats of hell. Oh, and up North the Catholics and Protestants used to kill each other, but of course that’s all in the past.

The question is this: does Gove believe that the truth claims of Christianity—the existence of Jesus as savior and his resurrection—are true? Does he even care? Or does he think it doesn’t matter so long as a faulty foundation supports a useful superstructure? Apparently so:

Relativism is the orthodoxy of our age. Asserting that any one set of beliefs is more deserving of respect than any other is a sin against the Holy Spirit of Non–Judgmentalism. And proclaiming your adherence to the faith which generations of dead white males used to cow and coerce others is particularly problematic. You stand in the tradition of the Inquisition, the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits who made South America safe for colonisation, the missionaries who accompanied the imperial exploiters into Africa, the Christian Brothers who presided over forced adoption and the televangelists who keep America safe for capitalism.

But genuine Christian faith — far from making any individual more invincibly convinced of their own righteousness — makes us realise just how flawed and fallible we all are. I am selfish, lazy, greedy, hypocritical, confused, self-deceiving, impatient and weak. And that’s just on a good day. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it, ‘We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…And there is no health in us.’ [JAC: As Hitchens used to say, “Christianity tells us we are born sick and commanded to be well.”]

Christianity helps us recognise and confront those weaknesses with a resolution — albeit imperfect and fragile — to do better. But more importantly, it encourages us to feel a sense of empathy rather than superiority towards others because we recognise that we are as guilty of selfishness and open to temptation as anyone.

Well, first let’s see Gove’s evidence that Christians really do perform more good acts in Britain than do non-Christians or secularists. What he presents in his piece is simply a string of assertions without evidential support. Absent that data, I’m not prepared to accept Gove’s argument. And even if it were true, the other countries of Europe show that one can have societies healthier than that of the UK, all without the superstition.

And of course Gove conspicuously leaves the U.S. out of his argument.

An angry reader gets unwanted religious literature in an Amazon order

February 25, 2015 • 12:45 pm
Reader Laurie Sindoni, who is half the staff of Theo, the Espresso-Drinking Cat, sent me the email given below. She ordered some athletic clothing from a company in Germany (!) that, it seems, is the German equivalent of Chik fil A (“Hate on a Bun”). Laurie was affronted with what she received, and here is what she said:
I must share this with you because I am so angry, and if ever ANYONE needed a copy of WEIT and body parts through the post, and Theo’s coffee thrown in their faces, it’s these people!  And because I know you will empathise with me.
🙂
I ordered a pair of Nike shorts from Amazon [UK] to wear over leggings for training.  Quite straightforward; right?  My order was delivered and the shorts were fine; however, they included THIS with my order!
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What the fluff?  It’s not like I ordered a bible. Or identified myself as a member of “Weight Lifters for Jesus.” I launched myself onto Amazon and sent feedback to the seller.

“Shame on you.  I ordered shorts to be worn over leggings for training and these are fine. What was NOT fine was the ‘complimentary’ literature: Christian Creationist proselytising!!! Why on earth, when I ordered training clothes, did you feel the need to ram your superstitions down the throat of a complete stranger?  I hope Amazon will, in future, prevent sellers from arbitrarily including unrelated, unsolicited and offensive material with orders.”

I then contacted Amazon and apprised them of the situation.  I was furious; but, I told them that under no circumstances do I blame Amazon for this offensive communication.  I insisted that they contact the seller regarding the impropriety of the order content.  I expressed disquiet that in having ordered from these people, I may have become an unwitting donor to a BS and fantasist organisation.  I also pointed out that there is no difference between this and receiving unsolicited jihadist material through the post.  Furthermore, the fact that I am an atheist is irrelevant because I may have been a Sikh, a Jew, a Jain, etc.  The point is that there was no guarantee their customer was a Creationist Christian living in a world of make believe.

This morning, I received an email from the seller.  Hold onto your potatoes!

“You’ll Jesus face. As a judge or as a saviour that you can choose now. It is well meant by me.  Thank you.” Oh, and [sic, sic, sic!]!

So, before heading to my back garden to dig up body parts to send, I launched myself back at Amazon. I know when the Customer Service Agent, reading through the communication, got to that reply, because he audibly gasped. I am now demanding a full refund because I am concerned about having been donating to some organisation that promotes fantasy as well as a written apology, for what I consider harassment.

Here is what Amazon said in response:

“We’ve been contacted by one of our mutual customers regarding an order placed with you.  This customer placed an order with yourselves. Upon receiving the goods the customer advises that they were also given an amount of religious literature. This is not acceptable.  Further to this the response that was given by yourselves was wholly inappropriate.  Due to this very poor experience the customer would like an apology and to be refunded for this order.  Please advise the customer as to how this can be done.  I hope you understand that the customer feels that this is harassment and from Amazon point of view, this is very much unacceptable. We hope you’re able to work this out with this customer.”

To me, it is utterly fantastic that commercial transactions can be so easily infused with religious nonsense.  And even more so that there are large segments of the population that will consider this to be ordinary behaviour.  And even acceptable. Some may go so far as to say I have overreacted in having taken offense and action. [JAC: Not I!]

OK; my rant is over.  At least until I receive another inappropriate communiqué in response to the Amazon email.

Laurie added that the company did respond:
They got back.  They said the following, “hello.  Thanks for your message.“
Here are the links that Laurie sent; the company you want to avoid if you hate this proselytizing is Hoppe Schuhe in Dainrode, Germany.

Boy who wrote bestseller on visiting heaven retracts his claims

January 16, 2015 • 10:43 am

In 2010, a ten-year-old boy, Alex Malarkey (note the name), wrote a book along with his father that described how Alex had gone to heaven after a car accident four years earlier and then came back. The book, originally published by Lifeway and shown below, became a New York Times bestseller along with other “heaven tourism” books like Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo (another young boy) and Proof of Heaven, by neurosurgeon Eben Alexander.  People’s desire to be assured that there really is a wonderful afterlife ensures that these books will earn a lot of dough.

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Here’s the Amazon description, which has not been changed in light of the news that the book is, in fact, a made-up fantasy by Alex:

In 2004, Kevin Malarkey and his six-year-old son, Alex, suffered an horrific car accident. The impact from the crash paralyzed Alex—and medically speaking, it was unlikely that he could survive. “I think that Alex has gone to be with Jesus,” a friend told the stricken dad. But two months later, Alex awoke from a coma with an incredible story to share. Of events at the accident scene and in the hospital while he was unconscious. Of the angels who took him through the gates of heaven itself. Of the unearthly music that sounded just terrible to a six-year-old. And most amazing of all . . . of meeting and talking to Jesus. The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven is the New York Times bestselling true story of an ordinary boy’s most extraordinary journey. As you see heaven and earth through Alex’s eyes, you’ll come away with new insights on miracles, life beyond this world, and the power of a father’s love.

As many readers hastened to inform me, it’s just been reported by the Washington Post, which drew on the Christian site Pulpit and Pen, that young Alex, paralyzed from his accident, has owned up to the story’s being (forgive the pun) complete malarkey. Alex published this retraction in Pulpit and Pen:

“An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven.”

Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.

I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.

I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.

It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible…not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough.

In Christ,

Alex Malarkey.”

Well, that’s very brave of Alex. But there were in fact warning signs a while back that the book was bogus. In April of last year, Alex’s mom, Beth, wrote a post on her blog Life’s a Journey saying that the book was a fake and her son’s name was being coopted against his will. (I can’t corroborate that.) In fact, as Pulpit and Pen wrote in an update, Thom Raniel, President of Lifeway, almost certainly knew of the scam but did nothing. There was too much money to be earned.

In light of Alex’s letter, the book has been withdrawn from publication (though it’s still on Amazon). As the Post reports:

This evening, Todd Starowitz, public relations director of Tyndale House, told The Washington Post: “Tyndale has decided to take the book and related ancillary products out of print.”

Since Eben Alexander’s book has also been exposed as a likely fraud, that means that two out of the three Heaven Tourism Books have been shown to be fictions. Any bets that Heaven is for Real is for real?

In a burst of Christian honesty, Pulpit and Pen notes, with unintendended irony:

. . . we are publishing this story because Christian publishers and retailers should have known better. They should have had the spiritual discernment, wisdom, compassion, and intestinal fortitude to not sell a book which contains, along with all books like it, deep theological problems. It also doesn’t help that in what is purported to be a “TRUE STORY”  that there are vivid descriptions like which test the limits of how far we are willing to go outside the realm of scripture and accept as having been from God.“The devil’s mouth is funny looking, with only a few moldy teeth. And I’ve never noticed any ears. His body has a human form, with two bony arms and two bony legs. He has no flesh on his body, only some moldy stuff. His robes are torn and dirty. I don’t know about the color of the skin or robes—it’s all just too scary to concentrate on these things!” 

And then closes its piece this way:

The Bible is enough.

The Bible is sufficient.

Christ is enough.

Christ is sufficient.

We don’t need Christian bookstores to sell us books and resources  that tell us otherwise. We pray that Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, other Lifeway executives and all Christian book retailers will take notice of this courageous and Gospel-centered 16 year-old young man, and that everyone reading this will lift him up to the Lord.

Ironic, isn’t it, that that site found the Malarkeys’ book to be dubious but has no problems with the credibility of the Bible itself? For, after all, any rational person reading the Bible might echo Pulpit and Pen by saying, “They should have had the spiritual discernment, wisdom, compassion, and intestinal fortitude to not tout a book which contains, along with all books like it, deep theological problems. It also doesn’t help that in what is purported to be a ‘TRUE STORY’  that there are vivid descriptions like which test the limits of how far we are willing to go . . . ”

Although Alex duped people, he was young and most likely exploited. Now, still a teenager, he has the courage to admit he’s wrong, even though he says he was convinced to do so by scripture. He’s the only one that comes out of this affair looking good—certainly far better than his father and his publishers, who used the boy to make a gazillion dollars.