The End of Faith: Sam Harris May 3, 2007
Posted by Greg Jerome in Atheism, Books, Politics, Religion.trackback
Sam Harris is a noted author in the areas of religion, philosophy, and neuroscience. He is often in the spotlight for his views on religion and was recently featured in Newsweek.
After reading his, Letter to a Christian Nation I was excited to read his full length book, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. For those of you interested in getting your feet wet in the atheism debate I highly recommend Letter to a Christian Nation. It is short, concise, and powerful.
Harris sums things up in the Epilogue to The End of Faith:
My goal in writing this book has been to help close the door to a certain style of irrationality. While religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit to even the possibility of correction, it is still sheltered from criticism in every corner of our culture (223).
Harris firmly believes there is no God, but for him that may not be the most important thing. He thinks religion has hijacked entire cultures, pressing an antiquated worldview on their people. Christians block stem cell research, Muslims stone to death rape victims, Jews strangle the livelihood of the Palestinian people. How can rational, progressive people engage in a debate with the faithful, when the faithful are absolutely certain they are right? And they present no evidence to prove it!
Here is an in-depth analysis, chapter by chapter from On Evolution.
If you have ever questioned the validity of religion, you need to read Sam Harris.
Though my reading of his work is limited to Letter, I also recommend reading Mr. Harris. My enthusiasm is somewhat limp, though, as developed in my post of (ironically) 25 December:
Would you say that the other books champion the case for atheism in a more gentle and inviting manner?
John
You are right on with your criticism of Harris. He does get angry at times, he would likely characterize this as “urgency.” This kind of forceful, confrontational writing may be necessary to wake people up and force society to confront this problem. I don’t know.
The End of Faith is very much in the same style. I haven’t read anything else about atheism, I plan to read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, but haven’t got there yet. Do you have any recommendations?