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Can I just admit something straight off the bat? I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care whether you want to participate in ritualized cannibalism. I don’t care whether you think the soul resides on the top of the head. I don’t care whether you want to rub blue mud in your navel, ingest some psylocybin and commune with Gaia. I don’t care whether you want to build temples to a god who, at best, is enormously small-minded and petty or, at worst, is a genocidal tyrant bent on undoing the mistake of free will....
Target audience: The book is addressed primarily to the Christians of America, and secondarily to people all faiths and even atheists.About the author: Sam Benjamin Harris was born in 1967. He is an American non-fiction writer and author of many books. He is concerned with spirituality, religion and the link between religion and terrorism. He is also a neuroscientist. Currently, Harris is a student of the martial arts and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.Structure of the book: The book has 91 pages...
As an atheist, this was an easy read. There was not anything that made "the god argument" over and done with but some points were well brought up. The problem with a book like this is that only atheists are going to read it, but I wont be reading much material which claims to prove god's existence either.
I wish Sam Harris had written this before The End of Faith or I had read this book first. In Letter to a Christian Nation, he takes a more gentle tone and walks the reader through his disbelief in Christianity and other religions. I found it hard to dispute his point of view. The connections he makes between religion and flawed political policies (i.e stem cell research) are especially effective. I'm glad he put away the sledgehammer and decided to spoon feed his readers rather than beat them ov...
This seems like a completely unhelpful, pointless book. Sam Harris knows full well that the likelihood the people he purportedly addresses in his 'letter' (conservative Christians) will actually read it is close to zero. OK: he does state in the preface that its primary purpose is to "arm secularists", which I guess means he really had a different audience in mind from the start. Fair enough. But why use the particular framing device that he does - a belligerent, hectoring letter to fundamentali...
Wow! Concentrated essence of critique. This book is passionate, and tightly reasoned and put together. It catalogues some of the problems organized religions have inflicted on humanity, past and present, ranging from causing division, hatred and war to putting the brakes on truly free scientific and intellectual inquiry.Harris takes a number of common arguments in favor of the existence of God and/or the validity of various bodies or tenets of dogma, and shows that under logical consideration th...
Harris received a lot of hate mail from Christians for his book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason so wrote this to "...a Christian in a narrow sense of the term. Such a person believes, at a minimum, that the Bible is the inspired word of God and that only those who accept the divinity of Jesus Christ will experience salvation after death."He also says:...Consequently, liberal and moderate Christians will not always recognize themselves in the "Christian" I address.......
An occasionally strident but--considering the times--a completely excusable atheistic screed.
Mr. Harris book is an easy and fast read as well as a 'must read' for anyone who values rational and moral thought over religious faith as a guide for behaviour. The current rise of the religious right in America frankly frightens me. As Mr. Harris says in his preamble 'the truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously intolerant of criticism.' This quote from Jann Levin sums up the book nicely."“Sam Harris fearlessly describes a moral and intellect...
I agree with other reviewers that there are no new or surprising arguments here. He goes over ground which is thoroughly familiar to those who think critically of religion. What makes the book so worthwhile is not, therefore, any (ahem) great revelations.What I found thrilling about this book, as an atheist of 50 years, was the startling, forceful simplicity, directness, beauty, and artistry with which he made his points. Consider one quote: "If the Bible is an ordinary book, and Christ an ordin...
Sam Harris sets out to "demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms" in only 91 pages. Mr. Harris repeatedly refers to Christians as arrogant narcissists, yet he regards his own intellect so highly he only requires 91 page to snuff out 2,000 years of religious tradition and intellectual questioning of billions of people who have concluded there was something about Jesus that compelled belief. These 91 pages could have been put to far more productiv...
Succinct and useful to non-believers, this book nonetheless lacks a strong core send-home message, and I will eat my hat if it actually convinces any believer to change his tune.
It's clear that Sam Harris wrote this book out of frustration with Christianity in particular, and religion in general. The book's style and tone conveys the author's frustration--in such a way that makes it largely a turn-off for many Christians who might otherwise earnestly listen to what he has to say.That aside, Sam Harris makes a lot of good points, that I think many Christians today should take to heart. His view of Christians reflects many in our culture who see us as, for example, peop...
This book is a relentless attack on Christianity and raises a lot of good points. For instance – religious people claiming to be moral preach against condom use when AIDS is killing millions. Why are they so obsessed about abortion and not about genocide in Darfur? Why are they opposed to gun control - would Jesus carry a gun? Why do they believe so adamantly in books written centuries ago – in texts that promote slavery? Sam Harris explores many of these issues and more. Religion destroys our a...
New Atheist spokesman Harris published an earlier book attacking religion, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, in 2004. Written in response to "hostile" mail, mostly from Christians, reacting to the first one, this second book is designed as a concise (91 pages of text) distillation of his argument, both to irrefutably "demolish" any possible case for theism in general and Christian theism in particular, and primarily "to arm secularists... who believe that religion sho...
If religion indoctrination as a child left you with an unsettling mind and controversial thoughts, then Sam Harris’ “Letter to a Christian Nation” is a good, satisfying prelude to your curiosity. There is no dwelling on particular subjects, only enough arguments to stir the pot. The pot that, I think, should be stirred automatically by anyone equipped with common sense and rational thought-processing mechanisms. In the Zeitgeist we’re currently part of, it is substantial to scrutinize that which...
A novella length book from Sam Harris about religion feels slightly short and I wish it were longer. Like all the books from the author I've read, the information is deceptively easy and maybe too simple looking. For that or some unknown reason, I've always regretted forgetting most of the deliciously pertinent and insightful tidbits that are up for offer for the open minded. I want to remember those facts because what I do remember makes a better, prettier, less ignorant, happier, and more illu...
Seems to be more of a letter to atheists than to Christians. I've yet to find a truely compelling message to divert humanity away from religious thought, and Letter to a Christian Nation is far too accurate and on point to be convincing to a Christian mind.One concept which I've found to be unique in this book is this: the word "Atheist" should not exist. There is no term in English which identifies someone who denies the existance of Aliens. There isn't a word for people who deny that Elvis is
Sam's Epistle to People Who Won't Read It....I'm not sure what else to say.This is my first read of Sam Harris, whom I originally discovered through his podcast, Making Sense. I really enjoy the podcasts, as Sam brings on very interesting guests with whom he plumbs the depths of current issues, specifically from the perspective of rationality and scientific thought.I guess the rational, scientific approach was what he was trying to do with his brief "Letter to a Christian Nation", which seems to...
WOW! It’s a tour de force- a perfect apologia. Sam Harris is so brilliant that he has an acute analysis of the issue. So , atheists, particularly agnostics, should read it to become more enlightened and completely free from fear of going to “hell” and religious intolerance. The first book that gave me an idea about apologetics was WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY by Dinesh D’Souza ( 5 stars ). In fact, the book introduced me to the said Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse such as Richard Dawk...