Sam Harris

Letter to a Nation

Timeo Williams

This book was exceptional. As someone brought up in a Christian household, Sam Harris put into words precisely what needs to be said. This is the uncomfortable truth that needs to be discussed. 

Sam begins by stating that, we, as humans, have ideals that go beyond race, religion, ethnicity, ext. These ideals include the lessening of human suffering. 

Sam then goes into the Old and New Testament, to find cases when the morals espoused go against the tenet of lessening human suffering. He finds plenty. His use of metaphors and analogy are excellent. 

This is a recommended read for all who ascribe to any religious faith.

Michael Springer

*Note: If you consider yourself a member of an organized religion and don't want to hate me, read no further.*

I can't give Harris five stars because the best atheist manifesto is still The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. If you haven't read it, you really should. It is the most complete explanation of why (1) any reason one could have for believing in God is inadequate, (2) why religion is dangerous, even in its moderate forms, in addition to (3) why being an agnostic is simply an evasion of an important moral decision. (I'm sure he does more than just this, but these are the three most important points in my opinion.) Anyway, I'll stop talking about THAT book, and start talking about the book I'm reviewing.

With Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris is basically responding to all the arguments that Christians have sent him since his first book, The End of Faith, became a lightning rod for religious controversy. 

What's special about Harris is how succinctly and brutally he can reveal the flaws in any defense of faith. Harris knows that religion is dangerous to reason, and he isn't going to pull punches when explaining why. One of his big points in this book is that you DON'T base your ethics off of the Bible. If you did, you would own slaves and you wouldn't be tolerant of other religions. And, you would kill anyone you saw working on the sabbath. (This isn't from the old testament, by the way. These ideas are in the new one as well.) 

He spends a lot of time discussing the reasons one might be inclined to think the book wasn't written by a higher power. His evidence is pretty persuasive. He also discusses the 10 commandments, and points out that, as an ethical base, they kind of suck. My favorite part of the book, though, is toward the end when he discusses the specific issues where a Christian upbringing leads to extremely unethical political positions (stem cell research is a big one, along with birth control). It is very hard to argue that "abstinence only" programs are ethical, or that there's any conceivable reason for banning stem cell research. But, right now, Christians are making their flawed arguments for both of these things. Judging by laws in many states, they're winning. 

This book is a thought-provoking and angry letter to Christian Americans insisting they start thinking very hard about what they believe and why they believe it. It lacks the complexity or the breadth of The God Delusion, but makes some important points of its own. And, as usual, Harris entertains. 

My only real complaint is that, throughout the text of his letter, Harris doesn't include enough footnotes. If he was in one of my composition classes, I'd make him take this letter back home and add a lot of references before I accepted it.

Argues that the increasing power of Christian fundamentalists in American politics threatens the country's citizens, blames the Bible for promoting intolerance of other faiths, and describes atheism as "an admission of the obvious."

Letter to a Christian Nation

Ley Stanton

This is a very controversial book but I think everyone should, at least try to, read it once in their life. It was an eye-opening experience.

Elena Fernandez

Would be really surprised if this book convinced anyone of anything 


I'm not sure if this book is of any use. It does a poor job convincing religious people to abandon their faith and that is the entire point of the book. It's written in "letter" style, speaking to the religious reader (specifically the Christian ones, but belive me the man does not leave a rock unturned). The thing with that style is that it actually works, if you do it properly, but he doesn't hold that narration throughout the entirety of the book. There are times it's not clear who he is speaks to. (Maybe it's a language barrier? I'm not a native English speaker)
If I was a religious person I would not have felt connected or spoken to and would for sure have left this book aside and still be a believer.

I obviously read this book through my eyes, the eyes of an agnostic atheist. And on that perspective I can say that it's "interesting" reading about the many horrors religion has taken part of since the beginning of times, but I felt like there was really nothing new under the sun here. (It was also published in 2008 and felt a little bit out of time.)

If you pick this book wanting to read a solid case against the existence of God this isn't it. It is a bundle of essays of committed horrors in the name of god in the past and present. It also has some Bible passages explained and put into "light". But nothing more really. Actually bit disappointing. Not the biggest Harris fan at all . Cuz the man can be cocky and arrogant from time to time, but this book meh... Would not recommend this in it's entirety.

(Read the First vintage book edition)

--Random interesting things--
*the apparent obsession "God has with beetles
*the argument of if God exist he is either impotent or evil
* Hitler actually being religious?

Tomasz

Ciekawa forma - autor zwraca się bezpośrednio do czytelnika-chrześcijanina.
Harris przedstawia w skumulowanej i skompresowanej formie większość popularnych argumentów za ateizmem.
W jednym momencie pisze o "większości chrześcijan" wierzących w coś i zakłada jednocześnie, że czytelnik należy do tej większości.
Książka krótka, szybko się ją czyta.
Wydaje mi się, że chrześcijanie mają na tyle "zawiłą" argumentację, że na każdy z tych zarzutów da się znaleźć coś jeszcze, jakąś odpowiedź na zarzuty, dobre ćwiczenie umysłowe ;). Ale to wada książek, nie ma dialogu, jest monolog.

Książkę oceniłem wyżej niż "Koniec wiary", bo spełnia obietnicę z okładki i opisu. Jest dokładnie to, co przedstawia tytuł. 
Choć merytorycznie "Koniec wiary" wydaje się chyba lepszy.

Kali Nichta

It gave me some interesting food for thought, but arguing with staunch Christians on the ground Harris covers would seem to me to be a futile effort.

Sophie Shrimpton

This was a rollercoaster. Thoughout this letter, I swung from rolling my eyes at Sam Harris, to accepting that he was only addressing certain arguments from conservative Christians (not defending his entire atheism), to becoming shocked at his anti-Muslim rant near the end of the book. 

I scoffed at the majority of his arguments because he deployed many of the same tactics as Christians do to defend his ideas. He derided Christians for believing scripture by selectively choosing parts of the Bible that align with our moral intuitions, then he does exactly the same with statistics and extremely literal readings of the Bible. He ignores the potential for a person to have a moral intuition in a belief in "God". Apparently, all moral intuition is completely aligned with utilitarianism instead of any form of faith or deontology (he equates objective truth with utilitarianism, and says religion is bad because it separates morality from consequences). For example, he condemns Christians for worrying about sex instead of the suffering caused by sex. His complaint is merely that he is a utilitarian and Christians are deontologists, without giving any reason why morality should be principally (or only) concerned with consequences. 

The vast majority of the text focusses on how organised religion, dogma, and unreasonable conclusions about the features of a "God" (e.g. omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence) lead to bad outcomes. However, he can't even prove the causality required to make the claims he does - he says the most religious countries in the world are also the most violent, but so what? He even acknowledges that correlation does not equal causation. He also doesn't seem to make a distinction between the ills of organised religion and the validity of faith - of a belief in "God", even if it is not organised. Again, this is understandable in the context of specifically rebutting classic Christian arguments, but does not provide any reason to be an atheist instead of an agnostic, or a believer of another faith. 

I am intrigued to hear what arguments he, and the other Four Horsemen, make in other texts, and if they are reduced to bare assertions about empirical utilitarianism or if they actually engage with the metaphysical and philosophical. I sincerely hope they do not merely claim they know "objective truth" and equate it with empiricism and utilitarianism without critical engagement with the deeper implications of those claims. I have a funny feeling they will. 

The anti-Muslim rant was completely unnecessary and out of place. I chose this book to avoid Harris' anti-Muslim claims. I don't know much about Islam, so can't rebut them without doing further research before engaging. All I know is saying that 70% of those in France's prisons are Muslim does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that Islam is inherently violent/bad - what about the (real and probable) possibility there is systemic islamophobia in France? Regardless, apparently you can't escape Harris' islamophobia, even in a letter explicitly addressed to Christians!

Abortion deserves a more specific mention. His response was pure sh*t. He frames Christians as being concerned for the potential for life in an embryo, then says they should not worry because every time they scratch their nose they are killing potential humans because of developments in genetic engineering. Talk about being disengaged with the real moral concern. 

Audiobook ‘read’

Some ideas:
Only 12% of Americans believe in evolution

The idea of the virgin Mary might be because of a mistaken translation from Hebrew bible to Greek - from young woman to virgin woman.

Harsha G

Colton Ray

Taylor Murphy

D VA

Ivy Vatsala

' Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.'So begins LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION, Sam Harris's hard-hitting rebuttal of religious fundamentalism and blind belief . With deceptively simple arguments, he demolishes the myths on which Christianity was built, challenges believers to open their eyes to the contradictions of their faith and warns us of the dangers of America's ever increasing unification of Church and State.

Letter to a Nation

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