This one's going to get me into a lot of trouble with a certain segment of the population, but I've just finished reading the most amazing book, and I've decided it's going to be my new bible.The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason is Sam Harris' plea for a return to reason and an elimination of faith -- mainly religious faith, but specifically "faith" in any untested, unprovable set of ideas -- from our lives.
It's really an amazing read. While I don't necessarily buy his arguments across the board, I really think this guy is a lone voice of sanity in a world gone mad.
He's managed to say (and defend) eloquently ideas that have been forming and roiling around inside of me for years. I just don't have the brains or the erudition to properly lay them out. This guy is wicked smart.
And given the way believers in general, and Muslims in particular, are taken to task for the idiocy they display by adhering to religious thought that hasn't evolved much in several millenia, I'm really surprised no crazies have taken potshots at Mr. Harris.
If I prayed, I'd pray he writes more, soon. And for his long life. Him and people like him may be our last best hope.
It's well put by another of my favorite people, Richard Dawkins, in his review of the book:
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris is a genuinely frightening book about terrorism, and the central role played by religion in justifying and rewarding it. Others blame “extremists” who “distort” the “true” message of religion. Harris goes to the root of the problem: religion itself. Even moderate religion is a menace, because it leads us to respect and “cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed without evidence”. Why do men like Bin Laden commit their hideous cruelties? The answer is that they “actually believe what they say they believe”. Read Sam Harris and wake up.
—Richard Dawkins, The Guardian
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