The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 4 June 2007
by Sam Harris
There has been a spate of books that have been a reaction, more or less, to the Christian Right and its agenda of insinuating religious doctrine into public discourse, politics and, most dangerously, education. Its assertion of anti-intellectual, anti-scientific ideals is one of the most serious threats to democracy. Whether that is a new threat or an old is debatable. The lamentable statistic quoted in Sam Harris's rather shrill screed is that a mere 12% of Americans believe that the scientific fact of evolution explains how we got here amongst a dizzying array of life on this planet. Harris is responding to a wide array of attacks on his previous argument for the end of religious dogma of all kinds, the book The End of Faith. In this short book, he puts forth convicing logical and philosophical arguments to support his assertion that dogmatic adherence to irrational (leap of faith?) beliefs is the greatest single threat to human civilization. His passion and his fiery rhetoric are compelling. It is unlikely that the fundamentalist Christian to whom he addresses this Letter... will ever actually read it (though his email in-box is probably quite full). Certainly, that reader won't likely be convinced. For the rest of us, liberals and moderates, there will be a moment of joy that one man, at least, has the guts or the gall to put such ideas and pleas in to print. He takes the liberals and moderate people of faith to task, too, though, blaming them for facilitating the politically correct notion of the equality of religious thought in the public arena when it should be vilified for the dangerous delusion that it is. At times, the reader may wonder what Harris has to say for the often generously beneficent affects of religious community, but this reader would think that Harris would toss that baby with the bathwater in the name of civilization. It is a provocative book, some of it, no doubt, a distillation from the best-selling The End of Faith. It will anger and surprise, evoke joy and fury. Recommended for all who long for intelligent discourse on the future of humanity, and for all of those who cling to their "faith" in times of frightening change and evolution.