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Letter to a Christian Nation [Hardcover]

Sam Harris
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (811 customer reviews)


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Book Description

September 19, 2006
“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



www.samharris.org

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Sam Harris’s elegant little book is most refreshing and a wonderful source of ammunition for those who, like me, hold to no religious doctrine. Yet I have some sympathy also with those who might be worried by his uncompromising stance. Read it and form your own view, but do not ignore its message.”
–Sir Roger Penrose, emeritus professor of mathematics, Oxford University,
author of The Road to Reality

“Reading Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation was like sitting ring side, cheering the champion, yelling ‘Yes!’ at every jab. For those of us who feel depressed by this country’s ever increasing unification of church and state, and the ever decreasing support for the sciences that deliver knowledge and reduce ignorance, this little book is a welcome hit of adrenalin.”
–Marc Hauser, Harvard College Professor, author of Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Sense of Right and Wrong

“I can’t sign my name to this blurb. As a New York Times best selling author of books about business, my career will evaporate if I endorse a book that challenges the deeply held superstitions and bigotry of the masses. That’s exactly why you should (no, you must) read this angry and honest book right away. As long as science and rational thought are under attack by the misguided yet pious majority, our nation is in jeopardy. I’m scared. You should be too. Please buy two, one for you and one for a friend you care about.”
–Unsigned, New York Times best selling author

“It’s a shame that not everyone in this country will read Sam Harris’ marvelous little book Letter to a Christian Nation. They won’t but they should.”
–Leonard Susskind, Felix Bloch Professor in theoretical physics, Stanford University, author of The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design

“We all know about good things that have been derived from bad ideas. Modern religions serve many social goods such as health care for the poor. The problem is that is also services many reprehensible ideas. Harris blows the whistle, pointing out the religions of the world are based on human generated vengeful stories. Read this book and you decide your stance for the future.”
–Michael S. Gazzaniga, Director of the Sage Center for the Study of Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of The Ethical Brain

“Sam Harris fearlessly describes a moral and intellectual emergency precipitated by religious fantasies–misguided beliefs that create suffering, that rationalize violence, that have endangered our nation and our future. His argument for the morality, the honesty, and the humility of atheism is galvanizing. It is a relief that someone has spoken so frankly, with such passion yet such rationality. Now when the subject arises, as it inevitably does, I can simply say: Read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation.”
–Janna Levin, Columbia University, author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

About the Author

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times best seller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 96 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf; 1ST edition (September 19, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307265773
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307265777
  • Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.6 x 7.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (811 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, and Free Will. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction.

Mr. Harris' writing has been published in over fifteen languages. He and his work have been discussed in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere.

Mr. Harris is a Co-Founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

Customer Reviews

Sam Harris received a lot of criticism for his book, "End of Faith." James I. Huston  |  187 reviewers made a similar statement
What a well written, concise little book. J. Dodson  |  129 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
97 of 105 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Taking on all commers March 14, 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I think its great the way Sam Harris defies conventional thinking in this book. As someone who has struggled with theses arguments with family members all my life, it is nice to be backed by by intelligent arguments. Also as a scientist I would like to say that it is nice that he has addressed the need for the end of faith as a survival priority for the species.
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264 of 296 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A letter from an "atheist fundamentalist"? March 31, 2007
Format:Hardcover
I just read that the "Harvard University Humanist Chaplain" (?) Greg Epstein is calling Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins the "atheist fundamentalists." "He sees them as rigid in their dogma, and as intolerant as some of the faith leaders with whom atheists share the most obvious differences" (Chicago Sun-Times, March 31, 2007).

It is not supposed to be a compliment.

Harris replied that "atheist fundamentalist" was ''a silly play upon words,'' noting that "when it comes to the ancient Greek gods, everyone is an atheist and no one is asked to justify that to pagans who want to believe in Zeus."

Epstein sees Harris as too rigid and too confrontational.

Harris says "In our next presidential election, an actor who reads his Bible would almost certainly defeat a rocket scientist who does not. Could there be any clearer indication that we are allowing unreason and otherworldliness to govern our affairs" (p. 39, The End of Faith)?

I guess Epstein is right. Harris IS confrontational. BUT... does the world need more Epsteins, or Harrises?

I vote for Harris.

Letter to a Christian Nation is Sam Harris' rebuttal to the arguments from Christians to his viewpoints in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. It's a slim book, barely over 100 pages.

What does he say?

"People have been cherry-picking the Bible for millennia to justify their every impulse, moral and otherwise" (p. 18).

"If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures" (p. 22).

"When was the last atheist riot?" (p. 39).

"When a tsunami killed a few hundred thousand people on the day after Christmas, 2004, many conservative Christians viewed the cataclysm as evidence of God's wrath. God was apparently sending another coded message about the evils of abortion, idolatry, and homosexuality" (p. 47).

"The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious" (p. 51).

"It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion - to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious taboos, and religious diversions of scare resources - is what makes the honest criticism of religious faith a moral and intellectual necessity. Unfortunately, expressing such criticism places the nonbeliever at the margins of society. By merely being in touch with reality, he appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors" (p. 56-7).

"Billions of people share your belief that the creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of our books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and they make incompatible claims about how we all must live" (p. 79).

I'd say the world needs more atheist fundamentalists. It's not that they are wearing rose-colored glasses. It's that they don't need any glasses at all.
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288 of 330 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Letter to a Christian Nation - Special Delivery October 24, 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Letter to a Christian Nation" is a rallying cry to rationalists everywhere and should serve as a wakeup call to retrograde Christians eagerly toiling away to displace science with magical thinking, overturn a woman's right to choose, relegate gays and lesbians to second class citizenship, or ensure the apocalypse.

Harris presents concise arguments with lucidity, brevity and impact. If you haven't read his prior book "The End of Faith" the thesis of "Letter to a Christian Nation" will be startling and new. If you have, this worthy distillate of his prior work specifically focuses on the fundamentalist follies and foibles of America's cleverly marketed McJesus movement. With deft strokes Harris pens a number of reasons not to be a Christian - or religious at all. He exposes the unreasonableness of faith, explaining with clarity and philosophical rigor why there is no real justification for believing in God, and how the notion of "faith" does little to justify any unfounded belief, or merit respect for same.

Moral arguments come next as Harris, using examples ranging from Mother Teresa to the hatred of homosexuals, demonstrates that the Christian value system easily leads to ethically repugnant behavior - despicable in principal and practice because of the widespread and very real human suffering it creates. Christianity's maniacal obsession with people having sex is revealed as morally destitute - religious right political mandates that keep condoms out of Africa only increase the staggering AIDS death toll. Earlier this year Christian luddites unsuccessfully attempted to block the life saving Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, which will prevent many cases of cervical cancer because - in their twisted moral calculus - it might lead to teenagers having a little more sex. In this latter case what is deeply evil - immoral doesn't begin to describe it - is that Christians have decided that dying of a preventable disease is the price teenagers should pay - their punishment for a capriciously and arbitrarily defined concept known as sin - for daring to enjoy each other's bodies.

Harris never holds back and isn't afraid to offend his intended audience. After a through debunking of the fraudulent anti-evolution ideology that has become a litmus test for the Christian Young Earth Creationist (YEC) claque, he concludes by bluntly stating that those who don't accept evolution on the facts are ignorant at best, delusional or dumb at worst.

In a world where people are killed every day because they hold different views about which internally inconsistent and ultimately incomprehensible book God supposedly wrote, and mail-order ministers or medieval mullahs impose the ravings of bronze to iron age mystics on impressionable children, scientific marvels save and improve countless lives every day - what excuse is their for belief in a God who slaughters innocent children by the tens of thousands in tsunamis, or the global genocide euphemistically glorified as the Noachian deluge? Or a God seemingly obsessed with who has sex with who and how they have it?

In "Letter to a Christian Nation" Sam Harris delegates Christianity to the same deity dustbin of history that Thor, Zeus, and Mitrha occupy. Hopefully this book will inspire others to leave behind their equally invisible and imaginary friends.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars Review from an Athiest - Could not finish reading book
I am an Atheist. I got half way through this book and can' stand the tone of the Author. I was looking for supporting information to help support my current beliefs, but instead... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Jen
4.0 out of 5 stars Sam is the best!
I only wish he would have taken the time to do the audio himself. Other than that, its a brilliant piece.
Published 3 days ago by Luke A Eury
4.0 out of 5 stars Serves the purpose Its Title Suggests
This work could well have been penned by hand, to be lovingly left with a friend or family member. You will sail through this and finish hungry for more. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Paul Crandon
1.0 out of 5 stars One Big Straw Man Argument
This is one of the worst examples of "New Atheist" literature. Respectable atheists should look elsewhere for serious scholarship critiquing Christianity. Read more
Published 4 days ago by John Ferrer
5.0 out of 5 stars Preaching to the choir
I liked the book a lot but those who most need to read it will be turned off either by the title or upon reading the first part.
Published 9 days ago by T. J. Karasek
4.0 out of 5 stars well-written and makes good points
While this book is written in a deliberately antagonistic way, the author makes some very good points. The book is well written and funny and I enjoyed reading it. Read more
Published 11 days ago by David's Wife
3.0 out of 5 stars This book will not change any minds
I am in the camp of separation of church and state, and am very critical of the religious right and religion in general. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Joaquin
5.0 out of 5 stars I hope more people would read it
Sam Harris is at the forefront of secular thinking and scientific discovery. Nobody makes a better case about the huge mistakes made by religions, especially Christianity, when it... Read more
Published 16 days ago by F. X. Lebrija
5.0 out of 5 stars Reason vs Regression
Nothing Harris says surprises me. I have had the same basic thoughts. However his book is very refreshing and encouraging. Read more
Published 25 days ago by R. Childers
5.0 out of 5 stars good ol Harris
quick read even for a slow reader if you've listened to sam speak before. may feel longer if your views are being showed illogical for the first time.
Published 27 days ago by Alex Braden
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Why don't religions die?
Actually, many of the Shakers were wiped out by an organized militia of Movers in the great battle of 1910.
Feb 26, 2007 by Nathan Marciniak |  See all 53 posts
IQ
http://undergraduatestudies.ucdavis.edu/explorations/2004/clark.pdf
Abstract
Research has revealed a positive correlation between IQ and education, as well as a negative correlation between education and religiosity. However, there is little research linking IQ with religiosity and... Read more
Jul 21, 2007 by Turtles all the Way Down™ |  See all 11 posts
this is an aside Be the first to reply
They are "rational" or "scientific"? Huh-Uh! Be the first to reply
I had to delete my honest, Christian based review...
You cannot call yourself a believer in the scientific method if you can accept the notion that something is irrefutable. A true scientist not only allows himself to be be proven incorrect, but seeks the opportunity. I suggest you apply your IQ consistently to all thousand-year-old books instead... Read more
Oct 8, 2006 by Eugene Lin |  See all 189 posts
As someone who was recently told that I was "evil" by a Christian coworker
I'm sorry Christians constantly say hateful things like that. Its funny/breaks my heart how so many of us don't understand our own faith.

Separation of Church and State has nothing to do with religion not being allowed in the public square, its just that one religion or to the founding fathers... Read more
Dec 11, 2007 by T. Mahoney |  See all 13 posts
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