Customer Reviews

The End of Reason

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Ravi Zacharias has, as the first reviewer says, done an able job in answering Sam Harris's book length rant against religion (mainly Christianity). Ravi, as always, writes with intelligence, keen logic, grace and aplomb, none of which can be said about the author or book Ravi is refuting. Ravi is perhaps uniquely gifted to apply a sharp slap in the face to the modern hostile atheist authors all the while making it feel like a warning from a concerned wiser, older friend. As Ravi takes Harris's atheistic tenets to their logical conclusion, he shows that atheism always has and always will lead to a world of individualistic license, unrestrained evil, loveless existence and empty despair. Also well done is Ravi's job of showing how whenever Harris makes a morality statement or a pronouncement of the "evils" of religion, he has to import categories (good and evil, right and wrong) that his own worldview has no explanation for and therefore no right to employ. Harris's whole argument against religion has to spend borrowed moral capital from Christianity. Harris can only say and believe the things he does because many of his presuppositions are still all too Christian.

When Ravi systematically unravels Harris's arguments (often merely unfounded assertions), one is left wondering how Harris's book could ever have been taken seriously by a half way intelligent person much less become a best seller. I find it amusing to watch how the "new atheists" argue for a world of pure secular humanism with all the passion of a pack of religious zealots. As the likes of Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens flog their rabid atheism they sound more like wild-eyed desert prophets than anything. It is clear, perhaps to everyone but them, that they are every bit as religious as the most extremist religious practitioner they rail against, and just as dangerous should their views ever receive wide subscription. The only difference is that their god is themselves but labeled and masquerading in their writings as "science". All this Zacharias does a masterful job of exposing. Although Ravi admits to this being his most edgy book, one cannot read it without detecting the genuine love and desire on his part to see the new atheists wake up to the bankruptcy of their worldview.

For those interested in another excellent rebuttal of Harris's rant, here is a much punchier contribution that focuses more on exposing the internal inconsistencies of atheism than on positively proving Christianity Letter from a Christian Citizen: A Response to Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris.

Typical Ravi! The greatest Christian Apologist in the 21st century. Once you get through reading his arguments you wonder what dunder head would not see his point? Well they're out there.

This books explained some very complex issues with clear language and best of all, clear reason. I truly enjoyed this book.