Letter to a Christian Nation (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A breath of fresh fire.”–Wall Street Journal

"This combination of ruthless argument with polemic designed to provoke (he describes the Catholic Church as the “institution that has produced and sheltered an elite army of child-molesters") will further delight Harris’ supporters and infuriate his critics.” – San Francisco Chronicle

“Harris has consolidated his disdain for religion in a withering attack on Christianity, delivered in the form of an open letter. . . . Mr. Harris wants to grab your lapels and give you a good shake. . . . [he] makes a good case for a new and intellectually honest conversation about morality and human suffering.”–NY Observer

“As infidels go, Harris is an astonishingly successful one. . . . Letter is a readable, exhortatory screed.”–Newsweek

“Bracing.”–The Nation

“[Letter to a Christian Nation] crackles with a focused, potent energy. . . . [Harris’] arguments resonate with a satisfying common sense.”–Contra Costa Times

“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 from 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 text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1ST edition (September 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307265773
• ISBN-13: 978-0307265777
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (669 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,361 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

166 of 188 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Letter to a Christian Nation - Special Delivery, October 24, 2006

By	Carl Flygare (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"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.

57 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A letter from an "atheist fundamentalist"?, March 31, 2007

By	Robert Schmidt (Honolulu, HI & Logan, UT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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. 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. It's a short book, small, and 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.

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Favor Of A Rational Outlook, June 14, 2007

By	Skoro "Slow Reader" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This brief volume wastes no time in getting to the point: Christianity is what it claims to be, or it isn't. There is no middle ground in this debate. Believers are convinced that their faith is true and valid. Harris brings up many inconsistencies from both the Old and New Testaments that point to a man-made origin for Christianity, rather than the divine beginning we've all been taught. And his arguments are oftentimes very pointed and difficult to refute, logically. Emotionally, many believers will oppose it because it doesn't present the conventional view of Christianity. Indeed, many of the "reviews" here are testament to the hostility of many believers towards Mr Harris. But he uses the Bible's own words in much of his reasoning. In other places, he resorts to logic, an example of which I'll quote here:

(speaking to his Christian audience regarding atheism)

"The truth is, you know exactly what it is like to be an atheist with respect to the beliefs of Muslims. Isn't it obvious that Muslims are fooling themselves? Isn't it obvious that anyone who thinks that the Koran is the perfect word of the creator of the universe has not read the book critically? Isn't it obvious that the doctrine of Islam represents a near-perfect barrier to honest inquiry? Yes, these things are obvious. Understand that the way you view Islam is exactly the way devout Muslims view Christianity. And it is the way I view all religions."

While many believers will see this as an assault on their religion, I submit that Christianity is strong enough to stand up to a little criticism and scrutiny. If your faith is so fragile that it crumbles under Harris' thrust, then it wasn't very robust to begin with. But I think that Harris does a very good job of presenting a format for believers to examine their beliefs and gain some perspective regarding their religion in comparison to other faiths and to those who don't adhere to any faith.

Highly recommended.