About this title: Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes heinous crimes.
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780393327656ISBN:0393327655
Description: Good. Used item may show library stamps, stickers and marks. Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: Fine. 0393327655 Ships next business day. NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780393327656ISBN:0393327655
Description: Very Good; Pages clean and binding tight. Shipped from a smoke free environment in Michigan. (RELGN) 0393327655. Mass Market PB; 0.94 x 8.19 x 5.28 Inches. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780739453797ISBN:0739453793
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. binding sound, cover has minor edgewear, pages clean and unmarked. 336 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Slight rise at edge of front cover when book lies flat, some dogeared page corners, and pages contain highlights, underlining, & some margin notes. F6a~ read more
Description: Fine. 0739453793 Very light shelf wear / edge wear cover / pages like new condition//"Buy with Confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Customer Service Makes All the Difference. " read more
"Wow, what an attack. When I picked up this book I knew I was going to be dealing with someone who blamed religion for pretty much everything from world war to salmonella in peanut butter, but what I didn't expect was how much of the blame he put on not the zealots, but the religious moderates as well. The title says "The End of Faith" and he means it -- the slightest bit of faith in anything is subject to withering attack.
In his writing, the author resorts to the kind of zealotry that he blames the religious extremes of using.
This was a most unsatisfactory read for anyone who, like myself, is looking to forge common ground among peoples. I confess to only making it to page 50. Maybe the tone changes after that, but based on some foreshadowing in the early pages of the book, I suspect the shrillness increases rather than decreasing later in the book.
Ultimately I threw this book back into the pool, like a fish that's too small."
"this book is a must-read for all people who want to change the world. people like myself who know that peoples religious beliefs are based on erroneous assumptions are given badly-needed facts to counter believers. harris makes the case that the power of these beliefs are responsible for millions of deaths in the past and will be responsible for millions more until they have lost their motivational strength. we need a new way of interpreting scripture(s)."
"Insofar as man has created his own gods (and the practice has indeed been rampant) I find Harris' critique of faith accurate and interesting. I find militant religion as frightening as he does. It's therefore unfortunate that he's riddled his book with double talk, contradictions and absurdities. Presumably, there's a militant atheist out there who has or will endow the perspective with more credibility. I'll continue to search.
The following are notes I made during the read. I kinda fell in like with the format. Let me know if you'd rather I cleaned it up...
I'm looking to understand the mindset of the militant atheist. The following quote confirms I'm reading the right book.
"I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance - born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about god - is one of the principle forces driving us toward the abyss."
First, referencing the above quote and Harris' follow-up on it. America did not attacked Afghanistan for its peoples personal beliefs but for the Taliban's ability and demonstrated determination to take action on them. If anyone involved did target anyone for their personal beliefs, they did not do so with their country's support. Has this guy even taken an American history class?
Harris' premise that our ancestors were less capable of rational thought than we is irrational. The fact that the wheelbarrow was in someone's future indicates nothing at all about their intellect. And if the author is correct, there were as few evidences of god then as now.
Harris claims that the only claim of authenticity of holy books come from the books themselves. This ignores the possibility of a 3rd party quietly confirming truth to the millions of people standing unseen in the author's face. He slyly addresses this as the mind speaking to itself. A fare argument given today's philosophy, but sadly self-deceptive.
Another point of interest is that his ire seems to be more against organized religion than against actual faith as he himself reveals that he possesses some.
Also, was his research so narrow as to not have included the fact that Christians don't today kill heretics because Christ fulfilled the Mosaic law? Not because we now find it distasteful? Isn't that a fairly basic Christian tenant?
One of my more pressing questions has been answered. I've wondered why the use of the term 'militant'. Why not something like 'assertive', 'new' or 'proselytical'? Answer in following quote from book...
"The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."
Astounding really. He rails against organized religion for killing people. Runs it as a theme through the book and then has the audacity to claim for his own organization ethical grounds for killing people - solely based on their beliefs.
He indicates that his intentions are only toward those with beliefs that themselves drive to kill, but consider history for a moment. This 'high thinking' murderous rationale arrays the beginning of countless atrocities. He seems to believe that his beliefs are superior to others because they're based on modern thought - which rational persons everywhere will recognize are not yesterday's modern thought and won't be tomorrow's modern thought.
Let's keep our heads people! There is much to be learned from science and philosophy, but talk of killing only reveals lessons not learned.
Having great fun with this book. May raise it a star on just those grounds :)
Seem to be in the middle of large section outlining the horrors that people have heaped upon others in the names of their religions. A very good refresher course and reminder, but I'm not sure he's going to add anything significant to the overall discussion of the topic. He also neglects to mention the horrors that people have heaped upon others in the name of science. These come to mind: eugenics, scientific human tests during holocaust, vivisection, animal testing. And of course, hovering over all is his own stated intention of hurting others in the name of his fears.
A bit bored. Wow - the endless run-on scripture quotes and date recitals were a bit much.
Harris insinuates that there has been an increase in the number of pious leaders in American government. A very shallow study of our founding fathers and subsequent leaders clearly shows the opposite. Fact is, we all stand on the shoulders of our pious forefathers.
Again, a contradiction. Harris clearly claims as a moral imperative that citizens be productive instead of spending time in religious pursuits like building churches and nearly in the same breath calls for the rights of everyone to spend their free time experimenting with drugs.
Victims of victimless crimes include spouses, children, employers etc. And of course those on death row are responsible for their crimes. Harris would give them a pass on genetic, upbringing and bad luck grounds? Outside reality. And then he hammers home the culpability of honor killers despite their genes, upbringing and luck. Some consistency here please?
btw Harris, again, a study of America would reveal to you that the people rule. I applaud the action you've taken to change public thinking to suit your beliefs - we should all follow your example - , but to call a majority of the people idiots reveals something unflattering about your own beliefs and education.
Harris' case against states with 'vice' laws is laughable. He'd actually have us believe that these laws are current and enforced? Well, he clearly didn't find enough material on that subject to back up the claim.
So now there's a high-level Christian conspiracy heading the war on drugs fueled by a hot jealousy over spiritual experience. Sometimes I wonder if he's even being serious with us here. And this next advances the incredulity.
Did he just justify torture? The torture subject isn't nearly as difficult for the rest of us as it is for Harris. The difference between bombers and torturers is clear, but perhaps most clear from the victim's perspective. We'd all prefer to suffer a lifetime from the effects of a bomb than to suffer at the personal hands of a fellow human being who's lost his humanity for several weeks in a dungeon. The difference is in the level and type of horror experienced. The horror of someone personally inflicting pain upon you is the entire point of torture and why it rates so high as a fear in the human mind.
Didn't Harris himself earlier in the book get the point when he almost brilliantly differentiated between the throat-slitting 9/11 hijackers and the weeping American soldier who mistakenly killed innocents in the line of duty? And in the 'perfect bomb' theory? The bombing victim in Berlin suffers less in the knowledge that the bombardier would prefer not to drop his bombs than the stewardess suffers at the hands of the terrorist. Torture is still wrong. Even at times of war.
I can quote again from Harris himself to make my final point.
"Intelligent dissent has its limits. People who believe the earth is flat are not dissenting geographers. People who deny the holocaust even occurred are not dissenting historians. People who believe god created the universe in 4004 BC are not dissenting cosmologists. And we will see that people who practice barbarisms like honor killings are not dissenting ethicists."
I only add that people who disparage faith wholesale are not dissenting prophets."
"Sam Harris blames all religios faith for all the atrocities that have haunted us over the centuries. He is particularly hard on the muslims of the world and he has many good reasons for this. He, however, runs the risk of preaching hate against the muslims and this did not sit well with me. 'Hate never yet dispelled hate, only love can dispel hate'-the Buddha. It is not that I do not agree with his arguments on why the muslim faith has rendered its people to have a mind set close to that of people in the fourteenth century burning witches, but he doesn't raise any solutions to this which is dangerous because the tone was that all the killing of these people the United States does is wholly justified and the only option. He also thinks that torture of political prisoners from this war is acceptable. I realize that the stae of the world in terms of peace with the middle east is the biggest struggle we have had to face since the Nazi's but killing and torturing people absent mindedly because their faith is backwards thinking is not a lasting solution. Harris is very convincing with his arguments about why the muslims are so wrong and the basis of their terrible actions are linked directly to the quaran. I don't doubt this. What I do doubt is that every muslim who rejoices over the martyrdom of their loved ones in a suicide bombing has read the quaran as thouroughly as Harris has. Christians didn't, or weren't allowed to read the bible until the time of the printing press and many, many christians today have not read much of it even now. The point is that I think mostly people are followers of "faith" based initiatives because somehow it makes them feel good for whatever reason but it does not mean that they know the whole 'story' and all its falsity that is the basis for it. This follows for the christian world as it does for the muslim."
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