Letter To A Christian Nation [Hardcover]

It is sometimes said that the pen is the sharpest of weapons when used correctly. In no book I have read has this been more true. This book is a mere 90 very small pages, even slow readers will make it through in a couple of hours, and the arguments are completely devastating all the way through, I was an out-an-out atheist before reading it, and I've always been so, but this book makes the points so well that I almost felt sorry for any true believers reading it, they must be crying when they finish this, but if so, it should be tears of joy and understanding.

Challenge every believer you know to read this book.

This book is really suited to someone who wants to get the key arguments against Christianity without having to spend a long time reading something like 'The God Delusion' or 'The End of Faith'. It's very short and could be read in a day or even in a single reading.

Most head-in-the-sand Christians won't read anything that would challenge their faith but I would hope that a simple, short book like this would make that simple task more feasable. By reading this book, a Christians would certainly have some questions and be forced into a bit of thinking. But if their faith is genuine, honest and real why fear this?
Surely they'd come out the other side with a deeper, stronger faith.

I'd certainly applaud Harris for going out of his way for making it as easy as possible for a Christian to challenge their beliefs - a crucial part of any objective thinking.

Harris makes some excellent points. Among them:

1. Four of the most revered Theologians Augustine, Aquainus, Calvin and Luther were mad men who advocated torture and all sorts of hardship.
Does this mean that the Joe average Christian, who one would assume would abhor such perniciousness, can understand scripture better than the most influential thinkers in the history of Christianity?

2. Objections to stem cell research from hardline Christians is preventing research into the most promising science that offers hope to so many cruel and life debilitating ailments.

3. The problem of evil - how could a loving God preside over such a cruel world. Theodicy cannot answer this.

4. The number of world conflicts emanating from regions with disparate religious groups:
- Palestine (Jews V Muslims)
- Balkans (Orthodox Serbians V Catholic Croatians V Bosian Muslims)
- Northern Ireland (Protestants V Catholics)
- Kashmir (Muslim V Hindus)
- Sudan (Muslims V Christians and animists)
- Nigeria (Muslims V Christians)
- Ethiopia (Muslims V Christians)
- Ivory Coast (Muslims V Christians)
- Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists V Tamil Hindus)
- Philippines (Muslims V Christians)
- Iran and Iraq (Shiite V Sunni Muslims)
- Caucasus (Orthodox Russians V Chechen Muslins, Muslims Azerbaijanis V Catholic and Orthodix Armenians).

It can't all be a coincidence. Surely there's something dangerous about religion that any rational person should be able to observe.

Is the Bible a fail safe guide to morality? It certainly has some extremely disturbing passages such as stoning your bride to death if she is not a virgin.

Is Christianity the number one religion for love and compassion? Even a cursory examination of Jainism would show that not to be the case.

But why are so many Christians adamant they have the moral highground, the truth and pretty much everything you need unless you are one of them?

It really is a great little book.

Letter to a Christian Nation - Review

Paul Gibbons

Reading Harris' latest contribution leaves me in a difficult state. Harris follows through with his attack on religion started in The End of Faith. He ridicules belief in the supernatural, and reviews some well travelled territory such as `the argument from evil'. In doing this he advances some interesting thought-experiments: if Salamanders can re-grow lost limbs, why wouldn't God, just once, allow an injured child to do so?

However, supernatural beliefs, on their own, do little harm. Most people have little superstitious oddities: my friend who must sit in the same seat playing Bridge, people who spend good money on homeopathy, not having important meetings on Friday the 13th. Harris' real beef is where such beliefs promote social ills and violence.

He lays quite a lot of misery at the door of religion, most of it on target, some of it overstated. When travelling in the Caribbean, I enquired why AIDS was such a difficult issue on the small island of St Lucia - surely it must be easy to contain within a tiny population? No, the island is very Catholic and many of the hospitals and educational institutions are under the sway of that ideology - no condoms for them. Clearly this causes much suffering and death, and the Church's position in Africa is implicated in the four million deaths per year on that continent. The Church not only advocates this, but defends it in the face of criticism. I hold those cardinals personally responsible for the policies that exacerbate this suffering. Harris' ninety-some pages are replete with this and many stronger examples.

I found myself agreeing with almost every word he writes. I completely endorse his intention - to bring back rationality into the spheres where it will make the biggest difference to our human condition. It has long been my belief that religion and religious morality allowed the formation of groups and ordered societies hundreds of years ago, but has outlived its usefulness. It is now a source of social harm and inter-group conflict.

But I am not sure books like this get the job done. In my circle of friends are, surprisingly, a large number of very religious people. (My beliefs are as strong as Harris'.) One of them even doubts evolution! They are a happy, delightful to be with, and make sustained efforts to help the disadvantaged in their communities. Better neighbours one could not wish for. They are smart (Oxford or Cambridge), and while they hold all the fanciful beliefs Harris criticises, they do not proselytise, and are political moderates (even left of centre).

What Harris' has done (here and in `The End...', which I saluted at the time), is to take the fight to the moderates. It is easy to attack Abu Hamza or Pat Buchanan - few would dissent. His argument is essentially that religious moderates provide social and political capital to the fundamentalists.

I'm with Harris - tolerance has gone too far. No other beliefs are cordoned off from critique in the way that the religious demand. Cartoonists and polemicists can savage politicians, scientists and business people for their beliefs and actions. But put on a robe and special protection is claimed. The special tax and political status that religions, churches and religious schools attract need to be put to the sword.

One could argue that religion needs to be returned to the sphere of private belief where it does no harm, but this seems far-fetched. All groups organise politically to assert their rights - indeed this is part of what our secular, liberal society should fight for. While we should not privilege religion, neither can we discriminate against it.

Harris and I both want change, but the moderates are the people we need to influence. Influence does not come from mocking or belittling, even thought it is more fun. It does not come from taking cheap shots - and Harris takes many of them. By influencing the moderates, they can over time effect change within their religious institutions. Harris and I won't effect change to these institutions from the outside much as we'd like to. The inter-faith dialogue that Harris criticises needs to happen less between Muslims and Christians and more between secularists and religionists. To do this, we are going to have to stop talking about them and to them as if they were fools.

Perhaps Harris has done a good thing bringing the moderates into the discussion. After all, not everyone who voted for Bush is a foaming-at-the-mouth radical Christian (much as we'd like to think so). He attracted political support from moderate Christians too - thinking people who want a better, safer, more humane world. It is those guys we need to go after. We need to win their hearts and minds - and that conversation won't start with `you are a moron, and this is why....'.

So keep it up Sam, but keep the end in mind. You, a fellow philosopher, know the road - either from the teachings of the Buddha or Sextus Empiricus - take your pick. We want a coalition of rational people who want change and this includes people who have some funny beliefs. Let them keep those. But lets not tolerate the consequences of those beliefs and lets not tolerate the intolerable. Lets get the moderates talking to us and not hating us. We need to lighten up our attack on their beliefs and get talking shared intentions and shared solutions. Both sides will have to give up self-righteousness and dogmatism - and this is where the political journey meets the psychological and the spiritual.

Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris

* Hardcover: 112 pages

* Publisher: Bantam Press (12 Feb 2007)

* Language English

* ISBN-10: 0593058976

* ISBN-13: 978-0593058978