 | |
 View Larger |
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason By Sam Harris ( W. W. Norton )
Release Date: 2005-10-10
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $13.95
Price: $11.16
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|  Add to Cart |
|
|
Product Description
An impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith.
This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. 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. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religion—an accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world.
Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times: "The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated….Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."
|
Amazon.com Review
Sam Harris cranks out blunt, hard-hitting chapters to make his case for why faith itself is the most dangerous element of modern life. And if the devil's in the details, then you'll find Satan waiting at the back of the book in the very substantial notes section where Harris saves his more esoteric discussions to avoid sidetracking the urgency of his message. Interestingly, Harris is not just focused on debunking religious faith, though he makes his compelling arguments with verve and intellectual clarity. The End of Faith is also a bit of a philosophical Swiss Army knife. Once he has presented his arguments on why, in an age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, belief is now a hazard of great proportions, he focuses on proposing alternate approaches to the mysteries of life. Harris recognizes the truth of the human condition, that we fear death, and we often crave "something more" we cannot easily define, and which is not met by accumulating more material possessions. But by attempting to provide the cure for the ills it defines, the book bites off a bit more than it can comfortably chew in its modest page count (however the rich Bibliography provides more than enough background for an intrigued reader to follow up for months on any particular strand of the author' musings.) Harris' heart is not as much in the latter chapters, though, but in presenting his main premise. Simply stated, any belief system that speaks with assurance about the hereafter has the potential to place far less value on the here and now. And thus the corollary -- when death is simply a door translating us from one existence to another, it loses its sting and finality. Harris pointedly asks us to consider that those who do not fear death for themselves, and who also revere ancient scriptures instructing them to mete it out generously to others, may soon have these weapons in their own hands. If thoughts along the same line haunt you, this is your book.--Ed Dobeas
|
|
 Valuable Incoherency ( murphys6 )
The End of Faith is one of a growing number of books that are taking effective counter-punches against religion based lunacy in the world. In this erratically researched book, Sam Harris is at his best when he is revealing underknown facts about the brutal, dehumanizing, and devastating effects that organized religion, particularly the people of Abraham (Jews, Christians, Muslims)have often had on the human pursuits of life, liberty, happiness, and knowledge. Though Dawkins, Hitchens, and others are doing their best to bring inquiring minds up to speed fast, there is no doubt whatsoever that the general public is underinformed about the detrimental aspects of organized religion, and vastly overinformed about highly doubtful benefits of same. No intelligent discourse about the future role of religion in human life can be held when there has been such a whoppingly lopsided bias towards faith as a basis of government and policy; Harris' book goes a long way towards allowing informed debate to take place.
That said, this is an oddly incoherent book. It starts out detailing the abuses of the Inquisition (impressive!), moves towards an emotionally charged, less well researched, and (I suspect) fear-based editorializing about the Great Satan of all religions (from Harris' point of view): the Muslim faith. Harris' discussion of Islam veers from descriptive to invective, and never lets up. Though he mentions a few Islamic apologists, he does so in the same way that Dr. Evil, in the Austin Powers movies, talks to his teenage son Scott: Zip it! Zip it! Zip it!.
Harris' discussion about terrorism is right at the level of luminaries like Rush Limbaugh, Donald Rumsfeld, and our esteemed George Bush, taking an analytical line that I would call sneer, fear, and smear.
Finally, Harris veers into an inconsistently informed discussion of what constitutes consciousness in humans, and attempts to resurrect a type of spirituality that lauds meditation and the loss of the concept of self. Whatever sense of peace his new spirituality gives him, it doesn't prevent Harris from routinely exploding into lizard brain rage on the topic of Islam.
My own take is that the book took a swing and a miss at what impedes human progress. Blindly held beliefs, be they religious or otherwise, result in human catastrophe. The largest human killings in history were perpetrated by secular leaders (Stalin's 10 million deaths, Mao Zedong's 80 million deaths, Pol Pots Killing Fields). Harris' disingenuous response to these facts simply overlooks the fact that DOGMA, uncritically held and revered, religious or secular, results in horrendous grief for this barely sane human race.
The overall effect of wading through The End of Faith, a book that is more a collection of essays than a coherent approach to a topic, is like eating a delicious bread pudding and repeatedly encountering jarring bits of walnut shells or olive pits. It has definite nutritional value, but take care not to choke or break a tooth on the junk in the mix.
Finally, get the paperback version, Harris has included a very valuable update to FAQ's and challenges regarding the hardcover edition.
|
 Be wary of some of those who are on your side. ( byuga )
As others have said, this book suffers from the "destroy the village in order to save it" mentality that mirrors the attitudes of Harris' religious adversaries. He can rationalize his reverse intolerance any way he likes, but that's what it is.
Like it or not, we secular humanists gain nothing by adopting the narrow tactics of religious extremists in responding to them. One makes common cause with one's ideological opponents as best one can---and sometimes that can't be done when the gulf is too wide. And sometimes it can. And that's how the world works.
Diatribes like Harris' are, at best, distractions from trying to find those places of common accord, and a humanist jihad is NOT what secular humanists should be aspiring to.
|
 Stick with Daniel Dennet or Richard Dawkins
This is probably one of the worst books ever written on the subject of atheisim and the end of religious faith. Harris should be taken to task on a number of issues, one, which cannot be overlooked, is his simplistic view on torture as necessary to secure vital information...Has Harris not been paying attention to the Iraq War in particular Abu Ghirab? Has he not read anything by Chalmers Johnson-someone who is more experinced than he is-on the subject of torture and information.
The other area of diagreement should be evident from Harris suggesting that people are becoming more rational and are leaving churches and religious beliefs behind them-Harris believes this is true in any religion but his own spirituality. He has consistently praised Buddhism and Hinduism while at the same time he has critised Christian teachings..I mean, I am an atheist, but this is just beyond the pale of rationality. So readers, stay with Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins.
|
God is Dead (Again)
Often bracketed with "The God Delusion", this is a better book, though fuzzy, loosely argued and (I'm guessing) hastily written. At least Harris is intelligent and open-minded enough to see the rationale of Buddhist spiritual practice: one more intuitive leap and he might understand what religion, the Sacred, has meant to the majority of the human race.
Shame he wastes so much space on fashionable but silly anti-Muslim tirades. The reader should try going through and replacing the word "Muslim" with "Jew", and "Islam" with "Judaism", and see if it still looks acceptable, or even printable. Yet the Hebrew Bible contains at least as many exhortations to violence as the Qur`an; and Jews were "terrorists" too until they achieved their political objectives (anyone remember?) Harris never stops to wonder Why people adopt extreme beliefs: dismissing your opponents as stupid or brainwashed is a game anyone can play, and too easy to be much fun.
Muslim compose one quarter of the world's population. It is well-known that in North America and Europe there are hateful, violent racist, White Supremacist, Fascist and neo-Nazi groups. No-one ever thinks to judge all Westerners on this basis. Why then are we so strongly encouraged to vilify all Muslims because of similar minorities?
Harris should devote a couple of months to reading the Muslim saints and sages: Rûmî, `Attâr, Sanâ'î, Sa`dî, Jâmî, Suhrawardî, Shabistarî, `Irâqî, Ibn `Arabî, Ibn al-Fârid, al-Hallâj, al-Makkî, Ibn `Ata'illâh, etc, etc, etc. The Islamic tradition is second to none, its spiritual writings astonishing in quantity and quality, uniquely poetic and life-affirming. But Buddhism should already have taught him that beliefs based on fear and hatred are always wrong.
|
Anti-theism without explicit atheism plus 9/11 causation revealed ( overthemoonamazonreviewer )
Although he doesn't say so, Harris appears to be an atheist, most certainly in the sense that he does not believe in any traditional gods although towards the end of this book he seems to ascribe to the mysticism of consciousness in a manner consistent with eastern Buddhism. However Harris seems to assert a physical understanding of that phenomenon but maybe open to a naturalistic possibility of something more than just this life. What he is vehemently opposed to is the idea that ancient religions of the monotheistic persuasion have any clue about... well anything. Moreover he thinks them extremely dangerous to the point that they could well be the downfall of Homo sapiens.
This book is a response from secularism to the events of 9/11 and then some more. Harris identifies that the war is not a war on terror but a war of belief. Lots of people still don't realize that the reasons why the terrorists did what they did, is because of their belief of going to heaven while everyone else they kill goes to hell. He shows why some Muslims think this is a blessed thing (suicide bombings are called sacred bombings by the news media of some Muslims nations) and how the extremism coupled with nuclear weapons is our worst nightmare and their dream.
Harris looks at religions in terms of people acting on what they believe. He shows why religions are logically incoherent and the detrimental effects this has on otherwise rational people. He goes out of his way to show that education (lots of terrorists have attended university) does not solve this problem. He sees the trouble of extremism as religion manipulating sanity to produce insane people. Harris thinks that even moderates need to abandon religion because they just fuel fundamentalism by even being there.
He goes through the history of the inquisition, witch hunts and anti-Semiticism. He then turns to Islam and offers a very brave critique of it. People should support Sam Harris for that chapter alone. Not since Rushdie has there been anything even remotely like it. He surprisingly does a criticism of Chomsky that will have many people thinking if the great Chomsky has his causations in order.
After this Harris begins to deal with the problem of ethics and morality without traditional religion, what it means and fairly outlines the problems secularism is faced with on this issue. He uncovers that victimless crimes have a religious bases, not a logical one. Some American members of the government and judiciary are revealed as very irrational fundamentalists.
Harris presents us with dilemmas that face us today such as pacifism in the face of terrorist threats, torture and collateral damage. This again deals with ethics but from a political moral perspective absent of religion. He ends the book with an outlook to the explanation of consciousness for a better world.
With The End of Faith Harris takes the idea that anti-theism is always liberal and shoves it out the airlock. You could mistake him for George Bush if it wasn't for his passages on victimless crimes like homosexuality, recreational drug use and stem-cell research. He reveals the causation of 9/11 without the political correctness. Islam is clearly defined as a dangerous enemy to humanity. There is no cooperative deal in the offering between religion and secularism. Religion must go at all costs. He makes lots of suggestions from philosophy and couples them with political energy.
The End of Faith packs a whopping punch and maybe the hardest anti-theist book around. It is one of the most controversial books I have ever read and renders many contemporary books on atheism harmless in comparison. How it does this is by using the KISS principle. Bible like objects can cause people to murder others. There is no way around this for Harris, just turn the pages of any scripture, really believe it and you are a potential catalyst for an apocalypse walking on two legs. Do we disbelieve Harris at our peril? I think Harris has made an outstanding case for anti-theism and even a post 9/11 wakeup call for those who didn't get the message the first time around. Islam is at war with you.
Pros
Raw Anti-theism
Not since Rushdie...
Well edited, kept short and on topic
Demonstrates the problem of religion
Cons
Limited freedom of speech and thought as a solution to the problem of religious extremists
Really advocates circumstances for the use of torture (2005 Abu Ghraib shows the problem with this view and is the reason why this book gets docked a star)
The possibility of benign Monotheists are rejected
|
|
|
