Product Description

“Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.”

So begins Letter to a Christian Nation…



www.samharris.org

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13012 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-19
• Released on: 2006-09-19
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

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

About the Author
Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times best seller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.

Customer Reviews

Holy Moley
A must read for all Americans with more than a few brain cells. Sam Harris stakes out how crazy our society is for putting so much effort, stock, and energy, into Christian religious beliefs, and how such an enterprise is bad for all of us. Any objective assessment demonstrates that Christian beliefs are a hodge- podge of stories, than in any other context should have as much relevance to society as fairy tails. However so many, who subscribe to these beliefs, force their cherry picked standards from bibles they have not read, from codes that are clearly man- made, in a way that is antithetical to a democratic society. Sam wants Christians to wake up and take a rational look at themselves and lays out the case that they have no more legitimacy to impose their fantastical delusions upon America than any other religious belief system. This little book is a clarion call for everyone who is sick of the Christian right forcing their agenda onto the public discourse.

What???????????
When this book starts to out-sell the Bible, then I'll say there is some creedance in it. But until then, this is just another soured individual unsuccessfully trying to topple the truth in the Bible. This book will be relegated to the bargin bin in a year.

Live and Let Live
Mr. Harris makes a very important point very effectively. At our nation's founding, a great many of the people had a consciousness of how important it was not to deny the freedom of conscience to anyone. The history of Europe and Christianity is full of the oppression, persecution, and brutal violence of people who disagreed on what God commanded people to kill for. Through the slaughter of heretics and blasphemers by mobs, inquisitions, and culminating in the horror of the conflict between the Reformation movement of Protestants and the Counter-Reformation of Catholics that covered the continent with blood and whose violence still continues, people had grown weary of the fight and come here to escape from the dictates of established churches. When we got here, we began making the same mistake all over again, as when the Hartford Baptists were prevented from worshipping by the Episcopalian authorities of the locally established church. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison together with a coalition of followers of non-established churches, including Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and Unitarians, among others, set down in the Constitution and laws that the government wasn't to meddle in religious affairs, and established a tradition that our nation would protect the freedom of conscience of all. This book re-asserts this tradition and clearly opposes the current efforts of Fundamentalist Christians to impose their values and beliefs on everyone else. His arguments should persuade all but the most fanatic and pious that we're better off without a national religion and need to find another way to educate our children not to harm others than to smack it into their heads with Bibles and telling them that Christian charity extends only to those Christians that have been government-approved.