[Vision2020] Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

All:

The recent discussion of the "good" or "bad" consequences of religion might 
be furthered by discussion of Sam Harris's recent book, "The End of Faith."

http://www.samharris.org

I saw Sam Harris interviewed on C-Span regarding this book, and was impressed 
by the careful and measured manner in which he presented his ideas.  The web 
link above offers the first ten pages of the book for free.

Sam Harris included the questionable absolutist thinking behind totalitarian 
abuses such as those under Pol Pot and Stalin in his analysis, at least on 
C-Span (I have not read the entire book), in his discussion of the harm that can 
result from the absolutist dogmatic ideologies of many religions that inspire 
hatred and violence.  Indeed, the problem is absolutist belief in any 
ideology, whether "secular" or "religious," that becomes an article of faith that 
cannot be questioned by reason or fact, leading to the justification of the abuse 
of other human beings: thus some forms of Communism as expressed in nation 
states we all agree were horrendous were/are a secularized exploitation of the 
same human psychology that is behind fundamentalist extreme religious 
ideologies, that deny the full application of reason and fact to belief.

>From a short review excerpt included below:

Even moderate religion is a menace, because it leads us to respect and “
cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed without 
evidence”. Why do men like Bin Laden commit their hideous cruelties? The answer is 
that they “actually believe what they say they believe”.

Below is information on this book from the web site given above, and a few 
short excerpts of reviews of this book, with some information about Sam Harris 
at the bottom:

The Clash of Faith and Reason

This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of 
faith and reason in the modern world.  The End of Faith provides a harrowing 
glimpse of mankind’s willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious 
beliefs, even when these beliefs inspire the worst of human atrocities. Harris 
argues that in the presence of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer expect 
to survive our religious differences indefinitely. Most controversially, he 
maintains that “moderation” in religion poses considerable dangers of its own: 
as the accommodation we have made to religious faith in our society now 
blinds us to the role that faith plays in perpetuating human conflict.  While 
warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris 
draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism in an 
attempt to provide a truly modern
foundation for our ethics and our search for spiritual experience.  

Winner of the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris is 
a genuinely frightening book about terrorism, and the central role played by 
religion in justifying and rewarding it. Others blame “extremists” who “distort
” the “true” message of religion. Harris goes to the root of the problem: 
religion itself. Even moderate religion is a menace, because it leads us to 
respect and “cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed 
without evidence”. Why do men like Bin Laden commit their hideous cruelties? 
The answer is that they “actually believe what they say they believe”. Read 
Sam Harris and wake up. —Richard Dawkins, The Guardian 

“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, almost personally understood… Harris writes what a sizable number of us 
think, but few are willing to say in contemporary America… This in an important 
book, on a topic that, for all its inherent difficulty and divisiveness, should 
not be shielded from the crucible of human reason.” —Natalie Angier, The New 
York Times Book Review (read the full review) 

Sam Harris: 

Sam Harris is the author of the international bestseller, The End of Faith: 
Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. He is a graduate in philosophy from 
Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious 
traditions, along with a variety of spiritual disciplines, for twenty years. Mr. 
Harris is now completing a doctorate in neuroscience, studying the neural basis 
of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty with functional magnetic resonance 
imaging (fMRI). His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles 
Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Economist, The 
Guardian, The Independent, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and many other 
journals. Mr. Harris makes regular appearances on television and radio to 
discuss the risks that religion now poses to modern societies. The End of Faith won 
the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. Several foreign editions are in press.
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Vision2020 Post by Ted Moffett 
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