| Religion In the News |
If you have any doubt as to whether or not people are giving this serious thought, I have included information and links on this page for you to follow up on. I would like to thank Sam Harris for the links you see on this page. www.samharris.orgA Neurology of Belief By Oliver Sacks and Joy Hirsch A Neurology of Belief (PDF)
Are you going to hell?By Louis Bayard Former born-again Christian John Marks journeyed back into the evangelical America he’d left behind and discovered the promise—and limitations—of faith. (continue reading)
On Religion: A Pragmatist and a Lobbyist on AtheismBy SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN February 23, 2008 As represented in print by best-selling authors like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, atheism has lately mounted an in-your-face attack not simply on religion’s influence on public policy, but on belief itself. (continue reading)
Prime Roller, Prepare to Meet a WiseacreBy MICHIKO KAKUTANI January 22, 2008 Sam Harris’s 2004 book, “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason,” set off a noisy boomlet of antireligion books, including Richard Dawkins’s provocative if preachy tome, “The God Delusion” (2006), and Christopher Hitchens’s furious (and often very funny) jeremiad, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” (2007). These books provided a vehement response to the growing influence of evangelicals in American politics and the raging fires of fundamentalism around the world, and they even led to talk about the stirrings of a “new atheist” movement. (continue reading)
My Nose, My Brain, My Faith By DAVID VAN BIEMA Jan. 10, 2008 Believing or disbelieving something is always as much about feeling as fact. Sam Harris, a doctoral candidate at UCLA, wanted to see what that means in physiological terms…  (continue reading)
Ian McEwan: The TNR Q&AIsaac Chotiner January 11, 2008 ‘Atonement’ author Ian McEwan on Bellow, the Internet, atheism, and why his books are still scary. (continue reading)
Moderates Storm The Religious BattlefieldBy Lisa Miller Dec. 31, 2007 - Jan. 7, 2008 issue More-modest voices are reclaiming the debate over faith from the bomb throwers. (continue reading)
Dallas ISD student picked to participate in forum with world leadersBy COURTNEY FLATT December 29, 2007 (continue reading)
Two authors, a rabbi and an atheist, debate religion and scienceBy Steve Padilla Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 29, 2007 Religion and science take center stage in a forum analyzing the role of faith in public and private life. (continue reading)
Man and GodHow should faith respond to the onslaught of atheism? (continue reading)
Top Ten Stories of 20072. Atheism tops the bestseller charts (continue reading)
Something to believe inAdam Rutherford (continue reading)
What Your Brain Looks Like on FaithBy David Van Biema Friday, Dec. 14, 2007 Sam Harris is best known for his barn-burning 2004 attack on religion, The End of Faith, which spent 33 weeks on the New York Times best-seller List. The book’s sequel, Letter to a Christian Nation also came out in editions totalling hundreds of thousands. Last Monday, however, the combative Californian produced a shorter (seven pages) and seemingly calmer publication that will be a hit if it reaches 10,000 readers: “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief and Uncertainty.” (continue reading)
The 10 Biggest Religion StoriesBy DAVID VAN BIEMA Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007 #7 | The Roar of Atheist Books There may or may not be more atheists, but there are more atheist authors--and readers want to give them a hearing. (continue reading)
Atheism’s Wrong TurnBy Damon Linker Mindless argument found in godless books. (continue reading)
Mind, Matter, or God?By Barry Boyce Dec 2007 / Jan 2008 As the so-called new atheists go toe-to-toe with religious literalists, where do Buddhists and other contemplative practitioners stand? Mind, Matter, or God?
Bankrolling Ali’s AsylumBy Jerry Adler Dec 3, 2007 Issue Ayaan Hirsi Ali stands at the nexus of forces shaping the 21st century—and it’s a very dangerous place to be. (continue reading)
He didn’t suffer all that muchDinesh D’Souza Is there an irreconcilable conflict between science and religion? Today’s outspoken atheists, including Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, seek to set science and religion at odds largely by invoking the Galileo case. (continue reading)
‘Martin Amis is no racist’Christopher Hitchens Wednesday November 21, 2007 In his G2 cover story on Monday, Ronan Bennett was wrong to condemn Martin Amis for his comments about Islam, argues Christopher Hitchens (continue reading)
Does God have a place in a rational world?Michael Reilly, La Jolla, California 11 November 2007 WE’RE on the Pacific coast, miles from southern California’s still-raging wildfires, but talk of conflagration fills the air. Some of the best minds in science are gathered here at the seaside resort of La Jolla, together with some of the world’s most insistent non-believers, to take a fresh look at the existence or otherwise of God. (continue reading)
The Atheist’s Dilemmaby Katha Pollitt How likely is it that the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims will wake up one morning and abandon their ancestral faith? Even if you are a ferocious Sam Harris-style atheist who thinks religion is completely stupid--the province of shysters and fools--you have to admit it would be quite astonishing if that view persuaded the devout anytime soon… (continue reading)
Stalin was an atheist—so am IBy Paul Thornton Antony Flew’s case illustrates the folly of argument by association in today’s God wars. (continue reading)
Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary Issue ...[W]e’ve interviewed more than 100 musicians, artists, leaders and thinkers, including two Rolling Stones, two Beatles and two presidents (three, if you count Al Gore), not to mention LSD pioneers, scientists, comedians and philosophers, preachers and atheists… (continue reading)
Suffering, Evil and the Existence of GodBy Stanley Fish (continue reading)
In God’s name Nov 1st 2007 Many secular intellectuals think that the real “clash of civilisations” is not between different religions but between superstition and modernity. A succession of bestselling books have torn into religion—Sam Harris’s “The End of Faith”, Richard Dawkins’s “The God Delusion” and Christopher Hitchens’s “God is not Great—How Religion Poisons Everything”. This counterattack already shows a religious intensity. (continue reading)
What the New Atheists Don’t SeeBy Theodore Dalrymple Autumn 2007 To regret religion is to regret Western civilization. (continue reading)
Keeping the faithA POINT OF VIEW By Tim Egan The US may be one of the most religious countries in the West but is it undergoing a period of doubt. (continue reading)
Proud atheistsBy Steve Paulson Oct. 15, 2007 Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, America’s brainiest couple, confess that belonging to one of America’s most reviled subcultures doesn’t mean they believe scientists can explain everything. (continue reading)
An argument for intelligent beliefBy James Martin Monday, October 8, 2007 (continue reading)
Atheists don’t speak with just one voiceBy Nica Lalli All religions have richly diverse histories and equally diverse believers. Yet why are non-believers treated as a monolith? Equal treatment might lead to greater understanding. (continue reading)
Militant atheists are wrongBy Lee Siegel October 7, 2007 A flurry of literary attacks on God may also be closing the book on imagination. (continue reading)
Brand FaithCaspar Melville October 5, 2007 (continue reading)
Religion as a force for goodBy Ian Buruma September 29, 2007 It has become fashionable in certain smart circles to regard atheism as a sign of superior education, of highly evolved civilization, of enlightenment. Recent bestsellers by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and others suggest that religious faith is a sign of backwardness, the mark of primitives stuck in the Dark Ages who have not caught up with scientific reason. (continue reading)
Root and Branchby IAN HACKING October 8, 2007 ...The people do not trust those who present themselves as elite. If you want a sense of the monstrous self-confident complacency of days gone by, read H.L. Mencken’s daily reports to the Baltimore Sun on the Scopes trial, now reissued under the title A Religious Orgy in Tennessee. Or read any of the self-indulgent, virulent atheists in circulation today--Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens being just two. Contrary to their professed intentions, such writers buttress the faithful; their loathsome arrogance shields evangelical churches from doubt. That part of the American population that believes God made man in His own image has a heartfelt contempt for know-it-alls. I am inclined to say, God bless the people, even when they get it wrong.... (continue reading)
Are Sacred Texts Sacred? the Challenge for AtheistsBy CARLIN ROMANO September 21, 2007 (continue reading)
The NonbelieversBy David Abel September 16, 2007 An increasing number of young people in America - and adults around the world - don’t believe in God. Greg Epstein, who advises fellow atheists and agnostics at Harvard University, wants to create a kind of church for those who reject religion. But he’s encountering resistance from some of the very people he wants to unite. (continue reading)
Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of ReligionBy JONATHAN HAIDT ...But because the new atheists talk so much about the virtues of science and our shared commitment to reason and evidence, I think it’s appropriate to hold them to a higher standard than their opponents. Do these new atheist books model the scientific mind at its best? Or do they reveal normal human beings acting on the basis of their normal moral psychology?… Edge.org
Defender of the Faith?By MARK EDMUNDSON September 9, 2007 A good deal of the antireligious polemic that has recently been abroad in our culture proceeds in the spirit of Freud’s earlier work. In his defense of atheism, “God Is Not Great,” Christopher Hitchens cites Freud as an ally who, he believes, exposed the weak-minded childishness of religion. Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins come out of the same Enlightenment spirit of hostile skepticism to faith that infuses “The Future of an Illusion.” All three contemporary writers want to get rid of religion immediately and with no remainder. But there’s more to Freud’s take on religion than that… (continue reading)
All in the name of Godby IAN O’DOHERTY When Sam Harris first appeared out of the blue with his wonderful first book, The End Of Faith, it seemed that Richard Dawkins finally had someone else who could shoulder the burden of being remorselessly attacked by religious attack dogs in the mainstream media. (continue reading)
Think Again: Dangerous godlessnessBy Jonathan Rosenblum Sep. 6, 2007 Without entering into fruitless debates about whether religious or non-religious people are more moral - fruitless since we lack even the common moral language the Decalogue once provided - there is one point even Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great), and Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation) should concede: Religious people are better at defending themselves from threats to their survival. (continue reading)
Onward, Secular SoldiersBy Katha Pollitt September 24, 2007 An amazing thing has been happening here in God’s own country: For the first time in living memory, religious skepticism is hot. (continue reading)
The smallest signs of retreatBy Madeleine Bunting September 6, 2007 ...There’s a fascinating debate to be had between atheists and people of faith and, often, they can find the gulf between them is not nearly as wide or unbridgeable as is often suggested. Even when there is a gulf, both sides can find the process helpful in clarifying their positions - Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan’s exchange for example.... (continue reading)
Secularists, what happened to the open mind?Many of the leading voices among atheists and the ‘unreligious’ reveal a disdain for religion that can only damage today’s dialogue. Speaking with people of faith, instead of about them, would enrich both sides of this philosophical divide. (continue reading)
Rational Atheism: An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and HitchensBy Michael Shermer Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom… (continue reading)
God Bless Me, It’s a Best-Seller!by Christopher Hitchens September 2007 The author’s book tour—for God Is Not Great—takes a few miraculous turns, including the P.R. boost from Jerry Falwell’s demise, a chance encounter with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and surprising support for an attack on religion. (continue reading)
The New New AtheismBy PETER BERKOWITZ July 16, 2007; Page A13 (continue reading)
What Atheists Can’t AnswerBy Michael Gerson (continue reading)
Am I a dwarf or a horseman?By Christopher Hitchens It’s an honour to be mentioned in the same breath as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. We could become known as the Four Horsemen of the Counter-Apocalypse (continue reading)
Is Religion Man-Made?By Stanley Fish Sure it is. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens think that this fact about religion is enough to invalidate its claims. (continue reading)
Atheism and EvidenceBy Stanley Fish Atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens believe (in Dawkins’s words) that “there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world” and that “if there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural.” (continue reading)
God, Politics and That ManBy DWAYNE BOOTH Like a cockfight, the event at UCLA’s Royce Hall seemed as if it had been put together surreptitiously to evade detection by anybody but the most ardent fans of the most uncomfortable Thanksgiving conversation imaginable: namely, one about God and politics. (continue reading)
Baptists Warned About Islam, AtheismWatergate figure Chuck Colson warned a gathering of Southern Baptist pastors Sunday night against what he described as two dire threats: the deadly marriage of Islam and fascism and a new, militant atheism growing in popularity in the West. (continue reading)
Tome truthsAC Grayling June 11, 2007 To the annoyance of many, the alarm of some, and the satisfaction of others, the half dozen books recently published that powerfully set out the case against religion and religious beliefs - books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Michel Onfray - have all sold in large numbers. (continue reading)
The Three AtheistsBy Stanley Fish Writings against God and religion have been around as long as God and religion have been around. But every so often an epidemic of the genre breaks out and a spate of such writings achieves the status of notoriety (which is what their authors had been aiming for). (continue reading)
BeliefWatch: SmackdownBy Lisa Miller (continue reading)
Believe It or Not by Lynn Andriani The dominant role of religion in today’s politics and culture has produced a backlash and a new publishing subcategory: the anti-religion books. (continue reading)
COVER | The New Atheistsby RONALD ARONSON What began with publisher W.W. Norton taking a chance on a gutsy, hyperbolic and idiosyncratic attack on religion by a graduate student in neuroscience has grown into a remarkable intellectual wave. No fewer than five books by the New Atheists have appeared on bestseller lists in the past two years--Sam Harris’s The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and now Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great. (continue reading)
Is Atheism Just a Rant Against Religion?Despite its minority status, atheism has enjoyed the spotlight of late, with several books that feature vehement arguments against religion topping the bestseller lists. (continue reading)
Atheist authors grapple with believersThe time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the best-seller list, a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers. (continue reading)
Atheists with Attitudeby Anthony Gottlieb May 21, 2007 (continue reading)
The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge itBy Madeleine Bunting Anti-faith proselytising is a growth industry. But its increasingly hysterical flag-bearers are heading for a spectacular failure (continue reading)
Better God-fearing than sneeringBy Stephanie Merritt (continue reading)
Rolling Stone’s 40th Anniversary: Talking With Tom WolfeToday we present The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test author and New Journalism forefather Tom Wolfe… For our fortieth anniversary issue, Mark Binelli sits down with Wolfe to discuss the 1960s, his firsthand experience of the madness of Ken Kesey, witnessing the Apollo 17 launch and his thoughts on God. (continue reading)
Faith eludes Floyd’s former frontmanThere is a pile of books on the coffee table in Roger Waters’s Sydney hotel suite. Perched on top is the religious-baiting The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. The tall, slim Waters, whose long, wavy grey hair gives him the air of a bohemian priest, is eager to get stuck into it, having already enjoyed Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, another provocative poke at religious belief. (continue reading)
Fundamentalist AtheistsBy Christopher Orlet The soft atheists have it in for three bestselling authors in particular: Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion), Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation) and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great). (continue reading)
Disliked, not oppressed (continue reading)
The DNA of Religious FaithThe four horsemen of the current antireligious apocalypse are Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Carl Sagan. All are (or, in the case of Sagan, who died in 1996, were) passionate advocates of reason, committed to the proposition that religion is essentially unreasonable. (continue reading)
Problems and Mysteriesweb exclusive commentary By Marc Gellman April 5, 2007 The recent theological disputation between Rick Warren and Sam Harris on whether God is real was wonderfully enlightening—but sadly was offered up without a verdict. Problems and Mysteries
Answers To the AtheistsBy E. J. Dionne Jr. Friday, April 6, 2007 The neo-atheists, like their predecessors from a century ago, are given to a sometimes-charming ferociousness in their polemics against those they see as too weak-minded to give up faith in God. (continue reading)
Does God Exist? Two Authors DebatePastor Rick Warren says atheists have their place: North Korea. That is just one reason Sam Harris, whose books include “The End of Faith,” says the nonbelieving minority is the victim of a terrible public-relations campaign. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham moderates a debate between the two men, both bestselling authors, on the ultimate question: Does God exist? (continue reading)
A new fundamentalism? Some decry strident tone of fellow atheistsBy Jay Lindsay Atheists are under attack these days for being too militant, for not just disbelieving in religious faith but for trying to eradicate it. And who’s leveling these accusations? Other atheists, it turns out. (continue reading)
National Review: “Lonely Atheists of the Global Village”By Michael Novak March 14, 2007 Time magazine, ever the vigilant trend spotter, has celebrated a recent wave of books by atheists--among them, these three by Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. These books have three purposes: to speed up the disappearance of Biblical faith, especially in America; to proselytize for rational atheism; and to boost morale among atheists, in part by calling attention to support groups for them. Their overriding purpose is the first one: in the words of Harris, “to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity.” (continue reading)
Atheist Apostleby David Aikman In the tradition of Voltaire, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University, has been battering at the walls of religious faith, especially Christianity and Islam. (continue reading)
Darwin’s GodBy ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain. (continue reading)
Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely PlacesMarch 3, 2007 Books Yes, it is true that “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins has been on The New York Times best-seller list for 22 weeks and that “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris can be found in virtually every airport bookstore, even in Texas. (continue reading)
The times they are a-changing for US fundamentalistsFor a book which ridicules religion and ruthlessly exposes the inadequacies of the Bible to become a bestseller is a classic Schlesinger-style signal that times are a-changing. (continue reading)
Foreward to the UK Edition of Letter to a Christian NationBy Richard Dawkins I dare you to read this book…it will not leave you unchanged. Read it if it is the last thing you do. (continue reading)
Without God, Gall Is Permitted...The atheists say that they are addressing believers. Rationalists all, can they believe that believers would be swayed by such contumely and condescension? They seem instead to be preaching to people exactly like themselves—a remarkably incurious elite. (continue reading)
Atheists challenge the religious rightFor some time, the religious right has decried “secular humanism,” a philosophy that rejects the supernatural or spiritual as a basis for moral decisionmaking. But now, nonbelievers are vigorously fighting back. (continue reading)
Letter From America: Atheists throw down the gauntletHere on the first days of the year of our lord 2007 it seems awkward to talk about a Godless world, but the fact is that in the waning months of 2006, a kind of militant atheism was making itself felt across the land. There were two best-selling books declaring belief in God to be a kind of mass delusion, and a harmful mass delusion at that, occasioning a vigorous and often angry response from many people who believe the repeated announcement of the death of God to be wrong, spiritually deaf and dangerous. (continue reading)
Facing the Islamist Menaceby Christopher Hitchens The most alarming sentences that I have read in a long time came from the pen of my fellow atheist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, at the end of a September Los Angeles Times column upbraiding American liberals for their masochistic attitude toward Islamist totalitarianism. (continue reading)
The Grinch Delusion: An Atheist Can Believe in ChristmasDecember 17, 2006 Week in Review IF last holiday season charitably could have been described as the war-on-Christmas Christmas — with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News declaring war on the warriors and others declaring war on him — maybe it’s not such a stretch to think of this year’s prevalent yuletide theme as the war-on-Christ Christmas. (continue reading)
The Celestial TeapotA Review of Letter to a Christian Nation by James Wood Harris has an Orwellian robustness and a good journalistic way with his one-liners. To the creationists who believe that the world is six thousand years old, he says: “This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.” (continue reading)
A Modest Proposal for a Truce on ReligionBy Nicholas D. Kristof December 3, 2006 ...Look elsewhere on the best-seller list and you find an equally acerbic assault on faith: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Mr. Harris mocks conservative Christians for opposing abortion, writing: “20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.” (continue reading)
Atheists AgonistesBy Richard A. Shweder November 27, 2006 ...Why, then, are the enlightened so conspicuously up in arms these days, reiterating every possible argument against the existence of God? Why are they indulging in books—Daniel Dennett’s ‘’Breaking the Spell,’’ Sam Harris’s ‘’Letter to a Christian Nation,’’ and Richard Dawkins’s ‘’God Delusion’’—in which authors lampoon religion or rail against the devout under the banner of a crusading atheism? (continue reading)
A Free-for-All on Science and ReligionSomewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told. (continue reading)
Beyond Belief: In place of GodIt had all the fervour of a revivalist meeting. True, there were no hallelujahs, gospel songs or swooning, but there was plenty of preaching, mostly to the converted, and much spontaneous applause for exhortations to follow the path of righteousness. And right there at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts was God. Yet this was no religious gathering - quite the opposite. Some of the leading practitioners of modern science, many of them vocal atheists, were gathered last week in La Jolla, California, for a symposium entitled “Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival” hosted by the Science Network, a science-promoting coalition of scientists and media professionals convening at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. They were there to address three questions. Should science do away with religion? What would science put in religion’s place? And can we be good without God?
Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and E.O. Wilson on the gospel of science (continue reading)
Losing Our ReligionA gathering of scientists and atheists explores whether faith in science can ever substitute for belief in God. WEB EXCLUSIVE By Jerry Adler Losing Our Religion
The New Unbelievers...Dawkins and Harris conclude that religion itself has outworn its social utility and should be retired from the field. They know that religion cannot be banished politically, as past attempts (for example, in France under Robespierre) have shown. The only way forward is for unbelievers to make an unapologetic stand for unbelief... The New Unbelievers
Atheist Evangelist...Harris is straight out of the stun grenade school of public rhetoric, and his arguments are far more likely to offend the faithful than they are to coax them out of their faith. And he doesn’t target just the devout. Religious moderates, Harris says in his patient and imperturbable style, have immunized religion from rational discussion by nurturing the idea that faith is so personal and private that it is beyond criticism, even when horrific crimes are committed in its name... (continue reading)
COVER | The Church of the Non-BelieversThis autumn, Harris has a new book out, Letter to a Christian Nation. In it, he demonstrates the behavior he believes atheists should adopt when talking with Christians. “Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you,” he writes, addressing his imaginary opponent, “dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of the living. But we stand dumbstruck by you as well – by your denial of tangible reality, by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by your attachment to an imaginary God.” (continue reading)
Belief Watch: The Atheist...In spite of his appearance, Harris is very angry, and “Letter” is a readable, exhortatory screed, a response to all the Scripture-quoting e-mail he received from Christians who read his first book... (continue reading)
A Pair of Atheists Agree: Time to Let Go of God (continue reading)
Taking on Christians’ gospel truthThis combination of ruthless argument with polemic designed to provoke (he describes the Catholic Church as the “institution that has produced and sheltered an elite army of child-molesters") will further delight Harris’ supporters and infuriate his critics. (continue reading)
The Age of HorrorismMartin Amis On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, one of Britain’s most celebrated and original writers analyses - and abhors - the rise of extreme Islamism. In a penetrating and wide-ranging essay he offers a trenchant critique of the grotesque creed and questions the West’s faltering response to this eruption of evil. The Age of Horrorism
“The Temple of Reason,” Interview in The SunSam Harris is a brave man. In a country where 90 percent of adults say they believe in God, he has written a bestseller condemning religion...
The Sun Magazine, September 2006 The_Sun.pdf “The New Naysayers,” NewsweekAmericans answered the atrocities of September 11, overwhelmingly, with faith. Attacked in the name of God, they turned to God for comfort… Sam Harris, then a 34-year-old graduate student in neuroscience, had a different reaction. On Sept. 12, he began a book... (continue reading)
Newsweek Magazine, September 11, 2006 “The disbeliever,” Salon BooksThree-quarters of all Americans believe the Bible is God’s word, according to a recent Pew poll. Numbers like that make an outspoken atheist like Sam Harris seem either foolhardy or uncommonly brave.
— "The disbeliever," Salon Books - July 7, 2006 “Sam Harris: The Truthdig Interview”The best-selling author of “The End of Faith” talks about the way to navigate a dinner party without coming off as the Antichrist; about the “Salman Rushdie effect” that accompanies his newfound celebrity as America’s most prominent atheist; and about the new secular foundation he is founding. —Blair Golson
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If they can make you believe in absurdities they can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
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We turn toward the truth under the same heliotropic laws as a flower turns towards the sun, and for the same reason…connection with the source of energy. Rahasya Poe
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Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)
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Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
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One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. Walter Bagehot (1826 - 1877)
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“Religion is a defense against religious experience, concepts and doctrines keep a person from having a transcendent experience.” Joseph Campbell
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A question that we often ask ourselves is, “How is it that man can cause so much suffering to another and at the same time, turn around and give his life to save someone else that he doesn’t even know?” Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
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If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)
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“The virgin birth is symbolic of the birth of spiritual man out of the animal man through the compassion of the heart.” Joseph Campbell
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One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. Walter Bagehot (1826 - 1877)
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“Religion is a defense against religious experience, concepts and doctrines keep a person from having a transcendent experience.” Joseph Campbell
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With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.George Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)
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Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
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If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have an advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell. You will die either of the toxic by-products of your own hate, or, simply, of over-population and overgrazing. Gregory Bateson-Futurist and Naturalist
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“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men” Plato
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. Steven Weinberg (1933 - )
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“We are developing so quickly on this planet that we are not developing new myths. The future myth will be the planet itself.” Joseph Campbell
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Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
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Faith must have adequate evidence, else it is mere superstition. Alexander Hodge
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The moment you accept your religion as the only way, it becomes an ideology and is a closed door. Eckhart Tolle
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Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time. Gore Vidal (1925 - )
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With our participation what was once the evolution of consciousness has become conscious evolution. Rahasya
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The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
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To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 - 1935)
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Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish. Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria
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All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
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Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof. Ashley Montague
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I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room. Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
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