Letter to a Christian Nation
by Sam Harris
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Book Reviews of Letter to a Christian Nation
Book Review: one angry little book
Summary: 1 Stars
Wow, this is one angry little book! And anger is one very shaky platform from which to launch a serious debate. My hunch is that the author is someone who had at least one negative experience with church at some point. I've also been terribly disappointed and disillusioned by organized christianity. But with time I've found that the Creator is no respecter of persons, and becoming a child of God has nothing to do with joining a church. I'm amazed at how accurately the reasoning and invective of modern atheism were predicted ages ago by the inspired writers of scripture. Read the first two chapters of the Book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon) to see what I mean.
In this book the heart of the matter surfaces on page forty. There the author cites a speech made by Adolph Hitler, in which Hitler claims to be a Christian. To ascribe sincerity to the drivel of a monster like Hitler, in an effort to buttress one's claims against a Semetic religion is abjectly insensitive and caddish, to put it politely.
[...] They form a far greater threat to the vision of a bright future for humanity than does any legitimate religious group.
Book Review: Listened to the audiobook version...
Summary: 5 Stars
I listened to the audio version of this book, and while I didn't like it as much as Dawkins' The God Delusion, it's a cogent and to-the-point criticism of theism, and primarily Christianity due to the intended audience's bent. I like how Sam Harris has an ability to sharply criticize while remaining affable yet serious.I also like how he tackles a few different subjects that the other atheist best sellers don't touch on as much, such as the abortion issue. I like how he goes right for the anti-choice movement's primary, religion-based arguments, and shows them to be morally bankrupt.
Overall, I liked this book because it's Sam Harris plainly asking the reader/listener to just stop for a minute, find center, and think. Judging by the response books Mr. Harris's book has received - many of which try to ape his success by ripping off his cover and title designs - I think very few people his criticisms are aimed at are interested in listening to what he actually says than pumping out more apologetics to compensate for lost book sales and shelf space.
This is a quick must-read from a clear thinker and advocate.
Book Review: How can you remain religious after reading this?
Summary: 5 Stars
To the person on this board who states that "it is much more logical to believe that God created the world (possible, but not provable) than believe that something (the universe) came from nothing (absolutely impossible)", you are not seeing that this erroneous statement has one major problem - Who created God then? It folllows, quite logically, that the theist who uses this kind of reasoning must believe that God came from nothing, or did someone create him too? Your solution to the universe's complexity just creates a bigger problem than the one we had in the first place.
"A Letter to a Christian Nation" is completely brilliant. How any religious person can remain so after reading this little book is beyond me. And I loved his point that all religious people already know what it is like to be an atheist, for the Christian doesn't believe in tenants of Islam, the Jew does not believe Christ was devine, The Muslim does not believe in Zeus, etc. Religious people - Come on already, take your irrational beliefs one step further!
Book Review: Let's face it, the world blows.
Summary: 4 Stars
I am not going to go into how intelligent I want to make myself sound on a review or sit here and point fingers and say you are an idiot. What bothered me about the book was not what Mr. Harris tries to do, it is the response he got from "christians." Christians are their own worst enemy and I don't think anymore books on atheism or about the lack of god need to be written. They will destroy themselves, while the actual christians will be worshipping god in the way that he instructed them to do. I don't want to say what my faith is and I don't want to point out errors he made in the text, all I got to say is Mr. Harris has every single right to say what he wants, no matter what he believes as long as he doesn't push it on anyone. I would hate to be living in a time where information like this was not available to us. I think he doesn't have a clear understanding as to what christianity is, but that doesn't matter. I am glad he and other athiests wrote their books. We never want to supress anything intellectual. Thank you for the book.Book Review: Harris should follow his own advice.
Summary: 3 Stars
I just finished Harris's short book, read on the recommendation of my atheist boyfriend. I am not a fundamentalist anything, including a fundy atheist. Overall, the book is a decent, thought-provoking read, but there are many flaws.
Harris paints with much too broad a brush, not allowing for the wide variations in beliefs within Christianity as well as within other religions. Having personal friends who are Muslim, and who are peace-loving, compassionate people, his words about Muslims are particularly offensive if taken to heart. One can hope, and I suspect, that like most authors he's also out to sell books. The short, fast, extreme style is much more likely to get bought and read than a longer, more thoughtful treatise.
In science, there are sometimes shades of gray, where sometimes X happens and sometimes Y . . .but in Harris's book, it's all black and white. Too bad, as I would liked to have seen a more thorough and thoughtful book on this topic.
Overall, though, it's worth reading.